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| STAR WARS No. 6, August 2015 |
One of the biggest disappointments of the 1983 motion
picture “Return Of The Jedi” is arguably the lamentably brief battle upon one
of Jabba the Hutt’s desert skiffs between notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett and
the Galactic Empire’s greatest threat, Luke Skywalker. Some thirty years later and
writer Jason Aaron has attempted to partially correct George Lucas’ fifty
second oversight by dedicating the vast majority of his final instalment of the
“Skywalker Strikes” story-arc to just such a colossal contest.
Admittedly in many ways depicting an early encounter between
the young inexperienced rebel pilot and the ruthless son of Jango was always
going to fall short of the excitement their cinematic clash should have
generated. After all the former moisture farmer has yet to become “a true Jedi”
and as the murderous mercenary himself states during their comic book
confrontation Luke is so overmatched that he ‘shouldn’t be able to fight him’.
Surprisingly though the Alabama-born author does a very
good job of infusing this ten-page long battle scene with plenty of excitement,
urgency and action. Indeed the frantic pace of the two combatants as they
exchange blows within the claustrophobic confines of Obi Wan Kenobi’s home on
Tatooine is genuinely worthy of being official canon. Especially as it provides
an increasingly frustrated Fett with some great moments as his supposedly easy
prey continuously outwits and outfights him despite being temporarily blinded
by a flash grenade before the contest even started.
Far less successful are the scenes involving Han Solo’s
awkward attempt to seduce Leia Organa on an “oasis” planet hidden “underneath
an atmosphere… of the most violent electrical storms.” The stilted
dialogue is as clumsy as the Corellian smuggler’s unromantic advances towards
the Princess, and the fact this sequence intermittently interrupts Skywalker’s
ferocious battle with Boba makes the entire scene all the more intrusively unwelcome.
To make matters worse however Aaron also decides to use this disagreeable interlude
in order to introduce the scoundrel’s wife, Sana Solo into the ‘Star Wars
Universe.
Sadly Issue Six of “Star Wars” is also the last edition
to be drawn by Eisner Award-winner John Cassaday. The American artist’s
departure is particularly disheartening as his illustration work throughout
this book is simply stunning, especially when it comes to his pencilling of the
Mandalorian-armoured bounty hunter’s tense dual with the light-sabre wielding
Luke.
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| The regular cover art of "STAR WARS" No. 6 by John Cassaday and Laura Martin |
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