Focusing on Heroes and Villains from all three current eras, with different writers and artists for each Age, the Age of Star Wars maxiseries was an ambitious and interesting project from the start. While it didn’t always live up to expectations, it brought deep explorations of fan favorites and little glimpses into unseen moments
To start the review, I’ll pick the best of the best from each Age and which Age comes out on top overall in several categories! I’ll dive deeper into my choices below, but for now, prepare for…
The BATTLE OF THE AGES!
Best Villain Issue: Count Dooku #1 
Best Overall Issue: General Grievous #1 
Best Special Issue Moment: Jar Jar Binks saving Captain Rex....with a lightsaber!!??!
Best Villain Issue: Boba Fett #1 
Best Overall Issue: Lando Calrissian #1 
Best Special Issue Moment: Yoda's Dagobah Trials
Best Hero Issue: Rey #1 
Best Overall Issue: Rey #1 Best Special Issue Moment:Maz Kanata, on top of Chewbacca’s shoulders, mowing down enemies
And now…
the overall winners in the Battle of the Ages!
| Overall Winners | |
|---|---|
| Best Hero Issue |  Age of Resistance – Rey #1 |
| Best Villain Issue |  Age of Republic – Count Dooku #1 |
| Best Overall Issue | Age of Resistance – Rey #1 |
| Best Special Issue |  Age of Rebellion – Special #1 |
| Best Special Issue Moment | |
| Best Hero Art Team | Ramon Rosanas and Guru-eFX (Age of Resistance) |
| Best Villain Art Team | Luke Ross and Java Tartaglia (Age of Republic) |
| Best Hero Issue Art | Age of Rebellion – Lando Calrissian #1 Matteo Buffagni (Artist) Tamra Bonvillain (Colorist)  |
| Best Villain Issue Art | Age of Rebellion – Boba Fett #1 Marc Laming (Artist) Neeraj Menon (Colorist)  |
| Overall Best Issue Art | Age of Rebellion – Boba Fett #1 |
| Best Special Story Art | “Sisters” – Age of Republic Carlos Gómez (Artist) Dono Sánchez-Almara (Colorist) |
| Best Visiting Writer | Marc Guggenheim “501 Plus One” and “The Trial of Dagobah” |
| Best Age Writer | Jody Houser |
| Best Overall Age |  |
As great of a job as Greg Pak and Tom Taylor did with their respective Ages, having some truly spectacular highs and barely a low in sight, it didn’t feel like much of a choice when picking Best Age and Best Writer. It’s not to downplay their accomplishments and work, but Jody Houser’s way of rhyming Hero and Villain issues together took her time with the maxiseries, and the Age of Republic, to another level. Not only did each issue delve more into it’s titular character, it also compared/contrasted with the Hero or Villain releasing the same month, adding a whole extra depth and excitement for each issue. Some of the rhymes included Qui-Gon rejecting the label of warriors for Jedi while Maul’s tragic path begins because he believes the Jedi are only warriors or how both Dooku and Anakin found emotion to be their greatest strength in helping them achieve their goals. I didn’t even catch it right away, as that honor goes to ElevenThirty-Eight’s Abigail, who has an excellent retrospective on Age of Republic. And then, on top of all the Heroes and Villains matching up, came the coup de grâce, which was how the spooky General Grievous’ issue brought the entire Age full circle with the Qui-Gon Jinn beginning, starting it all with hope and ending it with hope; it doesn’t get more Star Wars than the word hope!
While Republic might have been my favorite Age, it’s Age of Resistance’s Rey #1 that gains the crown of my favorite overall issue. Some critiques I saw of the issue stem from the timing of it all, but if The Empire Strikes Back takes place over a month, and learning that earlier this year doesn’t change my feelings for the film at all, why should it matter that Rey made a quick detour and overthrew a despot before landing on Ahch-To, regardless of how it appeared seamless in the film? We love TESB for its characters and epic, operatic story, not for a stop-watch in the corner keeping track of how much time passes. Rey #1 manages to distill the nature of the character in its few pages, capturing her compassion and already Jedi-like ways, while it contains some long awaited and missed moments, like Leia and Rey discussing what happened to Han with Kylo Ren and the big Leia/Chewie hug J.J. Abrams regrets not having in the film to this day, plus it had fun doing it all. Plenty of other issues brought such things to the table, but none did it with such a smart, quick script, fantastic, heroic art, and Chewie covered in bubbles. How do you beat that?
Several of my choices for overall best issues in an Age ended up not being either the Hero or Villain issue I chose, like General Grievous for Age of Republic or Lando Calrissian for Rebellion. While say Obi-Wan Kenobi dealt with the young Masters’ doubts expertly or Count Dooku delved into the titular character’s many compelling facets, the way General Grievous brings some delightful frights from Luke Ross’ art and wraps up the entire Age is what sets it apart as my favorite overall. The same goes for Rebellion’s issues, as Princess Leia showed us Leia trying to be anything but royalty to prepare for rescuing Han Solo from Jabba or Boba Fett made me actually believe in the hype for the character again thanks to some truly stunning art, but how Lando’s issue honors and connects to storylines from his 2015 miniseries, and even the artist brought onto this issue calls back to that seminal series, is what makes it stand out of the entire Age (plus, it was my runner-up for the Age’s Best Hero Issue).
A similar thing happened with the Special issues, as my favorite overall Special is from Rebellion, but it’s Resistance’s Maz and Chewie moment that wins the day. The reasons I enjoyed Rebellion’s Special more than the others includes: its IG-88 tale brought me back to my childhood fear of the character when playing Shadows of the Empire on N64; Yoda’s trial was a great show of how the struggle against the dark never ends; and even though I didn’t quite enjoy the Wedge/Jenkins story, due to its far too unique style coming to odds with its themes, I appreciate they even tried something so different. As for the overall top moment, Jar Jar saving Captain Rex with a lightsaber seemed like it would be impossible to beat when it first graced our collective eyeballs, but we’ve had a lot of Jar Jar as an unlikely hero in The Clone Wars, while Yoda’s trials in the show were slightly more epic than what was in the comic, but when you pay off a comedic line from 2015’s The Force Awakens with such an epic image of Maz astride Chewie’s shoulders, mowing down their enemies, nothing’s more special than that.
Not all Ages had consistent art teams every issue, but the two most consistent art teams ended up being my favorite overall, making me kind of wish they had taken over for every Age: for the Heroes, Ramon Rosanas (artist) and Guru-eFX (colorist) in Age of Resistance, while for the Villains it was Luke Ross (artist) and Java Tartaglia (colorist) in Age of Republic. Ross’ work is my favorite overall, across both Heroes and Villains, as he and Tartaglia brought a grittier look to the dark deeds of the Age’s villains, from the downright scary in the Grievous issue, Dooku holding dozens of guns over his head to intimidate his targets, to Maul having one helluva dream about being a Jedi, the team vividly inhabited a villainous feel and look to every issue. With Rosanas, his panels brought out a surprising amount of humor and were able to capture actors’ faces, expanding on them without their spirit. As much as I would’ve loved both teams for all Ages, I’m happy we did get other teams, as it led to some other great issues art-wise, with standouts like Boba Fett, my top issue for art from Marc Laming and Neeraj Menon, due to how it spoke volumes for a mostly silent script and Lando Calrissian, by Mattei Buffagni and Tam Bonvillain, which kept up Lando’s underworld, swanky, 70’s vibe. And of course, a big shout out to letterer Travis Lanham, who kept a consistency across Ages with his work, throughout the entire maxiseries! Also, special mention art moment goes to shirtless Grand Moff Tarkin, an image you can never unsee, for better or worse.
If there’s one thing I’d hold against the entire maxiseries is how it dealt with movie characters almost exclusively, which isn’t a bad thing and is more likely to sell comics, but getting tales from characters newly introduced in other comics, novels, or animated shows could’ve broadened the scope of the series, the Ages themselves, and avoided tales full of nothing terribly new in them. Age of Rebellion was hampered by how much we already have on these characters, with issues for Jabba and Vader feeling forgettable or a retread of other material, while Age of Resistance avoided providing anything really new for most of the characters due to the constraint of one final film on its way this December. In the end, hopefully they’ll focus on more obscure or less covered characters if they ever return to this concept.
Here are a few other things:
- At the end of every issue, writers were brought on to do character essays, including Tosche Station’s Bria LaVorgna and Glenn Greenberg, and they were often the perfect distillation of the characters from a behind-the-scenes and meta context.
- Each Age had a different artist for the main covers, and I ended up enjoying the ones from Rebellion’s Terry and Rachel Dodson and Resistance’s Phil Noto the most. Out of the few variants, I thought the concept art covers were a brilliant and fun idea, giving a more public view to work that isn’t guaranteed to be consumed by all Star Wars fans. The official site revealed what the connecting puzzle variant covers by Mike McKone looked like all together.
- Revealed at D23, an updated Star Wars timeline with all the shows and movies in the pipeline has the Age names used here to separate the eras of each trilogy. I’m curious if they got the names from the series or if Lucasfilm already was planning on using that for such a timeline, or something in-between, but it was cool to see regardless; I just really wish it was more readily available in high-def than phone photos at the panel.
Overall, the Age of Star Wars maxiseries was a success, from a stellar opening salvo to wonderful little stories about some of our favorite characters spread throughout, there was fun for everyone, but of course it always felt like it could’ve done more if it didn’t focus on so many well-known characters.
+ Great little character moments throughout
+ Jody Houser’s Age of Republic
+ Some stellar art teams, like Ross and Rosanas
– Constrained by incoming films or already enough material about the character
– Some stories felt like retreads
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
AGE OF RESISTANCE
Finn | Phasma | Special | General Hux | Poe Dameron | Supreme Leader Snoke | Rose Tico | Rey | Kylo Ren | Miniseries Review
AGE OF REBELLION
Princess Leia | Grand Moff Tarkin | Special | Han Solo | Boba Fett | Lando Calrissian | Jabba the Hutt | Luke Skywalker | Darth Vader | Miniseries Review
AGE OF REPUBLIC
Qui-Gon Jinn | Darth Maul | Obi-Wan Kenobi | Jango Fett | Special | Anakin Skywalker | Count Dooku | Padmé Amidala | General Grievous | Miniseries Review