– Spoiler Review –
Qi’ra is officially back and in a big way, as the head of Crimson Dawn, and her plans for the galaxy are only getting started after the events of the War of the Bounty Hunters crossover. With Crimson Reign #1, writer Charles Soule continues her story, revealing her ultimate plans and those she’s teamed up with to see them unfold, promising an epic-sized miniseries ahead.
With the auction for the frozen Han Solo over with, as seen across the expansive crossover WotBH, the galaxy knows Crimson Dawn is back, but it was never quite clear what exactly Qi’ra intended to do with the organization by the miniseries’ end. In Crimson Reign #1, Qi’ra’s years of scheming and placing contacts and spies deep within organizations across the galaxy since we last saw her in Solo: A Star Wars Story have paid off, as her ambitious plans begin. Telling those assembled before her, teased in War of the Bounty Hunters #5, Qi’ra unveils her plans: killing Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, picking up from Maul’s own designs to do so. Whereas Maul was focused on revenge though, Qi’ra is instead focused on leveling the playing field and giving freedom back to the galaxy, as she can’t stand someone like Palpatine holding all the power, making choices for everyone, forcing the galaxy to adhere to his vision; going after the top 1% of the top 1%, as it were (had to sneak in a Mr. Robot reference). I wish this plan had been mentioned in the previous miniseries, as it’s not the most surprising concept for Qi’ra to take up as the head of Crimson Dawn, so I question why they had to play so secretive with it for as long as they did. Either way, it’s compelling and intriguing to see Qi’ra take up this mission, as the desire to prevent someone like Palpatine taking power from others stems from her own past, from her time with the White Worms to being swept into the Dawn’s servitude, an organization allowed to fester under the Emperor’s rule. Qi’ra wants the galaxy’s power to ebb and flow, no one group truly in charge (or so she says), so she’s not quite fighting the Empire like the Rebellion is, attempting to restore the Republic/forming a new government, but rather fighting the Empire/its Sith overlords for a galaxy where she can keep her station and hopefully foster more equality so others like her, scrumrats once, can also have a chance to be free and not be under someone else’s thumbs.
We know she’s unsuccessful, even though the Empire crumbles slowly after the Emperor dies by Vader’s hands and Vader by his lightning, but how will her plans affect the galaxy regardless as it heads towards those events? How will she shake up the criminal underworld? What will the lasting effect of her and her minions’ actions be? Crimson Reign promises one outcome: the fall of Crimson Dawn, as the framing narration teases the tragic end. The issue starts with two unknown individuals accessing the Archivist’s holocron, a mysterious Force-sensitive woman, where she proceeds to tell the tale of Qi’ra’s machinations as the head of Crimson Dawn, overlaying deadly warnings for what’s to come as Qi’ra happily believes her plan might just work. Will we ever find out who accessed the holocron, specifically with the light side of the Force? How does Crimson Dawn fall but Qi’ra continue, as promised by the fact she’s back for The Hidden Empire, the final piece of her comic’s trilogy return? This aspect, knowing tragedy will strike for her plans beyond even what we could already guess from Return of the Jedi, adds an ominous feeling to the proceedings, a sense of impending doom that I am eager and, for Qi’ra’s sake, frightened to see drop as the series continues. Regardless, I’m just damn happy this actually feels like Qi’ra’s story, as we finally dig into her reasons for returning and she takes center stage for most of the issue…let’s just hope this keeps it up!
Beyond the Dawn, Qi’ra’s arrayed a wide variety of misfits and outcasts to carry out the plan to kill the Sith Lords: Chanatha Cha and the Orphans, the Knights of Ren, the assassins Deathstick and Ochi of Bestoon, and the Archivist. Each one has their own mission, their own part of the plan, and while we only get teases for most of them, we see the Orphans’ part (for now) and what Qi’ra’s actions with the auction helped facilitate. Qi’ra visits Lord Gyuti of Black Sun, spinning an elaborate tale about Crimson Dawn not wanting to compete with them, down playing their resources, but willing to loan its services and contacts out to any syndicate that needs them, potentially helping said syndicate land a lucrative position with the Empire, as Qi’ra claims is looking for a new partner amongst the syndicates after the betrayal of the Hutts above Jekara. Qi’ra set the Hutt ‘betrayal’ in motion when activating her agent Bokku the Hutt, whose actions caused the Emperor to send Vader to wipe out the Hutt council, Jabba slithering his way back to Tatooine and out of the Empire’s sights. Her tale of the Empire looking for a new partner in crime (couldn’t help myself) is convincing…if her fellow Dawn members Margo and Trinia weren’t spinning the same tale to other syndicates, like Papa Toren (a Soule favorite, from his Lando comic to the Poe Dameron series) and the Pyke Syndicate. In step the Orphans, meant to sow chaos amongst the syndicates by attacking them discretely, first a Black Sun facility hidden on Dantooine* and then, as the syndicates start going after one another blaming each other over subsequent attacks, they attack more to keep the chaos alive and thriving. It ends up weakening the other organizations, dividing their interests, and brings the wrath of the Empire down on them.
The Orphans, led by Chanatha Cha, was easily one of my most anticipated aspects of the series, as I’ve been a fan of Chanatha since she first appeared in Lando. Soule wrote all her previous appearances and sums up enough for any reader to know her and her past, and I was glad he was able to explore a smidgen more here. In the Lando miniseries, we see Cha as an agent of the Empire, a bounty hunter on Ol’ Palpy’s speed dial even, and in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith the moment Vader kills her parents and gains her compliance afterwards unfolds, which she tells her fellow Orphans about. She dives a little more into what her parent’s death did to her, taking her heart, and it was interesting to hear her reveal she’s been trying to kill Vader ever since, joining with Qi’ra because maybe with her resources she can accomplish the vengeance. She still has a heart to some extent considering her relationship with Lobot (before he’s under the thrall of the implants), but it makes sense her parent’s death and her shattered heart from that would be different, while I doubt them still being together would’ve held her back from her mission. The other Orphans, three other women, one of them a droid, also get some background here, but considering how much heavy lifting Crimson Reign #1 provides, their interactions are enjoyable but leave me wanting more; still, it was awesome to have a group of woman of color to feature so prominently in a comic. Sear, the one with the fire decals on her armor, doesn’t talk much, though with Imara Vex we learn she hasn’t seen her parents since she was a little child, and the droid Ladybright is the last of her manufacturing line. Vex stars in the upcoming Star Wars: Hunters multiplayer, arena-combat game, so this peels back the some of her mystery and shows off her capabilities with an impressive shot, while Bright’s design reminded me of the superhero Robot in Invincible and I liked her sass. I do hope we get more time with the Orphans as they felt underdeveloped due to the condensed time we had with them and their mission.
The other groups have their own missions, from a heist of Vader’s Castle by the Knights of Ren, assassinations by Ochi and Deathstick, Jedi wrangling by the Archivist, and Qi’ra reaching out to the Rebellion to pull them into the plan, which is quite the elaborate mixture and I’ll be curious to see how it all works together for Qi’ra’s goal of taking down the Sith, even if it ends up failing. Why would these various groups join and help Qi’ra though? It’s definitely been a question since they were all found on her ship in WotBH #5, and the issue begins answering it, first by Qi’ra pointing out what Palpatine’s plans took from each group arrayed before her, and then that while they shouldn’t trust her, together they can get back or take vengeance for what was taken from them. It’s a solid, honest way to rope people in, as I’m sure Qi’ra knows as much about them as she does all her targets, and thus picked them for a vulnerability she could exploit to her own ends, unsurprising for her but at least she’s trying to help them in the process, I guess.
The Archivist narrates us through a few pages with each of the groups after the Orphans: with the Knights of Ren, we get two pages, Ren and one of the Knights sparring, talking about teaming up with her. She needs them to steal something specific from the Castle and promises them the remaining spoils, while Ren likes the legend it’ll grow around their group. The group was first explored in detail in Soule’s The Rise of Kylo Ren; Ochi, far more muted and distant that his Deadpool-like appearances in Darth Vader (Vol. 3), utters how he’s seen the light as he sits by a fire, creating the blade Rey Skywalker will find in The Rise of Skywalker. He saw his death, aka the light, when traveling with Vader to Exegol, so he’s not been worried about what will happen to him since, probably why he’s working both sides right now. He’ll get more time in the upcoming novel, Shadow of the Sith; Deathstick’s scene has the Archivist revealing Qi’ra’s target for her is one no else would consider taking, so I can’t wait to see who it ends up being; while the Archivist downplays her part in everything, or so I’m curious about since she is the narrator of this story, and her scenes reveal she’s thinking of using Yoda as a lure to either get Jedi to the Dawn’s cause or bring out the Sith, I wasn’t totally sure. Either way, I was curious if this connects to a scene in Star Wars #19 (Vol. 2), also written by Soule that released the same day as this issue, but we should know very soon as #20 of that series releases later this month.
It’s a dense issue, full of exposition, forward motion, and obviously tons to talk about, but we can’t forget to talk about the art!! Steven Cummings, alongside GURU-eFX for colors and Travis Lanham on lettering, provide some truly fantastic art that brings a unique style but brings a classic Star Wars feel to the proceedings. My favorite aspect to the art is Cummings’ Qi’ra, as while he doesn’t try to completely recreate Emilia Clarke’s face, he does capture little subtle looks, from grins to calm confidence, that belie the scheming underneath while also highlighting her ability for showladyship. It’s definitely my favorite Qi’ra since she’s returned in comics, as it’s less about the big splashes or big gestures anymore and now it’s about capturing all the little moments for her as well, adding to the sense Crimson Reign really is her story. The whole sequence of panels with the Orphans attacking the facility, be it Chanatha activating her shield and the little panels showing the deflections hitting the facility’s defenders, Sear’s shouting and her voluminous flamethrower (hence the fire decals on her armor), and Imara’s series of panels setting up to her shooting down the fleeing Black Sun ship, loading the special bullet, taking aim, firing, looking away, and then ship exploding in the distance. Cummings’ Palpatine is ghastly, in a good, spooky way, while I loved the haunted look to the blind Ochi and the reveal of Deathstick’s metal jaw. I wanna start by saying I loved Guru-eFX’s colors for the three Black women in the issue, as instead of using a lighter tone, he ensures their melanin levels don’t leave any ambiguity, which hasn’t always been the case in the comics and is important so fans can more easily see themselves in these characters. The clear color changes between environments and scenes helped with a lot of the place jumping, making it quick and easy to tell the location had changed without even seeing the lettering boxes telling readers, with the Emperor’s throne being the spookiest of the looks. Lanham’s lettering had a lot to deal with due to all the exposition, with the pink shadows under the Archivist’s narration a small but appreciated touch to tell us who’s talking. I liked the lack of SFX for the ship exploding by Imara’s shot, as it’s that far away you can’t even hear it anymore, and then a few panels later Sear’s destruction of the other one gets a giant “thooom” due to the closeness of the explosion.
Here are a few other things:
- With everything else above, what else is there to talk about, you might ask? How about the first real canon mention of a member of Black Sun popular from Legends: Prince Xizor! Black Sun’s appearances in The Clone Wars never included him and most fans have been curious when/if we’d ever see him again, so when they made their presence known in the War of the Bounty Hunters, it seemed like it might finally happen. He’s one of the questionable aspects to Shadows of the Empire, the multimedia project that was Legends’ version for what happened between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but his legacy as a character remained. If they ever bring him back to prominence, hopefully they do so in a less problematic way.
- *The lettering for the location the Orphans attack says they are above Dantooine but when Gyuti is told about the attack it’s said to be on Lothal. Considering Soule had Luke visiting Lothal in Star Wars #19, maybe he mixed the two up, as I imagine Sabine Wren would not have allowed Black Sun to start a secretive lab under her watch over Lothal, so I’m going to assume it was actually Dantooine until they clear it up…though it won’t really matter in the end.
Crimson Reign #1 is a dense and expansive start to the middle chapter of Qi’ra’s return, introducing tons of compelling and interesting threads for the story ahead, though it comes at the expense of some characters.
+ Qi’ra’s Story
+ Wide, intriguing cast
+ Lots of potential and questions
+ Art delivers Qi’ra’s scheming
– Density gets in the way of characters
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.