Star Wars #5

I made a realization about Star Wars this issue and it's kind of disappointing. I realized that I am probably not going to see a lightsaber used by anyone. Unless they make someone else a Jedi or go over Empire Strikes Back, and frankly, those are both scenarios that are worse than not seeing a lightsaber in this comic.

Brian Wood has been doing a great job with this book. I spent a large portion of my childhood reading the X-Wing novels, so the whole premise of a secret X-Wing squadron and the fact that there are a lot of dogfights in this book holds such a massive appeal to me.

The 14 year old in me gets so unreasonably excited when I read about daring maneuvers by people piloting Incom's T-65 X-Wing that the 24 year old me can't help but get excited too. And no, I didn't have to look that up. I know the company that makes the X-Wing.

The biggest problem I have with the writing is that it is so hard to introduce new things and make me care about them. I know that none of the characters that show up can really have a big personal impact. There is a character that is set up to be some sort of romantic interest for Luke, but I know nothing really important can come of it.

Considering that there is no mention of her in Empire Strikes Back, she obviously couldn't have been too important, right?

That's really the only problem I have with the writing though. The dialogue is pretty natural, the pacing is great in this issue and pretty much every character you could love that shows up in A New Hope is in here.

Visually, this book is still very consistent. I still have the same problem I had before that Han, Luke and Leia don't stack up to the other characters. Which is a shame, because Carlos D'Anda is quite good. There is a panel that has Han dealing with a new character, and the new character looks really good, but Han looks a bit off. The only reason is I know what Han should look like. It's a hurdle that I don't think will be overcome, honestly.

There is a problem with all the dogfights in the book and that's that they aren't as visually dynamic when it comes to dialogue. In a novel, it doesn't matter that everyone looks the same in a flight suit. In a comic though, it gets a little boring.

There is a page where about a third of it is four panels that look almost the same, even though there are 3 people talking in them. The amount of facial detail you can show when everyone is wearing a big helmet and visor is pretty slim, which makes it hard to track who is who.

However, someone had the great idea to give different colored accents on their helmets. It really goes a long way to keeping straight who is who while they're piloting against Imperial forces.