– Spoiler Review –
With the vast War of the Bounty Hunters crossover over, Star Wars #19 (Vol. 2) is the series’ first issue after, which sees writer Charles Soule return it to its core story of uniting the Rebellion after Hoth, rescuing Shara Bey, and Luke back on his journey to become a Jedi. We start by focusing on Luke’s efforts, which take him down events from Soule’s comics past.
After both freezing when it came time to confront Darth Vader over Jekara, nearly losing Han Solo to the Dark Lord’s blade, and their somewhat confusingly written dogfight in the skies later, Luke knows he needs more training to become a Jedi because facing Vader again will be inevitable. He’s not wrong, so armed with a list* of potential Jedi sites from Artoo, Luke sets out to locate something to help him with his training, as he claims Yoda won’t talk to him. Is Luke trying to reach out with the Force to contact Yoda, like he was able to with Leia as he hung helpless from the underbelly of Cloud City? Why doesn’t Luke simply return to Dagobah? It’s not quite clear why he doesn’t choose to return, but maybe he’s not ready to face Yoda and admit the failure of his decision. Either way, Luke doesn’t go to Dagobah, but instead some familiar places to all types of fans. For starters, he visits Ilum, already clearly on its way to being converted into what will become Starkiller Base, and feels like anything important there is already gone, making this stop a fun little reference to both the sequel trilogy and a little to Jedi: Fallen Order, which also visited the planet recently after The Clone Wars. Then Luke heads to Lothal, but feels like the Temple there is locked or buried, a brilliant reference to the events of Star Wars Rebels and the few visits to Lothal’s memorable Temple. There’s another planet he visits, Arashar, but beyond a cursory glance at its impressive Imperial Fleet, Luke continues on to Al’doleem, which is where he decides to finally stop and investigate.
Al’doleem, its city by the broken dam named Am’balaar, and Mount Pasvaal where the Jedi stayed have all been in the comics before, specifically Soule’s Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith series, which saw Vader travel there to take a kyber crystal from a living Jedi so he could bleed it and make his first Sith saber. Star Wars #19 (Vol. 2) both serves as a refresher for those who’ve read that series and tells readers who haven’t just enough to put together the pieces, as Luke meets Colli, one of the few survivors of the battle between Vader and Kirak In’fila, the Jedi Vader comes to Al’doleem to defeat. Colli’s father was tasked by Kirak to look after his Jedi Starship† after he took his barash vow and stayed on Mount Pasvaal, and it’s that same starship that saved both Colli and their younger sister as the dam broke during the fight. Colli wants to repay the debt to Kirak, so he points Luke on the path to what the Empire’s doing with Mount Pasvaal, taking valuable artifacts from its depths and storing them at a different location before shipping them off, but won’t join him in invading the compound since he feels the mission is a fool’s errand.
One of the best Luke scenes post-Return of the Jedi (prior to the sequel trilogy), and I’d say still tied with his appearance in The Mandalorian, is a moment in Battlefront II’s campaign where you play as Luke investigating Palpatine’s vault on a planet named Pillio. His interaction there with one of the game’s main characters is a memorable, fitting moment for Luke, even if it felt like it came at odds with the gameplay side where you’re striking down a bunch of stormtroopers. In Star Wars #19 there is no disconnect, as Luke meditates on how to approach the base to get what he wants, specifically choosing against storming the place even though his last Jedi Mind Trick didn’t work at all, and he ends up peacefully approaching and his Mind Trick working, the two hapless troopers retrieving the most valuable artifact inside for him. What does he get? A holocron of…Jedi Master Yoda?! Why not learn from Yoda this way if he’s not answering/Luke doesn’t want to own up to his mistake by visiting him? This seems too easy and I have a feeling it will be, as this might not technically even be Yoda…but why would I guess that? While the big crossover is over, events from Crimson Reign, the sequel to Qi’ra’s return trilogy, will be felt across the rest of Marvel’s comics and in its first issue, also releasing today laid a hint for my theory: a mysterious woman simply named the Archivist is tasked by Qi’ra to potentially bring Jedi or other Force-users into Crimson Dawn’s fold for Qi’ra’s ambitious plans, so in one panel she talks about using something as bait to lure a Force-user in while looking at a photo of Yoda. Could this be a part of the Archivist’s plans, considering we know the Dawn has spies within the Empire and could’ve helped make this trap work? Or am I WAY overthinking this and it is a holocron from Yoda? We’ll find out later this month when issue #20 drops.
Marco Castiello joins as artist for Luke’s two Jedi journey issues, though Rachelle Rosenberg continues as colors and Clayton Cowles offers lettering duties once again. Castiello’s style is gritter than Ramon Rosanas’s cleaner work and uses shadows more often, something Rosenberg adjusts to by bringing in a darker palette, though when colors trend bright, it’s important or memorable moments. Castiello’s take on Luke therefore feels more like an introspective one, not some big hero, as his grumpier look and less heroic postures fit with the deflated feeling he’s having after his failure against facing Darth Vader again. And even when he does have a heroic pose moment, igniting his yellow saber and exposing the idea of storming into the facility, lightsaber swinging, gold light accentuating the moment, Castiello’s art makes it look big and bombastic and it only makes his choice to put the saber down, to meditate instead, feel more earned, as it’s clear it’s far too showy and overconfident for someone of his skills/mental place at this moment. A calming, but Jedi lightsaber-like blue hue consumes the panel where he meditates, which made it feel like he was more in tune with the Force, and less with the image of a hero everyone expects, on how to tackle the way forward; he’ll later choose something similar in The Last Jedi, or at least these two moments felt of the same vein to me. Cowles has a lot of dialogue to put in most panels and he really manages to keep the flow of the story intact and the art in focus often, while his SFX and lack thereof in the panels I mentioned above about Luke’s heroic look and meditation only add to those panels landing like they should.
Here are a few other things:
- In a recent interview at CBR, Soule laid out the plans for the next few issues of this series, saying 19-20 will cover Luke’s journey, 21 will return us to the plight of Shara Bey trapped on a Star Destroyer, and 22-24 are, “…a huge three-part arc that will wrap up a ton of threads, building to issue 25.” He played coy what big events would happen in issue 25/if the series would continue afterwards, so I’m interested to learn more on where this could all head and if it has anything to do with Crimson Reign, much like I was wondering above.
- *Here’s the list of Artoo’s planet, in order: Jedha (He’s been on the planet NaJedha, which the moon Jedha orbits, as seen in the last volume of this series) | Tempes (He visited in Star Wars #6)) | Briuhteome (New) | Al’doleem (Visits/ends up on this issue) | Arashar (New) | Tython (Feels like a wink and nod to The Mandalorian) | Chespea (New) | Lothal (He visits this issue) | Devaron (Visits in The Weapon of a Jedi) | Ilum (He visits this issue)
- †A curious inconsistency with Dark Lord of the Sith: Kirak’s Jedi ship was a Delta-7 Aethersprite fighter, like the one Obi-Wan used in Attack of the Clones, while in Star Wars #19 (Vol. 2) the flashback panels has it drawn as an Eta-2 Actis, like the ones Obi-Wan & Anakin flew in the opening of Revenge of the Sith.
Star Wars #19 (Vol. 2) brings the series back to its core, resulting in a stronger issue as it focuses on and dives into another of Luke’s attempts to attain more Jedi skills.
+ Luke dealing with his failure
+ Historical journeys
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
STAR WARS (Vol. 2)
The Destiny Path: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 / Arc Review — The Will of Tarkin: #7 | #8/Arc Review — Operation Starlight: #9 | #10 | #11 | #12 — War of the Bounty Hunters: #13 | #14 | #15 | #16 | #17 | #18