Star Wars #66 Review

Writer: Kieron Gillen

Artist: Angel Unzueta

Letterer: Clayton Cowles

Publisher: Marvel

This issue is the fifth installment of the Scourging of Shu-Torun arc, Kieron Gillen's swan song on the Star Wars series that he's been writing for almost thirty issues now. Leia's retaliatory attack on Shu-Torun has gone awry thanks to both Queen Trios and Benthic with his Partisans. The rebels have to figure out a way to regain control of their plan from Benthic, defeat Trios, and escape from the planet before the Empire can arrive and capture them. 

While it wasn't perfect, this may have been my favorite issue of the arc so far. The issue gave me my first surprise of the arc with Trios being defeated in the penultimate issue rather than the finale. I was taken aback by this and initially found it anticlimactic. Trios has been the driving force of a lot of Gillen's run and is most of the reason for Leia wanting to attack Shu-Torun. Having Leia defeat her in the second to last issue seemed like an odd choice. After thinking about it more, I don't mind it much. Clearly the focus of the final issue will be on Benthic as the actual final boss (I don't think Kanchar is prominent or interesting enough to serve as the true antagonist of the finale). I will miss Trios a bit. I was never her biggest fan but she was an interesting parallel to Leia and her development.

My general nitpicks with the arc still remain. SCAR's presence being entirely indirect and offscreen is disappointing even if I can understand Gillen keeping his finale to his own characters. That said I don't have much attachment to many of Gillen's characters, especially Kanchar. The stuff in the Spire with Luke, R2, Benthic, and the Partisans was probably my favorite part of the issue.

I've been an increasingly vocal critic of Angel Unzueta's art this arc but I was surprised by the fact that I didn't really find it distracting this issue. It still isn't my favorite but it never took me out of the story like it has done in the past. I'm a bit sad that Broccardo will not be doing the ending of this arc like the ending of the previous arc but if the quality is where it was in this issue I don't think I'll mind much. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how the arc ends. It hasn't been my favorite arc of Gillen's but it has been a reasonably satisfying conclusion to a story that's been running for just over a year and a half now. The final issue should bring a nice conclusion to the long run, and I wouldn't mind a bit of a lead in to Greg Pak's run on the series that starts with issue #68. I can't wait to see what he does with the series because I've been thoroughly enjoying his work on Age of Rebellion for the most part.