Literature

Jedi News Comic Review: Obi-Wan & Anakin #2

April 14, 2016, 11:59 AM, BST

Obi-Wan and Anakin, Part 2

Young Anakin Skywalker is having doubts. He joined the peacekeeping Jedi Order as a boy, but now, a young man of twelve, he has begun to doubt his path.

Anakin joined his master, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, on a mission to Carnelian IV in response to a call for Jedi assistance. Crash-landing on the planet, the pair found the ruins of an advanced civilization abandoned beneath a sickly cloud cover, but also more primitive survivors lying above the clouds on mountain peaks and flying airships.

A battle between two airships ended with one plummeting groundward. Obi-wan managed to save a pair of women from the crew of the down ship before it crashed, but the women immediately pulled weapons on their saviors, claiming to have never heard of the Jedi…

The Review

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Cover Artist: Marco Checchetto

Where Obi-Wan & Anakin #1 started out with such high promise, issue #2 starts to dip down. From a lackluster cover to some hits and misses with the story, the mini-series is loosing some of it’s steam. On the plus side, there’s still plenty of time to pick things back up. However, it does make me wonder about Charles Soule as a comic writer, as I wasn’t that impressed with his work on the Lando series.

The issue opens with Obi-Wan and Anakin trying to talk with the two “Open” characters only to be interrupted by another attacking airship. Making short work of it with his lightsaber, Obi-Wan takes out the threat and Anakin saves one of the crewmembers who turns out to be a “Closed.” The Open and have Closed have been in perpetual war for a long time, both sides hating the other, and history becoming a murky thing of the past. It’s not the most innovative or interesting setup for the story or the inhabitants of Carnelion IV. The artwork also fails to do its part to make the characters interesting, so it’s not a one sided affair. The Open and the Closed are just humans with tattoos who brandish very boring, ordinary weapons that are just straight out copies of ones from our world. That lack of detail is just one of many in the issue.

After saving the Closed, Obi-Wan and Anakin are now faced with a fight between the two sides. The Open and the Closed point guns at each other, and Obi-Wan leaves it up to Anakin to diffuse the situation. Soule tries to throw some attention on the learning aspect between the two. Later on, he tries to get Anakin to shoo off some predatory animals with the Force. Yet going back to the weapons standoff, there’s another issue with the artwork. In this case rather than having Anakin actually disable the weapons by cutting them in half, the artist makes the mistake of just loping an inch off the barrells. It’s kind of silly because that wouldn’t actually disable either weapon, especially when they’re drawn as a pair of revolvers and a pair sawed off double barrel shotguns. Unless we’re suppose to assume those are somehow spacey laser weapons that need the front sites in order to work. Really it’s just another lack in the attention to detail.

On the plus side, the predatory animals they run into are kind of cool looking. Marco Checchetto may have failed to make the Open and Closed look cool, but the corpse-leeches do look kind of awesome. Furthermore the last page of the issue shows another interesting alien species/monster on the planet. When it comes to aliens, he does a good job. Especially during the flashback scenes with Anakin and Palpatine. There’s some very recognizable alien species in those panels who are depicted very well.

As for the story, the Open and Closed plot on Carnelion IV is kind of boring. Some of that is due to the lack of visual inspiration, because if both sides were fully armored in some cool looking Mando-type outfits, I think it would have played out better. But it’s also due to the story reveals and plotting. The history and characters on the planet haven’t had a chance to shine yet, and I’m not sure that they will. On the other hand, the best part of the issue is the flashback scene with Palpatine. Seeing him and Anakin traveling around the lower levels of Coruscant is very intriguing. It sets the mind spinning with ideas. What are they up? What lessons did Palpatine teach the malleable mind of Anakin? Alas the flashback scenes don’t meld quite as well with the main storyline, so it’s a little jarring flipping back and forth.

I have to give Obi-Wan & Anakin #2 a three out of five. It’s okay, but it’s a step down from the first issue and some flaws are starting to pop up. It’s early enough in the series for the issues to be fixed, so we’ll have to wait and see if it bounces back.

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