With Star Wars: The Force Awakens less than two months away from cinemas, Disney’s ‘Journey To The Force Awakens’ cross-media promotion is in full swing. Among that promotion is Marvel’s contribution, “Shattered Empire”, which concludes with this fourth issue.
Read on for our spoiler free of “Star Wars: Shattered Empire” #4 to find out why you should be missing out on the journey to The Force Awakens.
Written by Greg Rucka
Illustrated by Marco Checchetto
Concluding the first new-canon comic tale set between episodes VI and VII! As the Empire Shatters around them, Rebel heroes fight for a better tomorrow! Greg Rucka (Punisher, Cyclops, Wolverine) and Marco Checchetto (Punisher, Avengers World) take us into the more recent long, long time ago!
With the promise of looking at the aftermath of the destruction of the second Death Star in Return Of The Jedi, there were a lot of expectations for Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto to reveal the big changes that would form the shape of the galaxy in The Force Awakens with the “Shattered Empire” series. However, that wasn’t quite the case and for the first three issues that felt a little confusing, but with this first issue I think the overall meaning of the series has finally been wrapped up. With rabid fans continually questioning and reviewing and pouring over what little footage and information we have of the new film in hopes of uncovering what happens to our favourite characters, it’s interesting and actually pretty brave for Rucka and Checchetto to forego answering those questions and instead telling a much more personal story.
This fourth and final issue sees Shara Bey, mother of Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron character in The Force Awakens, accompanying Luke Skywalker on a mission to infiltrate an Imperial base. What’s interesting about this is that Rucka and Checchetto have been using Bey and her husband as the point of view characters for “Shattered Empire” in order to explore what contribution Poe Dameron’s parents had to the Rebel Alliance as well as showing an individual perspective of the changing landscape of the galaxy after the desctruction of the second Death Star. This issue, Rucka presents Bey with a moral dilemma – should she continue fighting with the Alliance or settle down with her husband and son – and uses the mission and her interaction with Luke to bring her to her answer. This brings a human conflict into the story and makes the issue all the more engaging because it makes the series so much more than just a checklist of events that happened between Episodes VI and VII.
Speaking of Luke Skywalker, this is probably the best depiction of him in any of Marvel’s Star Wars comics. This is the first we’re seeing of him in canon after the events of Return Of The Jedi and so Rucka manages to nail the balance of making him feel recognisably like Luke while showing how he has matured since the events that took place in the Throne Room of the Death Star. He feels matured and wise now, less the farm boy who stumbled into a larger world and more the Jedi Knight he had training to be. This is reinforced by the gorgeous art by Marco Checchetto, who brings a soft innocence to Luke’s facial expressions while showing him as formidable and focused in combat. The action in this issue is glorious and shows Luke in full Jedi Knight mode, single-handedly taking on an entire base of Imperials. Honestly, this whole series was worth it for that alone.
Checchetto impressed throughout the issue and it was fantastic to see him illustrate the entire issue as the past couple have had guest artists for sections. His artwork may seem like a strange fit for the world of Star Wars, but his detail oriented pencils bring the world to life with a crisp sharpness that feels entirely like the Star Wars we know and love while feeling like a completely new take. This is helped greatly by the colours by Andres Mossa. The colour palette of Mossa feels faithful to the neutered tones of Return Of The Jedi with grey flight hangers, worn and chipped paint on the fighters and the cold lighting of Imperial architecture. What’s interesting about the lighting, though, is that Mossa is able to insert bloom and even lens flares on top of Checchetto’s pencils. It’s an interesting effect and while it may have been overdone on some panels, it really makes the look of the lightsabre and laser blasts pop on the page.
Continued belowAll in all, I don’t think “Shattered Empire” ended up being the series people thought it was going to be. There was an expectation that we would see how the Empire would form into the First Order and how the Rebellion would form into the Resistance or maybe we’d even see more the formation of the New Republic as shown in Chuck Wendig’s “Aftermath” novel. We didn’t really get any of those things, but instead we got a series that looked at the singular perspectives of a couple fighting in a Rebellion even after the war should have been won and questioning whether they should stay and fight or focus on their family life.
Rucka and Checchetto did an amazing job of balancing that human element while having them interact with major Star Wars characters like Luke in this issue and Leia and Han in previous issues to show what those characters were up to in this time. Bring all that together with a gorgeous rendition of the Star Wars universe and you have a series that may not seem important in the grand scheme of things at first, but hides a very human story within that does in fact tie into The Force Awakens. Just maybe not in the way any of us were expecting.
Final Verdict: 9.1 – A great conclusion to a very surprising series the brought a lot of human emotion to an excellent Star Wars story with an amazing depiction of Luke Skywalker by Marco Checchetto.
