More surprisingly, Aaron manages to throw some extremely unexpected curveballs, like showing the moment when Vader first learns Luke’s surname and thus his identity as his son, and a completely out-of-left-field revelation about Han’s past that comes in the form of a new character. That lack of space is a problem that’s faced so much of the “Expanded Universe” stuff in every format, but Aaron at least makes good use of his readers’ familiarity with the Star Wars universe, importing things that won’t be seen until the later movies, from vehicles (AT-AT/Imperial Walkers, speeder bikes, Jaba’s ships designs) to alien races, from particular applications of The Force to characters from later in the film series (Boba Fett, Jabba The Hutt). There are a lot of differences between this and the first issue of the original Marvel Star Wars comics, many of them technical, but the most important is the fact that this is being produced decades after the rest of the original trilogy, rather than between its first two installments, so the narrative is slightly strait-jacketed.Įvery reader will already know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, that Leia is his sister, that she ends up with Han Solo rather than Luke, and so on. The first five pages imitate the first few moments of a film from the franchise–tag line, logo, crawl, ship crawling through outer space–so well that you can practically hear John Williams’s theme blaring in your head as you read. Regardless, they and their publishers have produced a book that comes as close to replicating the film-watching experience in comic book form as is probably possible. This first story arc or so is the work of writer Jason Aaron and artist John Cassady, a pair of creators long associated with Marvel but not so much with Star Wars.

How’s that for symmetry? The first trade paperback collection of the new ongoing monthly, containing the first six issues of the series, just saw its well-timed release, arriving in comic shops, bookstores, and libraries just as anticipation (and marketing) for the new Star Wars film is reaching fever pitch.

John cassaday star wars