Star Wars Volume 1: Skywalker Strikes
December 2018
Dave
Dave
Author:
Jason Aaron
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Artist:
John Cassaday
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Colourist:
Laura Martin
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Publisher:
Marvel
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Publication Date:
8th Oct 2015
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RRP:
£16.99 / $19.99
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Whilst I do enjoy comics, I am playing catch-up on the Star Wars graphic novel collections. Alex is much more ahead of me when it comes to reading the comics, I tend to want to wait until the comics come out as collections so I can devour chunks of the story rather than drip feeding myself one comic at a time. As a result, I am always behind. That said, it has taken me 3 years since this was released to get my hands on it! Thanks to my wife for getting me this for Christmas.
As it’s been three years since the book’s release I will include some spoilers – so be warned. This is 160 pages of the collected first six comics of the ‘Star Wars’ series. This story immediately follows on from the movie, A New Hope, and continues the adventures of Luke Skywalker (as the name implies). The story opens with a daring plan by Leia, Luke and Han (backed up by Chewie and the droids) to infiltrate and destroy an Imperial weapons factory. As you can imagine, things go south when Vader arrives at the same facility whilst the rebels are on-site. Over the next few pages we see: Chewie attempt to assassinate Vader, Vader and Luke face off for the first time with lightsabres (hint: Luke doesn’t do that well, loses his lightsabre and Vader then uses the weapon against Luke and the rebels), Han and Leia steal an AT-AT and Vader uses the Force to dismantle the AT-AT! Luke and rebels do manage to blow up the facility and escape, but Luke is left feeling weak and inadequate following his encounter with Vader. Now, I also have the collected volumes of Darth Vader (vols 1 to 4) which follows Vader’s story in the same time period, and one thing I do love about these graphic novels is that they overlap. In the Vader books Vader pays a visit to Jabba, ostensibly for the Emperor, but also with his own agenda – he is looking to hire bounty hunters to track down the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and the Skywalker book carries forward this story with Boba Fett hunting for clues as to the pilot’s identity (tip: its Luke Skywalker!). By doing this Marvel (and Lucasfilm) are greatly expanding the canon of Star Wars and creating a more joined together storyline. As such I can’t recommend enough the graphic novels. You can finish one off in the space of half an hour and the result is a great romp in the style of classic Star Wars but also a fantastic piece of storytelling (thank you Jason Aaron) that ties together established canon (we see in this volume how Vader discovers that it’s a Skywalker who destroyed the Death Star) whilst bringing in some brilliant new twists (Solo’s wife?!?!?!?). As well as the brilliant story itself, credit has to be given to John Cassaday for his fantastic artwork, bringing the story to life and Laura Martin for her work adding in the ‘technicolor’ we expect from a Star Wars story. The artwork is simply stunning – there are some wonderful illustrations throughout the volume and my personal favourite is at the end of book 4 where we have a small panel of Luke in his X-Wing cockpit with helmet and goggles on, which just instantly transports you to A New Hope when Luke is flying to destroy the Death Star – the artwork is just so good. Further through the book we get a chance to see Luke and Boba face off – brilliant, and the early stages of the courtship of Leia by Han (until his wife makes an appearance!). Now I have read volume 1, I have to get volume 2 – if nothing else just so I can find out more about Han’s wife. This is a brilliant graphic novel, lots of action, great character development, and a really good story. Whilst I do already have a few graphic novels, I can see this part of my collection growing. |