Star Wars: Legacy vol. 2, Book II: Outcasts of the Broken Ring

Who would’ve thought that the legacy of Han Solo would be less interesting to read about than Luke Skywalker’s.  That’s something which continues to be true here as the story of Han’s granddaughter Ania doesn’t do much to improve on the first volume.  After surviving Darth Wredd’s plans in the Carreras system, Ania Solo and Imperial Knight Jao Assam find themselves being escorted back to Coruscant so the Galactic Triumvirate can find out what they know.  Unfortunately, the Triumvirate makes it clear they have no intention of pursuing Wredd at this time.  If you think that causes Solo and Assam to decline their hospitality/disobey their orders, then you’d be correct.  The two follow the Sith’s trail to the former Mon Calamari homeworld of Dac, which is now a poisonous ocean surrounded by remnants of the planet’s once-mighty shipyards.  It’s within this broken ring that another Sith plot is being hatched and our protagonists are going to have to stop before it endangers the entire galaxy.

Business as usual for a “Star Wars” title?  That’s pretty much the case here as the storytelling and plotting and predictable from beginning to end.  Even though she’s descended from one of the most memorable rogues in science fiction, Ania still feels like a very bland protagonist.  Her rebellious actions feel more like they’re serving the plot than her character, and the same goes for Assam as well.  Yeah, Cade Skywalker may have come across as a drug-addled jerk more often than not, but at least he had an actual personality and character traits.  Writers Corinna Bechcko and Gabriel Hardman at least give us a story that makes sense and takes us to some interesting planets, and that’s about it.  The same goes for artist Brian Albert Thies, who manages stylistic consistency with Hardman’s style from the previous volume, and not much else.  It all ends on a dumb note when Wredd pops up again to let Ania and Jao know that they’ve just helped him out in a big way.  Nothing he does in this volume makes his Sith name any less silly, and I’m now left wishing we’d got more issues of John Ostrander and Jan Duursema’s “Legacy” instead of getting this new one.