Star Wars Adventures #21 Review

Writers: Cavan Scott, Shane McCarthy

Artist: Derek Charm, Nicoletta Baldari

Letterer: Tom B. Long

Publisher: IDW
 

The main story in this issue of Adventures is the first of a trilogy of stories set during the Original Trilogy era, following up on the previous trilogy of stories set in the Prequel Trilogy era. This story focuses on Han and Luke just after the events of A New Hope. The backup from Shane McCarthy and Nicoletta Baldari focuses on Kabe, one of the characters from the Cantina in that film.

The main story is a classic Cavan Scott/Derek Charm series. The characters are all appropriate, the continuity is solid, the story is enjoyable enough, and the art is good. I will always be impressed by Scott's workload when it comes to Star Wars. He regularly writes stories for Adventures, is currently working on a Return to Vader's Castle miniseries, just finished a full length audio drama (Dooku: Jedi Lost), is one of the authors assigned to the mysterious Project Luminous due out next year, and was just announced to be writing yet another Choose Your Own Adventure book for the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker publishing line. This story itself is about par for the course for Adventures, in a good way. Nothing particularly remarkable but a nice all-ages story.

The backup story is pretty adorable. I immediately recognized Baldari's memorably cute artstyle from the Rose & Paige comic in the Forces of Destiny miniseries and the character of Kabe is a great choice for that style. She's definitely an artist that I wouldn't mind seeing on a more regular basis. The story, again, isn't anything that surprising but it's a solid story that kids and adults can enjoy.

I think I'm looking forward to the next couple of issues a bit more because they will be set in the time period between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which is vastly more unexplored than the time period from this issue and has a bit more open storytelling potential. Still, this issue was a nice regular installment in a series that I look forward to every month. Not everything has to have big stakes or big implications, it's nice to have a series that's just for fun all-ages tales.