Chewbacca 05 Reviews 

“Chewbacca” #5 Is A Rip-Roaring Adventure In A Galaxy Far, Far Away [Review]

By | January 1st, 2016
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

What better way to start 2016 than the way we spent most of 2015: by talking about Star Wars. With The Force Awakens raking in billions upon billions of dollars at the box office, let’s venture back into the world of Marvel’s Star Wars comics.

As a new year begins, “Chewbacca” by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto concludes. What’s the big walking carpet up to these days? Well, read on for our spoiler free review of “Chewbacca” #5.

Written by Gerry Duggan
Illustrated by Phil Noto
Chewbacca & Zarro face their final challenge…the coming of the Empire! But No Wookiee, No Cry- they’re up for it! This is one walking carpet who’s not going to be stepped on!

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the series, “Chewbacca” has followed the titular Wookiee after he crash landed on a mining world held in the grip of the tyrant who owns the mining operation. Teaming up with a young girl, Zarro, Chewie has helped free the slaves of Andelm IV, but Chewie and Zarro now find themselves in the clutches of the Empire. This issue sees Chewie and Zarro teaming up to escape an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto have done a great job with this series in creating an fun adventure with a lot of heart that explores a little known aspect of Chewbacca’s personality. The Empire have notoriously used Wookiees as slave labour and this series has cemented in Star Wars new canon that Chewbacca was one of those slaves. This aspect has given a lot of pathos to his journey through the films and his fight against the Empire and Duggan and Noto have used it to great effect throughout this series to bring an emotional side to Chewbacca’s story despite the fact that, y’know, he doesn’t speak English, does he?

Having Chewbacca team up with Zarro was a genius move as the young girl is surprisingly witty and charming as a character and her backstory brings a unique dynamic to her and Chewie’s relationship. They’re both former slaves who have kind of unwittingly fallen into this fight against the Empire and you know what’s the best part? It’s fun. That’s what Star Wars should be. It’s a fun adventure serial with over-the-top bad guys, dashing heroes and a ton of action. That’s what Duggan and Noto have captured with this series and especially with this last issue as Chewie and Zarro take on an entire Star Destroyer by themselves from the inside.

Duggan’s fun, adventurous writing is brought to life by Phil Noto who perfectly captures the world of Star Wars on the page. While previous issues focused on the world of Andelm IV and the lived-in, junky technology of the universe, this issue brings us the brutalist architecture of the interior of a Star Destroyer and Noto nails it. The saddest thing about this issue is the fact that the sequence of Zarro and Chewie breaking out of the Star Destroyer couldn’t be longer because I loved the Flash Gordon adventure sequence it turned into. Add to that Phil Noto’s uncanny ability to bring such emotion out of a character who is essentially a giant bear-dog-man and you have a fun comic with an incredibly strong emotional centre in the artwork.

Noto’s colour palette this issue is simply gorgeous, there’s no other word for it. The setting is largely a series of greys thanks to the colour scheme of Imperial architecture, but that simply means that the rustic, naturalist colour schemes of the character pop that much more as well as panels from within the cockpit of a TIE Bomber where the characters are bathed in a deep red light. Noto clearly knows Star Wars like the back of his hand and knows how to capture the lived-in, asymmetrical design of the world and the rustic colours it’s often imbued with. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things as all this simply supports how good a storyteller Phil Noto is with his art and how he’s able to work with Gerry Duggan’s writing to make a story that’s fun, but it’s hard to overstate how great it feels to read a fun Star Wars comic that really feels like Star Wars.

Is “Chewbacca” #5 particularly deep? Is it going to change the fabric of the Star Wars universe as we know it? Not really. But it’s a fun adventure that brings a new layer of depth to a fan favourite character (though that depth is obviously hampered by the inherent limitations of the character himself – namely the fact that Chewie’s dialogue is all growls and barks) and introduces a new character who, while not exactly important, is a fun addition to the Star Wars universe. That’s the thing about a franchise of this size: with everyone speculating over the new trilogy of films and Rogue One, everyone seems to be focused on the tent-pole, important moments and seem to forget that this whole thing is supposed to fun more than anything else.

Final Verdict: 7.8 – It’s a fun, adventurous romp of a final issue that gives you a little more insight into the life of a fan favourite Star Wars character. Is there really much more you can ask for?


Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

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