– Spoiler Review –
After an intriguing and interesting opening issue, Star Wars (2025) started to slide into too much tell and not enough show through issues #2-5. And then it ran into the limits of Marvel’s less than brilliant plan with truncated runs, leaving the final group of issues, #6-10, an unfortunate victim where conveniences, shortcuts, and a rushed ending are all fans were left with.
In a way, writer Alex Segura technically did get 22 issues, but The Battle of Jakku and Star Wars (2025) are so starkly different, with only a few threads linking them together, it’s hard to count them as combined run. I’ve enjoyed his writing before, in the Poe Dameron early days novel, and think he had some good ideas here, but truly Marvel’s new sales margin calculus for stories continuing or not did this series a disservice. In case you’re unaware, Marvel is basically hiring for 10-issue stories and reassesses after they consider the sales of issue #5, with the reassessment either being more issues or you’re cut off at issue #10. And if all the sales of the related comics aren’t doing well, you don’t even get the full 10-issues, like what obviously must’ve happened with Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent. I went over the how and why this is such a limiting and destructive practice in-depth for my 2025 Star Wars Comics Year-In-Review, but in short, Star Wars (2025) is a prime example of how it’s hurt not just creatives and the stories they tell, but fans as well.
By the end of Star Wars #10 (2025), all we’re left with is more questions than answers and a sense of disconnection. What was Reyna Oskure’s motivations other than just being the evil character of the story? More like her name should be Obscure, am I right?! (And I’m not saying my theory Atha Prime was going to be behind all this would’ve helped, but it just might’ve!) Why did Venk join up with Reyna and subjugate her people and why should we care if she just dies anyways? Who are the Pirrosi or the Fenril Consortium? What are their histories with galactic politics throughout the ages? Who are they as a people, as a culture? How bad was the situation on Nagi that they could so easily be subjugated in the first place? We know it’s been going on for a while, but what led to it? Who are the Nagi as a people? What were Rynn Zenat and Preeti like as a couple, especially in peace? Who was Bastion and what was she like other than badass who died too disappointingly? And how did she put so many convenient trackers on everyone to make sure the good guys and the bad guys clashed as quickly as possible? Who was Alomar as a leader beyond manipulated into thinking a deal with Reyna would be the best to help her people? And why did she have to die too before we got those answers? And what was Garlev’s dream for the Nagai, how did he arrive on it, and what inspired him? How come we kept getting new proper noun characters like every issue, though the many reunions and introductions were unnatural and fell flat? And what do you mean, Reyna used her Anzati abilities on Rynn in The Battle of Jakku?!? There’s no hint this happened, I went back and reread that issue.
10 issues is a limiting space to tell such a big and complex story, so there was no way we were going to get all the answers to some or any of the questions above, but without some answers, the amount of disconnect, lack of details, and zero background led to a complete lack of stakes in the story. We know who has plot armor, so it was on the shoulders of the new characters to build our interest in the story and the stakes, yet without knowing them, it was next to impossible for them to keep us engaged. In fact, most of the new characters died, often violently, and the most disappointingly of all, they were largely all female characters. Venk gets executed by Valance so Han’s conscious stays clean. Bastion gets shot in the forehead by a sudden lucky shot by the bad guys that was supposed to show the level of the stakes but instead distracted with its calloused dispatch of a character we hardly knew/one of the few new female characters. And Alomar, the leader of the Pirrosi, is sliced to death by Reyna’s taloned claws, just as she brokered peace with the New Republic (only for a male Pirrosi delegate we never met until issue #10 to step in and get to do the full honors). It’s an egregious amount of marginalized characters who die in this series and it only feeds into the bigger problem facing Star Wars, and Star Wars comics in particular, given how stagnant the overall diversity numbers are for them, something I also go over in detail in my 2025 Star Wars Comics Year-in-Review. Yet what makes these losses sting more is how one can’t help but leave issue #10 with one big question: but what were all their deaths for? Stopping the New Republic from succumbing to war so shortly after attaining peace post-Jakku? Given we didn’t see how much the larger galaxy seemed to care or not about the situation with the Fenril Consortium and it all felt so narrow in size since it really only came down to Nagai being the sole place torn between two sides, was the New Republic’s peace really on the line? It never quite felt like it and therefore made these deaths stand out even more as something to shock the reader to care. But what are you going to do when you only have 10 issues to try and tell such a large tale with so many new characters and places?
A shining light in the second half of the series, which it picked up from teases in the opening half, was the relationship between Han Solo and Beilert Valance. I know they never directly addressed previous events or attempted to unpack them, but this pair worked very well under Segura’s script. Through Valance, we got to see how much Han has changed, as Valance is able to compare him to his early days while showing us what Han could still be had he not embraced his new life. Star Wars (2025) tried this with other characters, but it never quite took off like Han and Valance did. Rynn and Luke were a fine pairing, but it was hard to connect to Rynn as we didn’t get to know her much, while Luke here felt a little off at times, especially if he rushed into a fight and cut down foes without a second thought, yet he’s the one who urges Rynn not to kill Reyna when she has the chance (and the Crown of Verity being able to do what it does to Reyna doesn’t quite make sense). And while it was nice Leia and Mon Mothma were paired together, talking about what they want the New Republic to be remembered for in these early years, it felt hollow without more people around, as by now the New Republic wasn’t simply just run solely by them. I hope any future stories set in this era, and before the events of the Mando-verse shows and film, get to concentrate more on these characters and less on being a big event story, as I think there’s a lot more to unpack about what happened than trying to make a galaxy-level crisis appear again and again.
It really felt like Marvel wasn’t that invested in finishing the series off either, switching up artists throughout the back half of the run, but at least they all brought something unique and memorable to the table. Phil Noto finished off his time on the series, outside of making all the main covers, in issue #6. I think seeing Han, Valance, and Luke in clone trooper armor was a fun visual, especially as they face Separatist droids. Yet the best moment is when we get a panel split down the middle, the images an inverse of one another, where on the left we have Luke jumping at a set of droids, green saber above his head and in armor, and then we have Anakin Skywalker on the other side, same pose and same droids, yet holding his blue saber and in his clone wars armor (and same fog so heavily used in the Ahsoka vision sequences, which felt like a weird choice). Luke is like his father, for better or worse, and this showcased the good way Luke could be like him in a memorable, quick, and small way. For issues #7 & #8, Pete Woods took over and brought with him a very dynamic and stylized look, with hard, big angles that were a little distracting but did give a better impression of larger stakes in the story. Take an early splash in issue #7 for example. In it, Jesrit, a Nagai, is leading the charge against their aggressors, and Woods has our perspective as one looking up at her, from a bit of an angle, with what looks like a lens trick used for films/TV called the “dolly zoom,” like we’re starting wide viewed and zooming in. Caramagna has a big “thwack” that crackles as Jesrit knocks down a foe, while the angle makes the battle far bigger and more important than it did in the story. For issue #9, Ramon Rosanas, with colorist Chris Sotomayor, took over. Rosanas brought some of his work from the recent Han Solo: Hunt for the Falcon by drawing in the same Chandrilan home for the Solos as he did in the miniseries; I appreciate the synergy! I also felt like Reyna looked the most intimidating in this issue, as she’s a little too over-the-top in most other ones, but here she feels grounded, which makes her more deadly. And lastly, free from Legacy of Vader after its excellent 12th issue, Luke Ross brought his signature style to the series’ finale alongside more of Sotomayor’s colors. Ross does a great job packing panels full of debris, laser blasts, and plenty of characters, doing his best to make the story’s small little gathering of Oskure’s still loyal forces and Luke’s team feel big and explosive. The splash of the debris raining down, Sotomayor’s vivid reds on the flames blazingly stark against the dusty ground around our heroes, while the group, minus Jesrit, huddles closer to avoid being hit, definitely feels chaotic. The way Reyna shrivels up was a wonderful homage to the ending of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, showcasing how Reyna choose poorly. The desiccation, and the grey Sotomayor whips up, is a scary look that almost makes you want to feel bad for her. Almost.
Here are a few other things:
- Huge shoutout to letting us have Preeti and Rynn kiss, as them being a couple didn’t always feel like a thing in the series, so this was a nice reminder. Too bad it was more like The Rise of Skywalker‘s representation than how far Doctor Aphra often went. To think, it might be the only non-heterosexual kiss we’ll see visually in Star Wars if they don’t bring back Aphra and/or neuter her again.
- As you see above, Star Wars #10 (2025) has the second and final Black History Month Variant cover of 2026. I enjoy the fact we have characters like Keeve Trennis, Cere Junda, and Saw Gerrera all mixed in together for this second half of the connecting covers.
Star Wars #6-10 (2025) brings what was supposed to be the big new era of comics storytelling to a less than thrilling or memorable ending, stumbling not only on some of its own tangled ideas, but the limiting nature of the new normal of shorter comics.
+ Han and Valance
+ The various art teams bring a little gift for these final issues
– Lack of context dulls the stakes
– Marginalized character deaths and the sinking feeling it was all for naught
– All tell, no show
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky.