Their mission for the Rebels discovered, Han Solo and Chewbacca are being hunted through the Coruscant underworld by Boba Fett and Bossk. Help is offered from an unexpected source—but it comes with a huge price.
Grounded for breaking mission protocol, Luke Skywalker and fellow pilot Prithi further disobey orders after Luke receives a warning from the ghost of Ben Kenobi. They set out to locate fellow squad members Princess Leia, Wedge, and Tess…
…who are but a single hyperspace jump ahead of Colonel Bircher’s Star Destroyer. Worse, Leia is injured, and her X-wing is severely damaged. With no hope in sight, the trio prepares for a last stand against the Empire…
Writer Brian Wood, artist Carlos D’Anda, colourist Gabe Eltaeb, letterer Michael Heisler and cover artist Rodolfo Migliari throw the spotlight on Han Solo for the sixth issue.
The Story
Following on the shocking injuries sustained to Princess Leia Organa and her ship in the final panels of issue 5, we return straight back in Leia’s cockpit, with a blood stained Leia in trouble. Leia instructs her R2 unit to pressurise her suit to stem the bleed, as she is light-years from the nearest Med Centre – an issue she keeps private from the squadron.
Luke Skywalker arrives on scene and goes space side to try and fix Leia’s X-Wing, his experience of fixing T-16 Skyhoppers coming in handy. Luke secures thruster power for Leia, but Leia is lacking in Oxygen and passes out.
The Imperial Class Star Destroyer, Pride of Kuat bears down on Leia and her Squadron, launching Interceptors on them – but Wedge and co are ready for them as they go into formation to protect the Princess. Bircher is confused as to why the X-Wings retreat following a single proton torpedo. He senses a trap and orders the retreat of the Devastator – but they ignore his calls. The detonator left by the Rebels explodes wiping out much of the Interceptor Squadron – Bircher escapes but the Pride of Kuat takes the hit and begins to break up.
Skywalker using the force plots the hyperspace jump without the Nav computer taking the massive risk, as the X-Wings escape the scene with Leia’s X-Wing slaved to them.
Back at the Rebel base, Leia is given a Bacta tank treatment, to heal her considerable injuries. Had she been in a standard X-Wing she may not have survived, only the Incom T-65 Starfighter prototypes medical systems ensured she lived – along with that of her R2 unit.
In conference with Skywalker and Antilles, Mon Mothma demands answers as to why the figurehead and Princess of Alderaan has ended up in medical care. She raises their security clearance to level ten, making Antilles Commander, and Luke his Lieutenant. Mon Mothma advises them of the leak problem hurting the Rebel cause.
Antilles questions Solo’s absence with 100 million of the Alliance’s credits. Whilst Mothma does not question Solo’s loyalty, there is concern for Solo as her is on the Imperial capital and late for his return.
Antilles requests permission to take control of the hanger staff as their cover was blown on their sudden return. Stating that they are in trouble at the moment, but that a squadron of fighter pilots saved the Rebellion once before.
Across the galaxy at the new Death Star build Vader wishes the Force to be with Birra Seah as he departs. Elsewhere Prithi appears to take exception to Luke’s care for Leia in the Med Centre – appearing to depart with her belongings. Colonel Bircher has survived the explosion and begins to plan his next move, and Solo and Chewie remain undercover on Coruscant.
The comic ends with Leia remaining in care, with C-3PO and R2-D2 watching over her – whilst an exhausted Luke sleeps in the armchair next to her bed.
The Review
.The issue opens fast paced, with the shocking and gruesome panel of Princess Leia, with her own blood splattered across his face, and her hands coated in blood. Instantly Carlos D’Anda, grads your attention and hooks you back into the new Dark Horse Star Wars ongoing series. It’s shocking to see our Rebellion hero appear to be in so much jeopardy and pulls you into the story.
It also is a fantastic forbearer for Star Wars 7 and beyond. In the 80’s we have The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi where we could not know where the story would take us, (just remember the Vader is Luke’s father reveal) we did not have that with the Prequel trilogy – it could only take us back to where we started. Suddenly the Star Wars universe is open again, and every characters fate is back in play. In 2015 when we sit down in the cinema and the opening crawl passes – if Princess Leia dies in that first scene then we will all be shocked. The movie franchise has that power back, and you can be sure that Michael Arndt will try to use that. Here Brian Wood’s attempts the same. Whilst we know the fate our heroes to a degree here, in the continuity of the EU – it kind of works, as it has been so long and perhaps never portrayed so well, the vulnerability of the Princess, in a situation without her usual Princess and Senate robes.
The great interplay between Leia and her R2-T4 unit works superbly well, and is well scripted by Wood’s furthering the depth of feeling of the jeopardy and creating a real emotive to the tale. The sudden re-emergence of Luke Skywalker and the untrustworthy Prithi, bursting onto screen allows the artists to further enhance the feeling of threat to Leia’s life, allowing wide externals of Leia’s crippled ship. The colourisation of the panel showing the emergence of their X-Wings by Eltaed is strong and powerful, and whilst it rightly takes the central panel of the page, was deserving of greater prominence.
I enjoyed Wood’s use of Luke in fixing Leia’s X-Wing, and he makes a great nod to the original movie that began it all, by referencing Luke’s work on T16 Skyhopper’s back home on the moisture farms of Tatooine. The moment could have perhaps have benefited from a flashback panel of Luke’s life at the Lar’s homestead. After all we are only a few weeks beyond the deaths of his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. It could have been a nice touch for him to see Leia’s life in threat and recount the death of whom he considered his family. But perhaps I am being too sentimental here.
Wood’s instead focuses on Leia’s deteriating health, as she passes out as the Imperials bear down on them. I love the shot of the Imperial Class Destroyer bearing down over the X-Wing squadron. It’s a beaufiful page page shot, showing D’Anda and Eltead’s work at it’s best, and would not look out of place gracing the front cover. The superb art works contimues as we are hit with fast moving dog fighting with epic shots of TIE Interceptors and close up images of Bircher in his TIE. The colourisation of Bircher is stunning, and the art really adds to emphasising the worsening situation for our heroes.
The story telling of the escape plan was poor, with communication of how they manage to take our the TIE squadron and destroyer really not told. This is saved to some degree but further great artwork from D’Anda – and striking colours from Eltead.
Wood’s taps back into Star Wars movie history, this time taking from The Empire Strikes Back, TwoOneBee the medical droid, and Bacta tanks for Leia’s healing process. The one downside to this is it creates perhaps too simple a healing process for Leia. Whilst she remains bed riden and on ventilation at comic end, I would like to have seen more jeopardy for Leia played out perhaps over a few issues. Perhaps I criticise too soon, and this will come, issue 7 will tell. Following a scene with Mon Mothma explaining to Luke and Wedge the on-going leak issues the rebellion, and simultaneously promoting both (again clumsily rushed in my opinion) the issue really falls apart quite dramatically. Over the next two pages, the panels jump from Vader to Prithi to Bircher to Chewie and Han all without context, setting and nonsensical scripting. I just don’t understand Wood’s thinking or the panelling here.
It was almost as if the comic ended with the Mon Mothma / Luke / Wedge scene, and Woods wanted to quickly recap where everyone was and doing before starting issue 7. It just does not work. If comes across as a mix of unlinked panels, with no context, no scripting, and frustrating to the reader. I went back over the pages repeatedly thinking I had missed something. The one good thing from those pages is the implication that Perla will return to partner up Solo on Coruscant – one big tick from my wish list in the issue 5 review. Hopefully we will see more of the Solo and Vader tales in issue 7.
Rodolfo Migliari continues on cover art duties for this issue, and again created a great poster like image with Vader lurking over our hero’s. But much like issue 5, it feels irrelevant to the issue. As I said of issue 5 the cover needs to reflect the story of the issue, and not be a classic era character portrayal. All it achieves for me is a reminder of the lack of Vader and Solo from this issue to any degree of significance. For me the cover art must emphasize and carry on the work of the story. This does neither, despite being a great art piece.
Issue 6 of Brian Wood’s Star Wars started very promising, with great action and nods to Star Wars lore, in the last few pages it fell away as it became focused on prepping you for issue 7, instead of closing issue 6. This hurt the comic in its isolation, but as part of a trade paperback or once issue 7 hits newsstands, this will be forgotten.
The issue also hurt from trying to push the story too fast, instead of letting plot points carry on across issues. Star Wars will hopefully be a long running ongoing series, and the creative need to allow story elements to drift across the series, instead of trying to close story lines in each and every issue. The overall story is still strong and I think we will start to see some major developments over the next two issues. There is no faulting of the storyline, just how they are laying that story out.
The artwork throughout was excellent Carlos D’Anda and Gabe Eltaed really told a story through their art and colours, at times able to convey the emotion and drama in image without the need for words as well as progress the story. It’s a combination that is working, and I hope to see more from them together as this series starts to ramp up.
Whilst this issue had its faults, it still build your anticipation for issue 7. I still crave to learn more about the mysterious Prithi, and her perhaps latent force ability, as well as my own personal wish of more story for the intriguing Perla and Solo / Chewie adventure.
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