Star Wars: Obi-Wan & Anakin

It took them a while, but Marvel has finally gotten around to delivering a miniseries set in the prequel era.  A lot of people think that mining the era of the much-derided “Prequel Trilogy” is a bad idea given how it automatically invokes (bad) memories of these films.  I disagree.  The very best “Star Wars” comics I’ve read were set in this era as John Ostrander gave us the saga of the amnesiac and morally ambiguous Quinlan Vos.  “Obi-Wan & Anakin” never hits those heights, yet it isn’t as bad as its source material.  It involves the title characters answering a distress call asking for Jedi assistance from Carnelion IV, a remote planet that hasn’t had any significant contact with the Republic for decades.  As the Master and Padawan find out, that’s because the planet has been consumed by civil war between two factions known as the Open and the Closed.  While Obi-Wan and Anakin are skilled enough to survive landing on the planet and their initial encounter with members of these factions, is it possible for just two Jedi to save a world that doesn’t want to be saved?

This miniseries comes to us from writer Charles Soule, so its middle-of-the-road quality shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with his work.  Though it’s a solid piece of storytelling that moves at a quick pace, the amount of imagination on display isn’t enough to overcome the familiarity of its plot points and overall narrative arc.  Seeing Obi-Wan ask about the color of the lightsaber wielded by the Jedi who previously came to aid this planet was clever, but that’s all you’ll get here.  What really makes the book worth reading is the art from Marco Checcetto.  He did some solid work on the “Shattered Empire” miniseries last year that was diminished by the fill-in artists needed to make sure the book shipped twice-weekly to arrive before “The Force Awakens.”  Here, with the luxury of a monthly schedule, Checcetto shows what he’s really capable of and delivers some really amazing sights from the ruins that show the former majesty of Carnelion IV to the steampunk-versus-mech battle that hits at the volume’s climax.  It’s an okay story elevated by some pretty spectacular art, which isn’t the worst fate that  a story drawing on the “Prequel Trilogy” could have.