Star Wars Adventures #2 featured Reviews 

“Star Wars Adventures” #2

By | September 22nd, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

When the Star Wars licence went to Marvel, it resulted in some great comics, but I felt a twinge of regret. Dark Horse had been publishing some excellent Star Wars comics since 1991. The Marvel books are as good, often better, but somewhat homogeneous. That’s why I was excited and perplexed to discover the brand new IDW “Star Wars Adventures.” A new all-ages Star Wars comic from a different publisher? Consider me intrigued.

Cover by Derek Charm

Written by Cavan Scott, Elsa Charretier and Pierrick Colinet

Illustrated by Derek Charm and Elsa Charretier
Colored by Sarah Stern
Lettered by Tom B. Long

Rey encounters a tough new enemy that may change the course of her life forever! Meanwhile, Yoda recounts a very bizarre story from his youth!

“Star Wars Adventures” is an anthology series of short comic stories that jump around the timeline of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. The first story focuses on Rey as she teams up with the porcine junk dealer Unkar Plutt (played in the film by Simon Pegg under heavy prosthetic makeup). A second story is told through a framing narrative of a kid talking to his droids as he tells an unlikely story of Rebel pilots on Yavin IV infiltrating an Imperial Star Destroyer.

The first story runs into a major snag that has tripped up recent Star Wars media. With so much mystery still surrounding Rey, writers have tried to sketch vague adventures for her in comics and cartoons, but none of them have any impact. Rey fights sand monsters, Rey fights smugglers, Rey fights all sorts of jerks and triumphs.

This story has the advantage of focusing on Rey’s relationship with the only other major named character we know on Jakku: Unkar Plutt. As such, the story feels more like a Plutt story than a Rey story. After all, we already know that Rey is brave, competent, and clever, which comes across in this story. With Plutt we see a different side of him, a sort of crass affection he plays for one of his employees. If I were to extrapolate wildly, it would seem that at the time of the movie, Plutt and Rey are on the outs. He’s much more generous with handing out portions here. I wonder what changed.

The second story is framed by a youngster, Emil, telling a story to two droids, Boo and Crater. The story is about Evaan Verlaine, a too-cool-to-be-believed Rebel pilot who single-handedly infiltrated a Star Destroyer, sabotaged it, and allowed the Rebels to escape Yavin base. Evaan is a two-fistsed blonde haired badass, cut from the same cloth as Carol Danvers. She’s the kind of unstoppable force that were she real, you’d assume she’d take on the whole Empire herself, and defeat Darth Vader, without the help of Luke and Han.

Both stories are drawn in a broad, catoonish style. It’s recognizably Star Wars, but is closer to the Rebels cartoon than the films. Characters are made of a few clean polygons with very little detail. It’s easy to follow but lacks the details that make Star Wars feel like itself. The washboard looking thing Unkar Plutt wears as a shirt has no texture whatsoever, and is just a flat plate.

The comic walks a narrow line and mostly succeeds at being recognizably Star Wars. The droid, Crater, for example, is made of cobbled together pieces of other recognizable droids, including an R2-D2-like body, the limbs and head of C-3PO, and the floating legs of an Imperial Probe Droid. Space battles are frantic, but more original trilogy than special editions. There’s not a lot of unnecessary noise, just enough ships zooming around to look like a deadly dogfight.

With a comic like this, there are two questions that need to be answered. The first is whether or not kids would like it. I think that merits a solid yes. If I were a kid who fell in love with Star Wars through Episode VII, I’d be desperate to see more adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe. Seeing Rey leap around, whacking baddies with her staff would be a dream come true. Younger me would have read this comic over and over again. The second story mostly focuses on such an over-the-top cool lady pilot, indicating to me that the target audience is young girls who lack suitable protagonists in other adventurous comics. You ever try to buy Wonder Woman comics for a six-year-old girl? It’s a nightmare. Any little kid who has seen a Star Wars movie should have no problem enjoying this.

The second question though, is if it functions as an all-ages book? The answer to that in unfortunately a no. While I have no problem imagining a very young kid getting a kick out of this book, the age drop-off is steep. A slightly older tween or teen would probably feel talked down to. The comic is very childish. A cynical 14-year-old would probably reject it, preferring the Jason Aaron-penned “Star Wars” comic from Marvel. Unfortunately, “Star Wars Adventures” also had trouble holding my attention, and I’m the kind of die-hard completionist who’s seen every episode of Rebels and Clone Wars.

Final Verdict: 6.3 – If you have young kids in your life who dig Star Wars, this is a book for them.


Jaina Hill

Jaina is from New York. She currently lives in Ohio. Ask her, and she'll swear she's one of those people who loves both Star Wars and Star Trek equally. Say hi to her on twitter @Rambling_Moose!

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