By Jason Aaron, John Cassaday and Laura Martin
Star Wars got off to a strong start with the first issue that really got us back into the swing of things and the second issue has kept up the strong consistency with the excellent creative team of Jason Aaron and John Cassaday. We also get Laura Martin on the colours, who’s done an excellent job with Witchblade, and that really shows here, with Aaron, Cassaday and Martin all combining to give us another strong issue that should keep Star Wars fans very entertained indeed.
We left off the last time round with Darth Vader meeting Luke. It’s very early stages in the connection between these two characters yet to the point where Vader doesn’t even know that Luke’s his son. We got to see just how superior Vader is to Luke at this early stage of his career and the battle was quickly one-sided in a way that was handled incredibly well with a great scene involving Vader wielding two lightsabers at once. The intimidation of Vader on the page has not been lost and it’s great to see that Aaron managed to justify including this famous villain so early on in his run on the book, with a great arc to kick start the series. We also got to spend some time with Han, Leia and the rest of the gang as well, and Aaron continues to prove just how well he’s familiar with these characters who consistently feel like the ones from the films. They’ve all got their distinctive mannerisms, way of speaking and character handled incredibly well, and as a result this feels like Aaron’s 50th issue of a Star Wars book, not his second.
Star Wars #2 once again feels like this could fit right had home in one of the movies, with some great action scenes typical to what one might expect. Aaron, Cassaday and Martin are knocking it out of the park with some great scenes, Cassaday’s pencils are superb with some fantastic designs, that make everything pretty much instantly recognisable and incredibly intimidating, playing to the cinematic strengths of the book’s tone. The attack within a weapons factory was handled incredibly well as we got to see the full carnage of the battle being unleashed around the characters brought to life in vivid detail, with Laura Martin’s colours on top form as one would expect.
Star Wars #2 has proved that the first issue was very much not a one-off and you can expect this kind of consistent quality going forward. The excellent creative team is on fire here and there are some great cinematic moments to be had in this book that really add to the feel of this being a Star Wars comic. There’s a lot of interesting moments to be had here with some very good pacing that doesn’t slow down and the writing remains top-notch throughout. On the whole then, if by any reason that you’re not already reading this book, then you should certainly go and check out the first two issues now, because they’re just awesome.
Couldn’t disagree more. I thought this issue was crap! To interaction between Vader and Luke was ridiculous, both saying things that I felt they would not say–and I’m not even a huge Star Wars fanboy. Dropping the series. It just doesn’t sound or feel Star Warsy enough to me.
I don’t like that Luke and Vader meet so soon, that Vader can’t recognize Luke via the force, and I feel there is a little too much action too soon after ANH. All that said, I am willing to overlook just about everything to read the star wars comics from Marvel again. I can’t help myself.
Haha to each their own. I dropped it and will try out the Vader series and see if that sticks. There’s just too much that didn’t work in SW #2 (and even #1) and in today’s comic market so-so doesn’t have room on my list.