Star Wars #14 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS No. 14, March 2016

As the penultimate instalment to a six-issue crossover event involving the other “Marvel Worldwide” titles “Vader Down” and “Star Wars: Darth Vader”, this actual edition of “Star Wars” was presumably a complete nightmare to understand for any of its 118, 471 readers should they have unwisely decided to try and navigate the twenty-page periodical’s narrative without at least contemplating the comic’s ‘opening crawl’. Indeed, several of this book’s most dramatic moments appear to be based upon an intimate, almost encyclopaedic, understanding of Kieron Gillen’s take on “a galaxy, far, far away” rather than George Lucas’, and resultantly, the arrival of Commander Karbin, Chewbacca’s pasting at the hands of a Wookie bounty hunter and the villainous Doctor Aphra’s motivation for sparing Luke Skywalker, all arguably generate a sense of utter bemusement and suffer a significant loss of impact…

Perhaps the biggest example of this perplexity is the appearance of an imperial male Mon Calamari leading his own squad of stormtroopers. Surprisingly capable of wielding no less than four light-sabres, courtesy of “a cybernetic body inspired by that of the late General Grievous”, it soon becomes abundantly clear through the characters’ conversation, that Karbin and Vader have some significant history and would like nothing better than to see the other dead. But without an intimate knowledge of the Sith Lord’s own series, it’s intolerably difficult to know that the former Clone Wars commander has actually been “trained to replace Darth Vader” as Emperor Palpatine’s new apprentice, and that the leader of the Galactic Empire has actually actively encouraged such blatant treachery between his senior staff; “Today I take your place at the Emperor’s side! While you take yours in the grave!!!”  

Chewbacca’s decidedly one-way fist-fight with Black Krrsantan is similarly as mystifying, until Han Solo rather woodenly explains out loud (to no-one in particular) that the Millennium Falcon’s co-pilot has somehow got “who-knows-how-much Mandalorian Xenotox coursing through his veins”, and therefore needs a certain “useless trash barrel” to give him a “shot” in order to recover his formidable strength. Admittedly once illuminated, the previous few pages depicting ‘Chewie’ getting smacked about the Corellian YT-1300f light freighter makes perfect sense, but up until this point, the Kashyyyk-born smuggler’s utter impotence against his black-furred rival is both puzzling and perplexing.

For those who didn’t mind such backstory quibbles though, Issue Fourteen of “Star Wars” undoubtedly contains some superbly thrilling, action set-pieces; all of which are wonderfully illustrated by Brazilian comic book artist Mike Deodato. In fact, in many ways it’s a pity that this publication doesn’t focus more upon Vader’s literally glowing, four-page light-sabre battle with Karbin deep within the Jedi Temple on Vrogas Vas, rather than flit back and forth between the exploits of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca.

The regular cover art of "STAR WARS" No. 14 by Mark Brooks