Ania Solo and her Mon Calamari friend Sauk are fugitives from the Carreras system. Despite the efforts of Ania, Sauk, Imperial Knight Jao Assam, and assassin droid AG-37, a renegade Sith, Darth Wredd, has escaped into the galaxy.
After they are taken aboard Empress Fel’s Star Destroyer while fleeing Carreras, Ania and her friends are alerted to the fact that Darth Wredd has begun killing off other Sith, and the fledgling Triumvirate government has decided to turn a blind eye to his activities.
But Jao has had a vision of doom about what will happen if Wredd is allowed to go free, and he and Ania are as determined to find Wredd as the Empire is determined to stop them…
That’s how scripters Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman, artist Brian Albert Thies, colourist Rachelle Rosenberg, letterer Michael Heisler and cover artist Livio Ramondelli set up the seventh issue of the latest Legacy issue.
The Review
In Legacy #7, Ania Solo and Imperial Knight Jao Assam get in way over their heads. Determined to stop the Sith known as Darth Wredd, they defy any authority that stands in their way. We get a few glimpses of Gar Stazi on Coruscant, and AG-37 and Sauk on a cargo mission, but most of this issue focuses on Ania and Jao. One thing is for sure, Ania is turning out to be one of the most brash characters in the series. It’s definitely a never ending source for action.
The issue picks up up with the standoff between Jao, Ania and Master Val. A squad of stormtroopers adds tension to the scene as the two Imperial Knights try to talk their way through the situation. However, something happens to break the ice, and it plunges everything into chaos. The stormtroopers open fire. Ania opens fire. Lightsabers are ignited. It’s a mess. It’s also unclear whether the stormtroopers are to blame or Ania is. Regardless, the skirmish sends Jao and Ania on their way as they try and track down a Sith in a haystack.
From there, the story takes a quick break on Coruscant with Admiral Gar Stazi and an unnamed individual who may be a bureaucrat of some sort. She pleads with Gar Stazi in order to get assistance with trade routes and the situation around Dac. It provides an opportunity for the story to allude to the devastation to Dac and the current situation it’s in. However there isn’t a lot of context for the scene. Earlier in the series, it was already established that Dac was in a bad situation. As is, the inclusion of this scene didn’t make much sense and didn’t appear to have much of a purpose. That said, maybe this scene is the beginning of a story thread we’ll see developed later on.
Elsewhere, Jao and Ania wind up on the planet Nalyd to track down one of Darth Wredd’s minions. This leads to some fun situations and a whole lot of trouble. I really liked the show trial scene and the way it plays out. Ania certainly shows off her brashness, and plunges the story into some action. There’s also another break in the story with Sauk and AG-37 which serves to shed some more light on Sauk’s homeworld. At the end of the issue, all roads lead to Dac.
While the story had some fun scenes and interesting development, the artwork was hit and miss. In fact it’s a pretty evenly split between really nice panels and some really bland panels. A lot of that blandness is evident in the beginning of the issue. The human characters have a degree of plainness to them. On top of that, the stormtroopers look…well, to be blunt…sloppy. In that first panel, each stormtrooper looks different. There isn’t much detail to them, and there is almost a softness to their appearance. Yet the other details in that panel look pretty good. The space imagery in the background, even Ania and Jao who are facing away, they all look good. But then the next panel show’s Jao’s face, which is plane looking, and the trend continues. It’s kind of nit picky, but the opening of the issue really did hit me as being visually bland.
Fast forward to Nalyd and things get better. There’s a nice space shot, a nice close up of the characters’ faces, and some cool scenery. The panels that follow keep up the trend and leads to a great shot of Sauk superimposed with Dac, one of the visual highlights of the issue. Overall, the artwork averages out to being okay. Some pages are a lot better than others.
With an interesting story and decent artwork, I’d say Legacy #7 isn’t too bad. The story is moving forward and laying down groundwork toward a showdown on Dac. Whether Dac will simply be a waypoint on a longer journey, or the last stand for Darth Wredd, we’ll have to wait and see. Either way, the writers are doing a good job making the characters interesting. There was a nice reference in this issue to Ania’s past that implies she has some secrets yet to tell. Little hooks like that go a long way in investing readers in the characters. And even though the artwork had some panels that fell flat for me, it managed to even the scales with some really nice looking panels elsewhere. If the artwork was a little better, I’d give this one a five out of five, but as is, it definitely earns a four out of five, which still isn’t bad at all.
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