Star Wars vol. 6: Out Among the Stars
After I read the first volume of Jason Aaron’s run on “Star Wars,” I was left with the feeling of, “Where do you go from here?” “Skywalker Strikes” had the core cast facing off against Darth Vader in a balls-out action story and subsequently featured Luke squaring off against Boba Fett while Han and Leia came face-to-face with the former’s… wife? Oh, and Jabba the Hutt was in it too. It was the kind of story that threw all the familiar “Star Wars” things you’d expect at you right away and one that left me worried Aaron’s run wouldn’t have much gas left in it after he brought out the big guns right away.
That turned out not to be the case, for better and for worse. Aaron spent the next four volumes, and two crossovers, introducing us to new characters and concepts in the “Star Wars” universe. Sometimes this worked out quite well in the cases of the gang’s struggles against Grakkus the Hutt on Nar Shadda in vol. 2 and “Yoda’s Secret War” in vol. 5. Then you had things like “Rebel Jail,” which had a good idea at its center but was dragged down by its execution. For his final volume, Aaron has decided to give us five individual stories featuring the familiar faces we all know and love from the original trilogy and characters he’s created over the course of his run. They’re a generally good bunch, even if the final one presents a questionable note to end on.
First up is “Rebels in the Wild” which has Luke and Leia stranded in a jungle on an alien planet. It’s a nice enough character piece as the two get to know each other better by exchanging backstories and by engaging in some over-the-top survival tactics. Turns out that Leia does make good bait when she’s calling the shots. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that the Imperials are menacing the local aliens and our protagonists have to get crafty to find ways to drive them off. Predictable, but still satisfying in the sense that “Rebels vs. Nature” isn’t something we see all that often in “Star Wars.”
“The Thirteen Crates” is a step up as it features a twisty plot of double-and-triple-crossings as Sana Staros looks to get paid by an alien warlord, Jabba, and the Imperials for a missing bunch of weapons crates she didn’t even steal in the first place. Along for the ride with all the connections needed to pull this off is none other than Lando Calrissian, though he doesn’t get much of a chance to demonstrate his legendary charm here. No, this is all Sana’s show as she demonstrates immense confidence in the face of some very trigger-happy parties. Aaron hasn’t always done right by this character, such as when her claim of marriage to Han was revealed to practically be a lovesick delusion, but he sends her off on a very strong note that shows her to be a properly badass scoundrel.
Speaking of scoundrels, Han and Chewie take center stage for “The Hutt Run” as they’re tasked with bringing Grakkus the Hutt to a Rebellion interrogation crew to find out where his hidden cache of weapons and supplies is. Things go bad for them almost from the start and matters aren’t helped by the hutt’s constant offer to set Han up for life if he’ll only let his prisoner go. The idea of Han being trapped or lessened by life in the Rebellion isn’t a new one. Fortunately Aaron is aware of this and it leads to an utterly delightful finale that’s very true to the smuggler’s character.
Next we have “Revenge of the Astromech” which picks up the subplot about C-3P0’s capture by the Empire back and R2-D2’s efforts to rescue the protocol droid in previous volumes. The little astromech droid has managed to infiltrate the Star Destroyer that C-3P0 is being held on and the only thing standing in between him and the rescue of his friend is a battalion of stormtroopers. You know, I really wanted to like this story but it winds up being just a little too cute for its own good. The problem is that the Imperials are portrayed as being too comically inept here. While a little of that has always been their stock in trade, it’s pushed too far here even considering the cleverness of R2-D2’s plans.
Aaron then closes out his run with “Imperial Pride.” This is something of an odd note to end on because it’s all about the SCAR Stormtrooper squadron the writer introduced back in vol. 4. If you’ll recall, these are the special-forces Stormtroopers who have skills and training that make them more than mere cannon fodder as they demonstrate here. They’re tasked with taking out a Rebel stronghold, which the accomplish with ruthless efficiency here. It’s worth noting that this is after they’ve freed a group of alien kids from their ruthless tormentor, spreading the good word of the Empire in the process.
I say this is an odd note for Aaron to end his run on because it’s an issue that basically glorifies the bad guys and hands our heroes a decisive loss. It’s a downer note to end the series on and something that “Star Wars” generally tries to avoid. Remember, “Empire” may have ended with our heroes in a low point but it still finished on a hopeful note. So why did Aaron choose to go out like this? My guess is that he wants SCAR Squadron to be seen as his signature contribution to the “Star Wars” mythos. Stormtroopers have been seen as nothing but cannon fodder ever since the first film, so the idea of a special forces version of them that are actually good at their jobs and can get things done is certainly a new idea. Plus, having this story as his final issue saves Aaron from doing the inevitable follow-up where our heroes triumph over the SCARtroopers and make them seem less effective as a result. Whether or not this actually works and SCAR Squadron shows up elsewhere will only be seen with time, but the writer has managed to tick the right boxes here to make his case for these characters plausible.
Salvador Larroca provides the art for all five issues and this is definitely one of his more uneven efforts. The thing is, I’m not sure if it’s entirely his fault. While he’s as good with the environments and action as you’d expect, there’s a distracting photo-realism to most of the human characters. Larroca’s art has always had an element of that from his time on “Darth Vader” but it’s distracting here because of how the characters are colored. Either the artist is incorporating some new shading for his characters which requires that they be colored that way, or colorist Edgar Delgado is really going off on his own here. It’s particularly distracting in cases like “The Hutt Run” where Grakkus is colored in a simple low-key fashion and Han is rendered to look exactly like Harrison Ford circa 1977 right down to the skin tone. I can understand why Marvel would want to have the characters in the comic resemble their filmic counterparts, but there has to be a better way to do it than this.
Rounding out the volume is a short story and the latest Annual. The short story, “The Sand Provides,” is from Jason Aaron and his son Dash. It’s about a young Sand Person who struggles to find their way after their family is killed in the Tatooine desert. There’s a bit of struggle involved as the person makes their way through Mos Eisley, but Ben Kenobi gets involved and things end happily. It’s a pretty slight tale that goes about as you’d expect and features some expectedly nice art from Andrea Sorrentino.
The story in the Annual doesn’t have a title. Regrettably, that feels pretty appropriate. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Han and Leia are trapped together on a planet as someone from the former’s past comes to settle an old score. Writer Jason Latour reminds me why I’ve always appreciated his work as an artist (on Aaron’s and his creator-owned series “Southern Bastards”) more than as a writer. There are no surprises or even witty dialogue to ease the overbearing predictability of the plot. Artist Michael Walsh has an appealingly loose vibe to his art with some interesting coloring to it that gives the book something of an indie sheen to its appearance. That’s probably the most interesting thing I can say about the story as a whole.
While the Aaron/Larroca stories in this volume are generally good, they’re also emblematic of the writer’s run as a whole. There was no ongoing story to it as the first five volumes, and two crossovers, were all stand-alone events. While this means you could very well pick up any volume and enjoy it on its own merits, you were also deprived of seeing a proper story come together over the course of thirty-seven-plus issues. You know, the way Kieron Gillen and Larroca pulled off their run on “Darth Vader.” Aaron’s “Star Wars” run was still more enjoyable than not, and that still makes it a success overall.