– Spoiler Review –
Star Wars issue #53, the latest of the “Hope Dies” arc, kicks off a new, exciting thread for the action-heavy storyline.
Don’t get me wrong, “Hope Dies” has been a great change for the Star Wars series, basically all action for once, but attempting to sustain the urgency and suspense of the Rebellion’s current predicament for month after month somewhat bloats the beginning of issue #53. We’re once again dealing with the word needing to be spread to the fleet how to override bay door locks and get fighter support out, and once again the heroes find an inventive way to continue spreading it. Thankfully this issue ends with an exciting new thread, even if one of the character’s fates is certain, that helps change the momentum and repetitiveness of the arc so far.
The Rebellion uncovers a way to undo Queen Trios’ sabotage: they just need to hop aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor, grab an override code, and head back to free the fleet to flee and regroup. While Mon Mothma tries to tell Leia she’s too important to lose, especially now after this devastating attack, Leia takes it upon herself to impersonate Trios to trick their way onboard as a way to begin making it right for trusting Trios in the first place. Not only does she have the burden of her entire homeworld on her shoulders, now add in the the destruction of a good portion of their fleet, almost undoing all her hard work since the destruction of the Death Star. But she’ll weather it as she always does and always will, which leads me to picturing that shot in The Last Jedi now, where Leia is standing inside the Crait base, looking out across the salt-fields, the high rim of her jacket obscuring her face, which about sums up her resilience through all these years. So with General Draven and some specforces, Leia takes Trios’ ship and manages to weasel her way onto the Executor, though not before Vader is told of “Trios'” arrival and comes back to find a dead guard, knowing the real Trios isn’t around. That’s right, Leia, Draven, and his men will be hunted aboard the Executor by Darth Vader himself, so how Leia manages to survive will remain to be seen but is quite an exciting new development. It also makes me wonder, where exactly is Trios and her escape pod at the moment?
Before Vader begins his pursuit of Leia, he manages to enact revenge against Han Solo and Chewie for their actions above the Death Star, who must crash land the Falcon, upside down, to prevent being utterly destroyed. Han says he hasn’t seen the Falcon so badly damaged since the Kessel Run, which now that Solo: A Star Wars Story has come out, we know exactly what he’s talking about, as the Falcon just about limped onto the landing dock on Savareen. His eagerness to fly in a new ship and return the favor to Vader is commendable, though another cocky risk the Rebellion can’t quite afford right now, but it does make me curious if next issue we’ll get to see Han in an X-wing, as the cover for this issue teases. Speaking of X-wings, the newly minted Rogue Squadron doesn’t get to do too much, besides do their best to survive, but I did like how Luke helped spread the word to the ships that they can still launch their fighters; it gave us not only a reference to the events of “Mutiny at Mon Cala,” but it reminded us Hera Syndulla of Star Wars Rebels fame is still out there, fighting the good fight.
It was a smart move on Kieron Gillen’s part to introduce a potential Leia and Vader showdown aboard the Executor, as things were beginning to feel repetitive to start this issue and this new thread is a nice change of pace. What didn’t change is the continued issues with artist Salvador Larroca, and by extension colorist Guru-eFX, who together can make some mean and tasty ship combat and destruction, but the facial drawing/tracing/or whatever you want to call it happens to still hold things back.
Here are a few other things:
- I’ve certainly had my issues with Larroca’s tracing this past year, so it was a pleasant and welcomed reveal that he’ll be off Star Wars for a little bit, as the solicitations for November not only revealed this series’ next arc, but mentioned we’ll have Andrea Broccardo and Angel Unzueta working on the first two issues of the next storyline. I wouldn’t count Larroca out of returning, but it’ll be nice to change this up finally, much like how this series was in the beginning with a new artist per arc.
“Hopes Dies” ratchets up the thrills while throwing around some fun little references in Star Wars #53.
+ Leia and Vader aboard the Executor cliffhanger
+ Little nods and connections
– Starts out repetitive of last issue
– Facial art continues to sting
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
Star Wars
Kieron Gillen — Ashes of Jedha (#38-43) / Arc Review by Chris | Mutiny at Mon Cala (#44-49) / Arc Review by Chris | Hope Dies: #50 | #51 | #52 | #54 | #55 / Arc Review by Chris | The Escape (#56-61) / Arc Review by Chris | The Scourging of Shu-Torun (#62-67) / Arc Review by Chris | Kieron Gillen Retrospective
Jason Aaron — Jason Aaron Retrospective (#1-37)
Greg Pak — Rebels and Rogues (#68-72)