Star Wars #33 // Review
Luke Skywalker just threw around a small army of killdroids like they were a fistful of sand back home on Tatooine. He’s probably going to have to explain what happened to his friends. He’s going to have to figure out how he did it first. He’s got a lot more to worry about in Star Wars #33. Writer Charles Soule continues the adventures of Luke and company between Empire and Return of the Jedi in an issue that looms into view courtesy of artist Madibek Musabekov and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg. Soule has an even-handed approach to a story that mixes drama with action in a spirit almost identical to that of the original film trilogy.
Leia doesn’t want to burden them with information they don’t need. (She IS, after all, a diplomat.) Lando wants to level with them, though. They just saved Captain Blythe and his crew from danger. But they ARE outlaws of an imperial government that IS going to come looking for them. Helping Leia, Luke, Lando, and Chewie could be dangerous for them. They have a choice to make, and it could be a disastrous one. Meanwhile, Luke is still trying to figure out the full extent of his mastery of the Force. He recently had his cybernetic hand and lightsaber crushed. He can’t afford that kind of weakness if he’s going to face Darth Vader again.
A small band of rebels finds aid in a group that risks much in going up against the Empire. Soule has found a nearly perfect storyline for a space between the second and third films. Luke did a lot of growing between Empire and Jedi, which serves as a really interesting place to develop further adventures that would fit well within the overall run of the movies. Lando and Leia have been faithfully rendered for the series as well, though Soule’s dialogue DOES feel a bit stiff in places. It may lack some of the wit and energy of Kasdan’s scripting of Empire, but it also manages to steer clear of the goofiness of his dialogue.
Musabekov continues to find a perfect match for the production design of the second film in visuals that look like they could have been drawn directly from the concept art for that movie. The action can feel like still photography when it needs to leap across the page, but the drama is faithful and nuanced. Issue #33 is largely dramatic, so there isn’t much action to stumble haltingly across the page. The drama comes across with striking clarity. The likenesses of the original actors (circa 1980) are given such a strong connection to the page.
The visual reality of the comic is so strongly linked to the films that one practically expects to see those cheesy George Lucas horizontal/diagonal wipe transitions moving between one scene and the next. There have been a lot of attempts to bring Star Wars to comics over the decades. The current series is doing a fantastic job of finding a fusion between screen and panel.
