– Spoiler Review –
Crimson Reign #3 looks back to look forward with Qi’ra’s plan against the Sith ruling the galaxy, diving into the enigmatic past of the mysterious Archivist for a dense, informative, and rather enjoyable issue.
Ever since her reveal at the end of War of the Bounty Hunters #5, there’s been tons of questions regarding who exactly the Archivist is, especially after it was revealed the events of Crimson Reign are being told from her POV to two off-panel characters via a holocron-like device. The answer to her background informs us of her actions and plans since we first met her, told in a dense, yet compelling way by writer Charles Soule, where the Archivists’ matter-of-fact retelling and honesty make the story even more intriguing to watch unfold. It turns out the Archivist was Sava Madeline Sun, whose focus was on dark side artifacts like her peer, Sava Korin Pers (mentioned here!), a character introduced in Soule’s Lando miniseries from 2015. Like the other Sava, trading in Force-related artifacts turned from an important, exciting academic focus to the black sheep of the academic world after Order 66, which is when she goes from happy and comfortable to struggling to make ends meet. She admits a lot of it has to do with her unwillingness to let go of her past, of what made her happy and feel important, but those actions allow Qi’ra to swoop in and save her from Imperials messing with Sava Sun’s wares, potentially detaining her for contraband they find. Qi’ra’s sales pitch is something to behold, piggybacking off her comments in issue #2 about knowing people’s motivations allows her to motive them, as she gives Sava Sun just enough information to tease her interests, revealing Palpatine is Darth Sidious and her belief Yoda is alive, to get Sun interested enough to leave her current circumstances.
In an awesome display of how vital research can be to discovering the truth, one of a few interesting real world parallels in the issue, Sava Sun uncovers the Yoda’s hiding location on Dagobah (!), via both her innocuous research and the usage of the striking Ascendant tech item, the Thought Dowser, in an interrogation (the Ascendant and their tech were first introduced in the Doctor Aphra (2020) series!). Instead of running into Yoda on Dagobah, she stumbles into the dark side cave (which has a stellar story in From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back), and due to her Force-sensitivity, she can sense it but not wield it, her visit to the cave has a profound affect on her, turning her from the Sava Sun we see in the past into the blue-ish green woman we met initially. In her visit, we don’t learn exactly what she sees or how the cave literally transformed her, the first time she seemingly withholds information in her recording, but it’s not as important as what she takes away from the experience, claiming it’s the light side of the Force she should’ve been studying this whole, as it’s showed her who she could be if she put her mind to it, believed in herself, and didn’t focus on what she was. She lies to Qi’ra then, claiming Yoda is dead, even though it looks like she’s thought about using knowledge of him to gain Luke’s help since Qi’ra wants a Jedi on her side, and understandably so considering facing Palpatine/Vader is different than Maul for Qi’ra. Does Qi’ra know Sun has lied to her, even though it’s clear she trusts her still and relies on her? How does Sun think she can rule everything herself, as she claims the cave showed her? I’ll be curious how the two seem to part ways to lead to Sun making this recording.
Star Wars has always been tied to real-life politics, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise then they’re missing the point of both George Lucas’ creative decisions and the point of art and media in general, but I found this issue to be particularly interesting and relevant to the world these days, intentional or not by Soule. As Sava Sun tells Qi’ra how the Empire eradicated the memory of the Jedi from the galaxy’s collective consciousness, she centers much of her revelation on Palpatine and the Empire digging into fear, fear from those who didn’t like the Jedi because it revealed their example showed them how they weren’t the best person they could be and fear of retribution for hoping and thinking about the Jedi and their potential return to save the galaxy. Fear is a big way politicians have molded much of the United States’ (and the world’s) response to progress and reality, be it fear of trans individuals/the queer community to help push support for LGBTQIA+ discriminatory bills or fear of some secret deep state/the other side will take away their freedoms to make people believe the election was stolen, or even Putin in Russian seeding disinformation to drive fear of some Nazi-led return in Ukraine that’s led to this terrible, terrible war. Crimson Reign #3 drives home how terrible and evil those ideas are, how evil wielding fear is, tying once again Star Wars’ morals and systems to the real world in a cognizant, relevant way that, so if people don’t believe it’s what this franchise is about, says a lot about them.
I’ve grown to like Steve Cummings art more and more with each issue and Crimson Reign #3 is my favorite so far from the team, which includes Victor Olazaba on inks, Guru-eFX on colors, and Travis Lanham on lettering. There’s something about the quality of Cummings’ art, his own take on Qi’ra’s grin or smile and how it aides her tactful conversations, to all the little details and attention to continuity, like with Sun’s ropy hair, that impresses me so much. Olazaba’s inks bring Cummings’ work into focus, finalizing the particulars in such a way characters look believable, almost life-like, while even stuff like the water splashing on Dagobah has a wet feel to it. Guru-eFX’s colors help shows the gradual change in Sun’s circumstances, be it the bright colors for her room at the University of Bar’leth (also a Doctor Aphra first, though 2016’s series) to the shadowy night time of her hovel after Order 66 flips her life upside down, and the reverse of Qi’ra and her talking in the drab colors of the planet and then stepping onto Qi’ra’s bright room filled with Sun’s future. Lanham’s lettering once again does a damn good job of not feeling cluttered despite the heavy narration, while his SFX feel more dynamic than ever, especially for the Dowser when Sun activates it. One of my favorite panels is the one of Qi’ra standing in Sava Sun’s doorway, in her awesome red outfit plus cape, a smoking blaster in her hand, and her winning smile, as I feel like it captures Qi’ra’s optimism about her plan and belief in what she’s doing. The team’s take on the Dowser honors Minkyu Jung’s work before them, the creepy Dagobah creature was a spooky, weird rathtar-like thing that I wished we had more of, while the little panels of flashbacks were a neat take on familiar scenes.
Here are a few other things:
- The jail Sava Sun visits? The Accresker Jail was first featured in Doctor Aphra (2016), as a place where Aphra is locked up, tries to escape, and Vader’s presence brings the prison to smithereens. Speaking of Aphra, we’re running a 31 Days Challenge on Twitter, which includes giveaways, so join us if you can!
- The pilot Sava Sun interrogates? Jeremoch Colton is the pilot on the Tantive III played by Jeremy Bulloch, aka the original Boba Fett actor, and having him here and having him survive this long (though hopefully he wasn’t on the prison when Aphra’s there) felt like a nice way to honor the actor after his recent passing. It also makes his character into a pilot on the Tantive IV even into Rogue One/A New Hope!
- The little panel of Mas Amedda holding up Yoda’s lightsaber is Cummings’ take on the panel from Soule’s Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith series!
- Starlight Beacon appears in one panel of the Sava talking about the Jedi, a neat little reference to Soule and the other luminous authors’ The High Republic, which just wrapped up its first phase with Soule’s Eye of the Storm comic!
- Crimson Reign #4 will focus on the Knights of Ren and their job in Vader’s Castle on Mustafar, so expect more references to past Soule works, while the solicitation for the grand finale in issue #5 out in May promises what Sava Sun’s told us from issue #1: mess around against Palpatine and find out. After that, The Hidden Empire continues Qi’ra’s story, which Soule recently teased on Twitter, though we don’t have a firm release date yet.
Crimson Reign #3 takes time to explore the Archivist’s history and makes it worth the distraction.
+ Archivist’s history
+ Some real-world takeaways
+ Art continues to impress
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.