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A review by neilrcoulter
Star Wars, Vol. 1: Skywalker Strikes by Jason Aaron
1.0
This is ridiculous. Given an entire galaxy to play around in, Jason Aaron brings the Star Wars characters back to all the same places from the movies. Most of the story takes place on Tatooine. Seriously: Tatooine. This story takes place between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. But Luke confronts Darth Vader; Luke confronts Boba Fett (on Tatooine); Vader confronts Jabba the Hutt (on Tatooine--in his palace and on his sail barge). I don't know how this kind of thing can be allowed by Disney/Lucasfilm. It is completely against the rules for major characters to confront each other between the movies. This is what made the Clone Wars era so weak: when it seems in Revenge of the Sith that Anakin is meeting General Grievous for the first time, but then in the Clone Wars series it seemed like they were fighting epic lightsaber duels every few weeks. It takes away the power of the film, just as comic books like Skywalker Strikes sap the intensity out of the original trilogy.
The writing is terrible. Aaron has taken all the dialogue from Star Wars, written it on little slips of paper, and then rearranged it into a different story. So we see that Ben Kenobi is always "some crazy old wizard" (repetition of this phrase was so comical it reminded me of Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove: "scary as all get-out"), the Millennium Falcon is always a "piece of junk," and so forth. We're treated to multiple scenes of dialogue between Han and Leia that are basically the same conversation they have in the hallways of the Hoth base in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is desperate to be trained as a Jedi--if only Ben would just appear and tell him exactly where to go. But who is there in the galaxy who could possibly teach Luke? The clunkiness of this as a lead-in to The Empire Strikes Back is painful.
The only real question that this story tries to answer is: how does Vader know Luke's name in The Empire Strikes Back, and why does the Emperor not seem to know as much about Luke? The way Aaron answers this dilemma is interesting, but it would've been so much better if he hadn't used Boba Fett as part of the solution. I especially wish he hadn't allowed Boba Fett to ensnare Luke in exactly the same way that he does in Return of the Jedi. If that confrontation really happened twice, then it makes me wonder how stupid Luke is in Return of the Jedi, that he can't anticipate Fett's moves.
The worst part of this book is the reveal, near the end, that Han Solo. ??? Terrible!
I assume that because "everything is canon" now, Skywalker Strikes is to be accepted as "real" within the Star Wars universe. It's hard to believe. Of the new Marvel series, I've only read this one and Princess Leia, and both are terrible. I wish I could be part of the Star Wars Story Group, and have a chance to work on things like this before they're published.
The writing is terrible. Aaron has taken all the dialogue from Star Wars, written it on little slips of paper, and then rearranged it into a different story. So we see that Ben Kenobi is always "some crazy old wizard" (repetition of this phrase was so comical it reminded me of Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove: "scary as all get-out"), the Millennium Falcon is always a "piece of junk," and so forth. We're treated to multiple scenes of dialogue between Han and Leia that are basically the same conversation they have in the hallways of the Hoth base in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is desperate to be trained as a Jedi--if only Ben would just appear and tell him exactly where to go. But who is there in the galaxy who could possibly teach Luke? The clunkiness of this as a lead-in to The Empire Strikes Back is painful.
The only real question that this story tries to answer is: how does Vader know Luke's name in The Empire Strikes Back, and why does the Emperor not seem to know as much about Luke? The way Aaron answers this dilemma is interesting, but it would've been so much better if he hadn't used Boba Fett as part of the solution. I especially wish he hadn't allowed Boba Fett to ensnare Luke in exactly the same way that he does in Return of the Jedi. If that confrontation really happened twice, then it makes me wonder how stupid Luke is in Return of the Jedi, that he can't anticipate Fett's moves.
The worst part of this book is the reveal, near the end, that Han Solo
Spoiler
has a wifeI assume that because "everything is canon" now, Skywalker Strikes is to be accepted as "real" within the Star Wars universe. It's hard to believe. Of the new Marvel series, I've only read this one and Princess Leia, and both are terrible. I wish I could be part of the Star Wars Story Group, and have a chance to work on things like this before they're published.