Star Wars Adventures #18 Review

Writers: Delilah Dawson, Michael Moreci

Artists: Derek Charm, Arianna Florean, Adele Matera

Letterer: Tom B. Long

Publisher: IDW

With this issue, Adventures continues its streak of telling great stories aimed at the younger side of the Star Wars fandom. I really love that Adventures exists to tell stories from all over the timeline with every character (whether they’re from film, TV, or other parts of the expanded universe). They don’t have to be big galaxy-changing events, they’re just fun little stories that everyone can get some enjoyment out of.
 

The primary story of the issue is about Padmé and Jar Jar, the first in a trio of stories featuring team ups between prequel trilogy characters. It was written by Delilah S. Dawson, a veteran Star Wars writer who has written for the series before and is currently working on her next Star Wars novel. I really loved her previous Adventures story, an adorable backup about porgs, so I had faith in this story going in.

The story starts when Jar Jar seeks Queen Amidala’s help in finding a legendary Gungan relic for Boss Nass. The two must go into the depths of Naboo’s swamps to find and recover the relic. It’s not a huge story but it is a nice and fun one. I enjoyed it more than the main story about Kaz from the previous issue and the ending is a fun twist. There isn’t too much more to say about it. Charm’s art is pretty good for the most part, there are a couple of especially memorable panels. Having recently finished Queen’s Shadow, a novel about Padmé transitioning from queen to senator coming out next month, it was cool to get a story about her in this era while she’s still queen.

The backup story was the big one for me. As I’ve mentioned in every review I’ve done for the line, I’m a big fan of Moreci’s Flight of the Falcon run. This story, the story of Gannis Ducain, is the one I’ve been most excited for since it was solicited and it really paid off. This is the first Flight of the Falcon story that fills in a big previously unexplored gap in the timeline. I think it’s really cool that Lucasfilm allowed this story to be told in Adventures at all, it’s arguably the biggest story the entire series has gotten.

Ducain’s story subverts every expectation about him that I’ve had for the last three years. With the way the story ends, I really hope we get to see Ducain pop up in certain stories later this year. There’s some great continuity in this issue too, the easter eggs Moreci slips in always make me happy to spot (one continuity snarl with Lando’s Luck is a little disappointing but not a big deal and it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story at all). Florean’s art is solid as always. Overall this was probably my favorite Flight of the Falcon backup so far.

Much as I like Milo and his crew, I’m sad that this is our last Flight of the Falcon story and things will be back to normal next issue. I could have taken another dozen of these stories. I still hope to see Moreci on more stories in the future, and I’m really excited to see how this run ends next month with the big one shot.