 |
| JOURNEY TO STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - SHATTERED EMPIRE No. 3, December 2015 |
Utterly relentless in its breath-taking depiction of the
Rebellion’s “ongoing combat operations against the shattered Empire”, this
mini-series’ third instalment arguably provided its 105,496 buyers with an
almost faultless “Star Wars” reading experience; even if Greg Rucka’s narrative
does possibly rely a little heavily upon the nostalgia of “The Phantom Menace”
in places. Indeed the opening third of this twenty-page periodical simply
doesn’t let up for a moment, as General Han Solo leads a successful raid
against an Imperial Security Bureau Black Site on “The Wretch of Tayron” and
the San Francisco-born writer (once again) has this title’s audience guessing as to
whether or not Sergeant Kes Dameron is going to survive his latest shoot-out
with a seemingly endless swarm of Stormtroopers.
Admittedly it seems inconceivable that the American author
would have one of his main protagonists disposed of quite so ignominiously as
to be killed by a lucky shot from a scout trooper’s hold-out blaster pistol.
But until the timely and savage intervention of a rather enraged wookie,
there’s a palpable tension within the sequence’s panels as the rebel’s position
becomes increasingly exposed and vulnerable. Certainly ‘Strike Four’ seems to
attract an awful lot of enemy laser fire for a two-person team; albeit they do
single-handedly take down an AT-ST walker and “opened a door for us, [on the
secret ISB base] southeast side.”
Just as unclear throughout “Shattered Empire” is the fate of
the Pathfinders’ wife, Lieutenant Shara Bey. Having been “assigned a light
duty, acting as pilot and escort for Princess Leia Organa”, Po Dameron’s mother
soon finds herself confronting an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and its
“complement of seventy-two TIE fighters” in nothing more than a twenty-year old
Naboo spaceship. The resultant battle as she tries “shooting shiny things until
there aren’t any more” is wonderfully tense, especially when her damaged craft
loses its starboard hydraulics and falls into the gun sights of two enemy
vessels…
All of this action is incredibly well-illustrated by Marco
Checchetto and Angel Unzueta. The sheer pandemonium of Solo’s strike upon the
Imperial base is fantastically frantic with explosions erupting all around the “Marvel
Worldwide” artist’s characters, and is only bettered by the colourful ‘laser
show’ of Bey’s space battle alongside Leia and Queen Soruna.
 |
| The variant cover art of "JOURNEY TO STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - SHATTERED EMPIRE" No. 3 by Mike Deodato, Jr. |
No comments:
Post a Comment