Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — Allegiance

With a new numbered “Star Wars” movie due out in a couple weeks, tradition dictates that we’re due another “Journey to” comic ahead of it.  Where “Shattered Empire” showed us what things were like for everyone immediately after “Return of the Jedi” and “Captain Phasma” was a nice character portrait of and continuity fix for the title character, “Allegiance” has precious little insight to offer on its own.  In all fairness, I’m willing to bet that writer Ethan Sacks was very limited in regards to what he was able to actually write about because the people at Lucasfilm really didn’t want to give anything away regarding “The Rise of Skywalker.” So we get four issues of Leia, Rey, Rose, and Chewbacca negotiating with the leaders of Mon Cala while Finn, Poe, and BB-8 deal with merc troubles as they try to recover a weapons cache for the Resistance.

None of this is as interesting to read about as it sounds, and that’s even if you think it manages that much.  The negotiations are a bunch of dull back-and-forths between Leia’s group and Mon Cal isolationists, occasionally punctuated by some functional action setpieces.  As for the other group, theirs is a bog-standard tale of a simple job turning into a bad one all thanks to some very familiar mercenaries. Mind you, the Kendoh Crew will only be familiar if you’ve read Sacks’ other (and better) “Star Wars” comic “Galaxy’s Edge” and it was actually fun to learn that this was the botched job they talked about in that comic.  I also imagine diehard fans of “The Clone Wars” animated series will also get a kick out of seeing a familiar face opposing Leia in the Mon Cala sections.

Even if these are some enjoyable bits of continuity and worldbuilding, they’re not enough to sustain the series.  Neither is the good-looking but stiff artwork provided by Luke Ross, who has also done better work in other “Star Wars” comics like “Thrawn.”  Still, at least I’ll know why the First Order will be rolling up on Mon Cala at the start of “The Rise of Skywalker” since the story ends in a way that strongly suggests that will happen.  I mean, if it doesn’t, then this comic will have even less of a reason to have existed let alone justify the “Journey to” in its name.