Canon Comic Review: Poe Dameron “The Awakening” Arc (Issues #26-31)

– Spoiler Review –

Take a deep breath: today, we look at the final story arc in the excellent Poe Dameron series. What was Black Squadron up to during the Battle of Starkiller Base, the Evacuation of D’Qar, and the Battle of Crait? Oh, and Porgs!

After finding Lor San Tekka, the Poe Dameron series had reached it’s natural conclusion. Issue 1 began with Leia assigning Poe a new mission: find Lor San Tekka, and in doing so, be one step closer to finding Luke Skywalker. After many adventures, enemies, and kaiju, Lor has been located and the Resistance has the map! Rather than ending just before Jakku as I had expected it to, Charles Soule pushes the series a step further, bringing us just a bit further past The Last Jedi!

In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Crait, the Resistance has earned some well-needed downtime. Maybe you didn’t notice in the film, but the core three (Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron) never shared a scene in which all three were present. This arc remedies that quickly, bringing the three together to have a post-battle discussion. The first two issues focus mostly on their discussion before moving on to other perspectives, but these two don’t seem like enough. Soule seems to get these three to a T, and their discussion is extremely well-characterized (you can imagine all of the actors saying these exact lines!) and the trio have such a wonderful chemistry between them.

So, Poe discusses a little bit about how he survived Jakku (readers of the novel adaptation of The Force Awakens will find this scene familiar), a bit of his perspective on the Battle of Takodana, and sheds a bit of light on Snap and Kare’s recon on Starkiller Base. Thankfully, this doesn’t read like a resource guide trying to simply recount these events. Poe’s commentary, with interjections from Finn and Rey, fill these stories with warmth and joy that would be hard to capture in a different medium. Rey ribs Poe on his piloting skills while Finn and Poe can relive the joy of shooting some First Order troopers on Takodana. I think having this info revealed in-universe as Poe’s explanation of the events helped give these a certain flair that would have been missing had we just read this as a straightforward novel.

But, as I stated above, we don’t only hear from Poe. First, we see a bit of Rey and Finn’s reaction to the Battle of Crait. Rey examines her newly broken lightsaber while studying the Jedi texts that she nabbed from Ahch-To. We see a bit of the whirlwind that she has experienced as she never seems to be fully involved in the story, dealing with either the lightsaber, some texts, or the porgs who snuck aboard the Falcon! Similarly, Finn spends some time worrying about Rose or giving Poe information about what happened to him on Jakku. Unfortunately, the series is not focused on these two, so our time with them is brief. This does whet the appetite for more stories on these two, especially if they were written by Soule!

There are even more surprises in store in this arc. The third issue focuses on yet another conversation, this time covering the Battle of Starkiller Base. There are two members of this discussion, talking about the battle and how it compared to the Battle of Yavin. The primary speaker reflects on the sacrifice of the Resistance pilots and how much they gave to destroy the First Order’s superweapon. C-3PO interrupts the conversation only to reveal that two speakers were R2-D2 and BB-8! This was a very fun twist, one that suits Soule’s humor extremely well. (BB-8 also sounds like a carbon copy of Poe, so maybe droids start to “sound” like their Masters early!) This type of storytelling and humor is honestly sorely lacking in the rest of the comics. While Doctor Aphra is both weird and funny (and effusive and heartbreaking and lovely and and and), it doesn’t have the same type of humor Soule was able to bring to this series.

But the first three issues, super fun and exciting, were unable to prepare us for the final three gut-wrenching and emotional issues. The Visual Guide for The Last Jedi mentions that Black Squadron goes on missions to find allies for the Resistance. We know from the film that the mission is a failure, but we don’t know why. Soule opens up the Resistance transmissions for us to see why: because, well, people are selfish and the First Order is on the march!

The first mission is a beautiful microcosm of the galaxy after the fall of the New Republic. The first stop for Black Squadron is a planet called Pastoria. Snap hopes that the king, renowned for his ability to persuade people to his side, can help them gain more allies though they could not fight. Instead, they are tricked into helping the King destroy his enemies on the planet in order to solidify his throne so that he would be the one to deal with the First Order when they arrive. It is too bad only two days ellipse between the Battle of Starkiller Base and the Evacuation of D’Qar because I would love more stories like these. Thankfully, Soule is up to the task of telling as many as he can. Soule understands how important it is to see the galaxy’s general response to the First Order, and I wish he had a few more issues to flesh it out a bit further.

Unfortunately, the disaster on Pastoria is nothing compared to what Black Squadron faces next. They intercept a distress call issuing from Ikkrukk, where the First Order has launched its latest invasion campaign. Despite the overwhelming odds, Black Squadron responds to the call to try and drive off the First Order long enough for the people to survive. While we’re used to stories, especially Star Wars stories, showing us underdogs coming out on top, that trope seems to be subverted at first: the mission goes horribly. Suralinda, the journalist who has been tagging alongside Black Squadron for a few missions, is shot in the chest and Jess is bruised and trapped with Karé and Snap are dogged by seemingly endless TIE Fighters.

The final issue, though, reminds us of how well Soule understands the heart of Star Wars and Poe Dameron’s character. C-3PO bring Jess Pava’s transmissions to Poe, showing Black Squadron’s desperate state, throw Poe into a panic. After directly ordering the assault that ended in the loss of many pilots and Cobalt Squadron, Poe can’t stand to loss any more fighters. Poe begs General Organa for authorization to help Black Squadron, arguing that the Resistance cannot survive without them. This gives us a fascinating look into Poe’s post-mutinous mind, where he has learned the value of human life compared to the value of the mission. Leia, hesitatingly, lets Poe go to save the day, again, but he doesn’t fly with the same cavalier attitude he once had. Now, he is focused on the survival of his pilots and his team. This final issue beautifully shows the completed trajectory of Poe from his earliest missions in the Resistance to his new sobering role as Commander. If only this series could on longer!

But, while we may hope that the series would go on longer, you may not want this review to go on much longer. Angel Unzueta would not have been my first choice to replace the excellent Phil Noto, but I was wrong to dismiss Angel’s excellent art. Unzueta injects a lot of dynamic movement into the starfighter battles (the double page spread detailing the Battle of Takodana was insanely inspired). While Angel’s face work was not always perfect, he was able to add a lot of movement to each panel, making sure that the panels focusing on conversations around the dejarik table never grew too stale. Arif Prianto provides excellent colors for the arc, giving the Falcon a lived in look without feeling dirty. Phil Noto did stay on to finish covers for the series (and, can I say, I LOVED the covers on this arc, both on their own and compared to “another configuration of Poe and BB-8 again” that the first 25 issues featured). Joe Caramanga provided the lettering for the series and Mark Paniccia, with his assistant Tom Groneman, edited the title after taking over from Jordan White and Heather Antos, the arc’s initial editors, rounding out an excellent cast on an overall excellent book.

The Awakening was easily one of the best arcs in Poe’s series (despite not featuring the best character, Agent Terex). It packed a lot of heart, emotion, fun, and suspense into six issues, showing again how Soule is one of the best Star Wars comic authors. Be on the lookout as Ryan and I provide a full commentary on the entire series in the next couple of weeks!

You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!