Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Star Wars #16
Marvel Comics
Aaron, Yu, Alanguilan & Gho
"Star Wars" opens a new arc with a slow issue. This seems like a natural situation that Marvel finds itself in regarding Star Wars. Similar to Dark Horse, once the big, bold and epic stories were told, they slowed things down and went for arcs that had development and used smaller scenes and situations. You can't have Luke battle Boba Fett and then fight Vader then Vader against Jabba and so on. This appears to be where this title is heading and as a result you get setup issues like this one. It's a fine enough read.
The comic brings the idea of a floating prison, which is nothing new to Star Wars. This was recently used in a Darth Vader comic from Dark Horse. The difference there was that the place was a prison controlled by Jedi and this is a prison controlled by the rebels. This is an interesting situation though because it brings about larger questions about the rebellion.
If this prison is so secure and remote then why aren't the rebels stationed here as a base? What do the rebels plan to do with the prisoners? They have a Moff or two, wouldn't they be bargaining chips? It's sort of strange that they would have prisoners I guess is the point I'm trying to make. While this is a war they probably wouldn't free anyone when the war ended. Especially not at the Moff level.
Leia and Sana bring Dr Aphra to the prison. It's also strange that Leia brings Sana along to get over their initial awkwardness from when they met. This was a really odd reason to bring a pirate to the secret prison. Aphra makes life miserable for the warden and everyone else. This all helps to push along the warden describing how difficult it would be to break out of the prison. Apparently the prison is that difficult to find though.
The back part of the comic is more of a caper with Han and Luke. This is the sort of thing you might find in the old Marvel series or in some of the comic strips from the 1980s. Han gambles with rebel money and gets caught cheating. Chaos ensues. It's fine.
The artwork in the comic is very rough. It's tough to say if the comic had more on the art team than the credits state but the inking is very inconsistent. The comic has trouble with faces bleeding into the background and skin appears to be sliding off their faces in some spots. Still, there are some very good images. The visuals and imagination used with the prison is very solid and gives something a little different in the Star Wars universe. Worth noting it seems the Princess Leia cover was used already in the Princess Leia mini-series with some minor changes. I'm not sure why that was done.
"Star Wars" starts a new arc with this issue. This issue doesn't have much action and is mostly setup. The book introduces the rebel's prison and some of the security that will surely get put to the test in short order. Luke and Han are on their own mission that involves a diversion that lands them into trouble. The comic is fine but is definitely looking like this arc will be much tamer than the previous ones. This was bound to happen. Eventually you run out of major characters that can fight each other. You've got to start telling smaller stories. This appears to be one. This is worth a look.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
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