Star Wars Poe Dameron #14 Featured Image Reviews 

“Star Wars: Poe Dameron” #14

By | May 4th, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

In times of war, casualties are expected. Even in Star Wars. After a major supporting character of the series died during the last story arc, “Star Wars: Poe Dameron” #14 slows down for an introspective issue before resuming the next story arc.

Read on below for our full, spoiler free review of the issue.

Cover by Phil Noto
Written by Charles Soule
Illustrated by Angel Unzueta
Coloured by Arif Pianto
Lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna
It is a sad day for the Resistance as they mourn the loss of a fallen comrade. But their fight is far from over…

After a bombastic story arc that once again saw a huge blowoff between Poe Dameron and his First Order rival and counterpart, Agent Terex, writer Charles Soule is joined by artist Angel Unzueta for an issue of decompression and introspection. Admittedly, that may sound a little to you. This is Star Wars, after all, shouldn’t there at least be some kind of explosion? Some kind of action? Not in this issue. Here, Soule and Unzueta understand that with war comes casualties and when it comes to seeing people who have been with you all your life giving their life for a cause, maybe you start to question where you stand. Maybe you start to wonder what it’s all for.

This is, I would say, one of the most interesting issues of “Poe Dameron,” not in spite of it’s decompressed nature, but because of it. Poe Dameron was a character of bluster and bravado when we saw him in The Force Awakens. Oscar Isaac infuses him with an unbelievable amount of charm, sure, but his relatively little screentime left him feeling headstrong and cocksure in comparison to two other leads who constantly question who they are, where they come from and why they’re doing what they do. In the wake of the death of a major character in Poe’s life, Soule and Unzueta use this issue to question who Poe Dameron is, why he fights with the Resistance and what his place is there.

Sure, that may translate to a comic where “nothing happens” to some, but that’s only if your measure of a good Star Wars comic is dependant on how many X-Wings and explosions an artist can draw on one page. This is a comic about the characters and examining where they are now in relation to where they were when it began. Soule and Unzueta deftly juxtapose Poe’s introspection in the wake of a friend and co-pilot’s funeral with the less-than-warm welcome Agent Terex receives from the First Order upon his return. It’s an issue that takes it’s key hero and key villain and shows the weight of the previous story arc taking its toll on them in different ways. For Poe, it’s a question of why he fights and who he fights for and for Terex, it’s a question of whether he’ll live to fight again.

Angel Unzueta returns as the artist for this issue, having provided artwork for #7, and the way this series uses his art for interlude issue between the major arcs is pretty inspired. Unzueta has a gift for capturing the likenesses of the actors that have portrayed these characters, notably Oscar Isaac and Carrie Fisher, without his storytelling suffering. For some artists, capturing likenesses leads to static storytelling as they can only work off of angles and poses they’ve used in reference material. Thankfully, Unzueta is able to not only capture near perfect likenesses of these, but is able to do it and keep up a strong sense of storytelling throughout the issue.

It’s not just characters like Poe or Leia, either, as Unzueta brings a lot of life to a character like Terex through his facial expressions. This is key in an issue focused on dialogue in order to keep things flowing smoothly. Unzueta doesn’t allow readers to simply skim the dialogue and ignore the artwork by imbuing the characters with such life that the dialogue is tied to the expressions and to the their body language and the blocking of the panel. This is fantastic storytelling and will likely be lost on people claiming this issue as little more than action-less filler which is the biggest shame of all.

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Unzueta’s artwork is brought to life thanks to the colour work Arif Pianto, who does a fantastic job of highlighting the contrasting storylines of Poe and Terex through the use of contrasting colour palettes. In Poe’s story, there’s a focus on warm colours. Even during a somewhat sombre funeral scene, there’s a wash of warm orange light cascading on the characters which ties in the rustic, earthy hues of their clothing and their warm skin tones. This is contrasted harshly during Terex’s storyline with the cold metal hallways of the Star Destroyer, the cool blue lights and Terex’s pale skin and white hair.

What Pianto cleverly includes, though, is a warm spot colour during Terex’s scenes. Be it the orange planet in the background of a panel of a Star Destroyer, the red of Phasma’s cape or the orange of Terex’s jumpsuit. It’s a symbolic hint that Terex isn’t as loyal to the First Order as he says he is, something that’s filtered out over the issue until he is brought in line. Poe’s storyline, meanwhile, starts to incorporate cooler colours over time as he switches to a blue shirt, framed in the blue light of holographic screens. I’m not here to wild mass guess about what this could mean for the story going forward, just to point out the storytelling choice in how Pianto uses contrasting colour palettes in juxtaposed stories to show how they may not be so different after all.

All in all, “Star Wars: Poe Dameron” #14 continues the series’s trend of being a surprisingly delightful Star Wars comic. Taking the issue to decompress after the previous arc, Soule is able to explore the characters of the series and take a moment of introspection to examine just where they’ve landed before kicking into high gear for the next story arc. It’s a breather issue and one that series focused on action like “Poe Dameron” is needs every once in a while. Bringing back Angel Unzueta and teaming him with Arif Pianto made for a gorgeous issue that brought the emotions, the facial expressions and the body language of the characters to fore while showcasing fantastic storytelling through colour.

Final Verdict: 8.5 – A strong, much needed breather issue that focuses on the emotionality of the characters.


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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