Marvel’s Star Wars (2015) Volumes 1 and 2 Review

The force is with you young Skywalker. But you

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-Man? Yeah, sure. DC superheroes like Batman,

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pull bag. you Hello and welcome to

episode 377 of The Pullback. I am of course TF2

and Mike. Joining me as always, Ryan the Unevenflomerically.

Hello sir. It's December, it's Christmas time,

and it's also Star Wars time. No, it's Expanse

time. Oh, yes, but... Season 4. Anyway. Uh, and

as I said in episode 376, um, and probably in

376 .5, this will be the final episode of the

year. I wanted to get this show to episode 380

this year, but it just could not happen with

the here -end plans that my lovely wife and I

decided to enact. So, as you're - as you - I

mean, to be fair, you didn't have a whole lot

of choice. Well, no. When you say decided to

enact it doesn't not exactly true No, but still

Some action had to be taken so By the time you

folks are hearing this in middle of December

2019 this decade is almost over this year is

almost over and we are now living in future,

even though we're recording it fast. Uh, and

as I said, 377 is all about Star Wars, the 2015

series, once again. Oh shit, I read Star Trek

in a while. I'm going to reach through this computer

and choke the shit out of you. There was no Star

Trek 25th, anyway, whatever. Sure there was.

Star Trek Green Lantern. Anyway, we already covered

that. So this is the 2015 Star Wars series from

Marvel written by Jason Perrin. Yay. Yay. Artist

is John Cassidy. The colorist is Laura Martin.

Lettering is done by Chris... Eliopoulos? I hope

I said that right. Probably screwed it up. The

cover art for volume one is done by John Cassidy.

And this is to continue our Marvel Star Wars

coverage that we started with Star Wars Darth

Vader. And this is obviously the main series.

Six issues in this, not traditional five, but

six. The first story here is Skywalker Strikes.

And basically this is right after Right after

a new hope same era as the Darth Vader series

took place in which is nice and a Alright so

I haven't read a lot of the books I've read some

of the books but definitely not a lot of them

but in terms of media and In terms of you know,

this is post Disney's Purchase of Star Wars in

terms of Canon or Whatever you want to call it,

I guess media. This is an unexplored time and

I admit I am an unabashed Huge fan of Jason Aaron

and I probably wouldn't have been picking these

up in issues As it was running if he wasn't the

writer, right? But I'm glad I did. So anyway,

yeah And this is right after a new hope, essentially.

Because I try really hard to lose my voice. Please

don't do that. But it's in the shadow. Some of

the listeners probably hope I do. You used to.

Hey! Hey! Wait a second here! Come on now. This

is the last podcast of the year. It doesn't mean

you have to bring up old crap that I know I was

wrong. Hello? Man, I'm funny. Not really. This

is following our heroes, Han, Leia, Chewie, the

droids, our villain, Darth Vader, and that Luke

guy who's fairly important. That kid Luke who

doesn't seem to realize he's a Jedi. Well, he

knows he has the potential, but he realizes that

he's untrained, which, all right, so storyline

wise. I'll quickly kind of sum up the issues

because I want to get into certain things more.

But storyline wise, this is the story of Luke

and co after continuing to try to as Leia puts

it, you know, continue the momentum and kind

of beat down the empire when they've got the

opportunity post post blowing up a Death Star.

Right. And this originally the takes place with

the rebels taking on a reactor and it just so

happens that Vader is there he's the negotiator

quote -unquote to speak with the emissaries from

the Hut or from Java specifically who of course

are actually the rebels and that's how this all

goes down in the shadow of this is Luke's realization

that he's not even slightly ready Yeah, I don't

get into that more in a little bit but That's

sort of what this series and Luke's arc in the

second book that will cover but we'll get that

in a little bit is about My favorite thing in

this first issue My favorite thing in this first

issue is Chewbacca as a sniper hmm Okay. Awesome.

I thought that was super cool. My favorite bit

of the whole thing. I really liked, like I said,

this is somewhat unexplored territory. I think

for a lot of people who are reading it and who

maybe didn't read the books or that kind of stuff.

I just really like seeing Luke's I want to say

progression because he he doesn't gain much in

this series. It's the next trade that he kind

of he at least picks up some more basics, but.

I just really like this error, this time frame

is a cool time to put it because you've got Luke,

he knows. The. Super basics of the force, essentially.

And that's about it. He doesn't know much more

than what he knew in Star Wars. Yeah, he can

barely keep himself alive, essentially. Pretty

much, yeah. And I just really like that. It's

like you say, we get these jumps in the movies

between one and Empire. He's learned a little

bit, not a whole lot. And then it's between Empire

and Return that suddenly he's He's pretty much

got it What I love about this comic book series

is It's not taking away from what that first

film was it isn't even at least this first trade

is not even trying to set up Aiming towards Empire.

It's building upon What's already there? So like

you're saying he's still green in this he's still

trying to you know Have some sort of self -confidence

He's still trying to find himself within the

force and figure it out. And that's great. You

can tell an original story without having to

go back and, you know, tell the movie in a comic

form. Well, I feel like it works well with the

Vader series too, because Vader, you get the

confidence of he can wander into a room and he

knows he's a Jedi or a Sith. Lord and like nobody's

gonna be able to beat him and then you've got

Luke who keeps saying like I'm not a Jedi I can't

do this and he's very unsure of himself obviously

and Yeah, it's just they're complete opposites

and it works really well with the two of them

Should know much like the Vader series, but probably

more so because we obviously have more faces

in this Cassidy's are just fantastic His art's

always been good. His issues always been hitting

deadlines. But he captures the actor's likenesses

perfectly. Which, I mean, nothing would take

you out of this faster than if Luke Skywalker

looks like Jared Leto or something. No recasting.

Unless you're recasting for Jared let it know

anyway, so Yeah And so the artwork the other

thing that I really liked and like I said before

I'm an unabashed fan of Aaron But having said

that the dialogue is very Star Wars II but also

Kind of updated and It works really well. Yeah

You could hear the character saying these things

but it didn't seem hopelessly in the past, right?

Yeah, it didn't seem like George Lucas was hovering

over Jason Aaron Yeah, there's not a nice way

to put it but dialogues never been Lucas's strong

suit It's coarse and it just gets everywhere

else but And I find the comic actually works

a little better than those original films, which

is not, you know, to criticize three classics

of cinema. Right. Just saying that I like the

dialogue in this there. And my other favorite

thing about this, besides the art and the writing,

is when moments like in issue, I think it's issue

four, when Java and Vader are beating each other.

Java goes on and says, who knew anyone of note

was ever born on Tatooine, eh? And you just see,

especially on the Comixology .com guided view,

you just see the two sons in Vader's mask and

that was just so off, that spoke a million miles.

Like you were saying about the faces, you know,

the pages after this with Leia and Han, they

both look like themselves and you get to Luke.

in the X -Wing with his helmet on and the flight

suit and all that. It's like, wow. They really

nailed it. Just in the writing, not just in the

art, but everything. Yeah. Everything just kind

of pops. I really like the dialogue. I thought

it opens well. So they open with the two, the

bit I mentioned about the... Reactor but then

we kind of move away from that. Then we go to

Tatooine Luke's looking for Some more teaching

at this point and goes to Ben Kenobi's house,

which is It's all stuff that it makes sense that

somebody would do this and it's neat to see because

It's all things that you would assume they would

have done but we never got to see it on screen

I don't think it's fine to put it into a comic

book because you know, it's not a big budget

and it's it's a nice way to do it It's an easy

way for them to do it And we also get Luke meeting

Boba Fett now I'm not the biggest fan of both

that I've never understood the appeal. I mean,

I guess he kind of looks cool, but He kind of

sucks. He doesn't actually do anything useful.

And I've never understood this weird sort of

fascination like, oh, he's such a great bounty

hunter. Really? He's kind of blatantly incompetent.

And by the way, I thought it was pretty funny

that in this he also gets defeated by somebody

who is previously able to see but is currently

blinded. It's a nice sort of nod to his eventual

fate falling into a Saint vagina basically Until

I read blood ties to one -shot Star Wars story

was Boba and Django Fett and then blood whatever

the two blood ties trades were until I read that

all as I ever thought of Boba Fett was oh He's

this kid who saw his head his dad get his get

his head cut off and then he becomes this crappy

bounty hunter that falls into a sand monster

mouth I've never understood Well, if it was on

screen maybe a total of ten minutes between those

original films. Yeah, and all he did was follow

around the Millennium folk and yeah, but I will

say in the comic really I will say in the comics

he looks and feels more impressive than he ever

did in the films. Yeah. And so yeah, the other

thing to note too is a couple of moments I really

like. One of my favorites is, and this was in...

The Vader series too, but I liked the sequence

of him realizing that the kids name is Skywalker

That's how the entire trade closes by the way

And I like that they end them with Not they ended

them with not wholly unexpected Cliffhangers,

so that's kind of one of them. The first issue

ended with Luke facing off with Vader It's a

good job. They did a good job of when I was reading

this in individual issues of making me want to

get the next one And reading it trade I feel

is a much more like yes, you're right. It does

have that but It's like oh, I can't wait to read

the next. No, I just arrow right is there's the

next one. I Just haven't been much of a single

-issue reader anymore I just so much prefer it.

We've talked about this before and at length.

How trades having the whole story kind of thing

right there is just so much better. Yeah, and

yeah, like I say, I thought this read well in

individual issues, but it's true and it flows

really well. It's nice that these are back to

six issue trades where Marvel's dabbled in the

five issue ones which and IDW's done this if

you actually most of the companies we've done

reviews for at some point it seems have done

five issues which. I don't know feel like it

doesn't work as I just got used I guess used

to six issue. Trades over the years. By far the

best way. They could have ended this because

the whole point of this first trade is Vader

at least Vader's point of view He's trying to

learn the name or who the person is that basically

destroyed the Death Star And that's what Fett's

mission is is to figure it out And close to the

end of this he's like, did you bring me anything

of value bounty hunter? Not much just his name

Skywalker Yeah blank blank. Are we done here?

I also I also like the other story. So the other

after the crews or the groups kind of break off,

we get Han and Leia and we meet Han's wife, which

could have been a really kind of lame thing like,

oh, why wouldn't he mention this sort of thing?

And, you know, we get into it more in the second

trade, obviously. But the way. their relationship

works, the kind of constant bickering and it's

just a good extension of everything we saw in

the first Star Wars. And obviously it leads into

Empire quite well without, you know, blatantly

leading into Empire. Right, exactly. Um, that

final page in this trade, ugh. Yeah i love the

art on that too i just like the picture of Vader

shattering the window and it's so much it works

so much better than the Revenge of the Sith scene

No, you know If it had just been sort of a silent

sort of thing like that with the glass cracking

Yeah, it was so much better. It was really well

done and Whoever made the decision that that

was kind of how it would close off. That was

really smart Yeah, it was amazing. The first

trade makes me want to read more. Obviously we

are going to, or we have, and we're going to

cover the second trade here in a minute, but

yeah. I love what Marvel... I don't know what

they're currently doing with Vader because I'm

not reading the current series kind of thing,

but when they took over Star Wars and they started

doing this, they started doing the Darth Vader

series from Ciaran Gillian, I've loved that and

now I love this. I've had the first two trades

of this series for a year or so and I just haven't

gotten around to actually doing an episode of

it until now. So we started doing the Darth Vader

stuff and I'm like, oh, why don't we start on

Star Wars too? Might as well. Well, I also like

what they've done overall. So they ended the

series at 75 in order to move into the post -Empire

time, which is another unexplained unexplored

era. And it's kind of like how they've done that,

that they didn't try to, you know, run it forever.

Because obviously at some point, you know, Empire

Strikes Back has to happen. I don't know. It's

just been smart. Yeah. What would you rate volume

one zero to five? I can give it an extremely

solid five out of five. It's entertaining. It's

Better than what i expect and expected even though

i really enjoy the authors other stuff. I mean

it's hard for me to find many negatives it's

really well done it slides. I'm sure there's

some star wars fans that could find some sort

of nitpicks that kind of thing but it seems to

slide perfectly into continuity it adds to the

movies rather than subtracts or running anything

into the ground. This is actually the first time

I've read stuff from Jason. I know of him. I've

heard his name plenty of times from you and from

other people. I just haven't had the time to

actually sit down and check out any of his work

until now. I'm glad it was this before anything

else. So absolutely love it. Getting into volume

two. We kind of open with a one -shot Yeah, we

kind of essentially would you remember when the

trade I remember when those of the the solicitations

were coming out for this It was kind of strange

that they ordered the trades like this But I

understand why they did the second volume is

called showdown on the smugglers By Jason Aaron

art on this is a little changed because of the

various issues as you said issue number seven

is uh is kind of like a one -shot flashback kind

of thing uh that art is done by Simone Bianchi

maybe Bessler uh on 8 -12 and 8 -12 is Stuart

Immonen and made upon oh my god we're all that

we're all badger that's what i'd say Colorist

is Justin just in concert. The letter is done

by Chris He lay off No, I mean the seventh issue

so actually you mentioned all the people working

on it The art does not degrade with the change

It is exceptionally good some of the space scenes

in this the first couple pages in The 8th issue

by the way the space stuff with the star destroyer

etc are gorgeous such good work but yeah as for

the story. Yeah we can get a. Surprisingly welcome

one shots and it's luke reading from an article

you picked up in the previous issue which is

the journal of mr ben connolly. Or Obi -Wan Kenobi,

of course. So anyway, he's reading Ben's journal

and It's told from his perspective during the

time he was on Tatooine just kind of chillin

watching over Luke and I really liked it. I liked

his Sounds weird when I say it aloud, but I liked

his despair. Yeah, he's forced to not do anything

for fear of being found while essentially the

entire galaxy is going to shit. Yeah. So the

thing with this for me is he's not old Ben just

yet. Luke is still a kid. Luke. I mean, I get

it. He's a Skywalker. I swear to God, I see Jake

Lloyd. I know I shouldn't. I think it's intentional

that he looks a little bit. I think that was

probably. The thing with Obi -Wan is he doesn't

really look like Ewan McGregor. I'd argue he

does. He's kind of an older... I'd argue he does

an older Ewan McGregor. Sort of a mixture between

him and Alec Guinness. I feel like it's sort

of a murder of the two of them. I really like

what they did with them. And I do too. My point

is though, this is some time after... Yeah, seemingly

quite a few years after Revenge of the Sith.

I mean Luke's a kid at this point. He's not a

baby. So this is not like, yes, the main crux

of this series to this point is after the first

Death Star before Empire. This, however, is I

would say maybe two years between two years after

Revenge of the Sith and obviously many years

before... I mean it's gonna be longer than that

Luke's a lot older than two I would say he's

probably between six to eight. Okay. Point is

Obi -Wan is still young but yet all of his despair

is I'm no longer Jedi Master I'm no longer this

I'm no longer that I'm this old permanent hiding

because I have to be because or else you know

the galaxy could fall kind of thing. Well he

also ends up as a hermit because he can't stand

to not do anything. I liked that like when I

say I liked his despair. It's essentially because

I empathize with it, you know and it made sense

and I just I really like how he's written in

this and we see him essentially try to quietly

save Luke from the Hut's Water scam Java's water

scam I should say Getting paid for protection

water protection money It's a good what it is

And after that we rejoin the present which continues

Luke trying to find Trying to find more signs

of the Jedi trying to get more training He thinks

he wants to go to Coruscant. So he tries to go

Ghost in Darshada where he gets nabbed and then

the rest of the story is him sort of fighting

for his life while everyone else tries to rescue

him because in our other storyline Sana Solo

it eventually turns out is not Han's wife, but

for a while the Empire after Han and Leia for

obvious reasons And so everybody's got to kind

of join forces just to leave. They eventually

joined forces to try to help Luke out. Surprise,

surprise. You know, Luke's okay and they get

away. I love what they did in this. Okay, so

I've loved, I've always loved Revenge of the

Sith. It's the only one of the prequels that

I will actually defend. Besides the scream. That

was a little much. But... I loved seeing all

the Jedi Masters on Geonosis fighting and all

of that. Basically a million people with lightsabers.

The thing with this, Han, Leia, everybody gets

lightsabers from R2. Yeah, and they - Because

they use the EMP on the blasters. But I like

that it made sense. It wasn't just, oh, look,

here's a bunch of random blasters. It made sense.

So Luke is captured by a Hutt who collects Jedi

paraphernalia and is an antique collector or

Jedi, whatever you want to call it, collects

Jedi artifacts. It's not Java, it's another,

it's a different Hutt. No, that's why I said

the Hutt finally without saying Java just after.

I also have to commend Jason Aaron and the artists

for writing what is essentially, at least in

3PO and R2's case, side characters. The writing

on 3PO is as annoying as he is in the films,

but I love when he has to interact with either

R2 or Chewbacca or somebody, and it just feels

like Star Wars. They really nail comedy in both

volumes where they nail the Star Wars comedy

they nail the fact that the droids are. The droids

are there to help but they're also there for

a lot of the comedy and the comedic sort of things

and yet nails that they nail the adventure aspect

of things and finding see new races going to

new places. Yeah it feels like Star Wars and.

Again i mentioned it before to. I kind of figured

that sauna solo wouldn't actually be mrs on solo

and it made perfectly it made sense the way they

did it since she's kind of trying to throw them

off and she just wanted her money from a scam

they had pulled. So that turned out well because

it would have been really weird if you know how

i actually had a wife and never got mentioned

in any of the other. Yeah, that would be strange.

Again, I love both sides, the Jedi side and the

Sith side in this, and in my Darth Vader series

as well, where it's different sides to what we

already know happened. This is, as we said before,

the in -between of the films. So again, adding

to it... without taking away from it essentially

expanding the universe. We also get some good

villains so you mentioned Vader we move away

from him here we really don't see much of him

at all in this trade and part of that is because

well you and i did. The Vader series so he's

off doing those things but it's also nice to

actually have some other villains so we get.

Now I can't remember the name. We get the bounty

hunter trying to grab Chewy though. We get the

games master and the pot. It just. I really worked

well and they were interesting characters. And

yeah, it's it's nice that the series doesn't

depend on. continuously reusing the same characters,

but they add characters that it makes sense that

maybe we don't see again or that kind of thing.

Like, you know, Grecus is, Grecus the Hutt's

pretty innocuous and, you know, it's not important

enough to show in the movies. So it makes sense

that maybe, you know, they would have this enemy

for a little bit of time. Yeah. And at least

it's not Java. the time. Yes, it could be another

hut, but at least it's not Java all the time

because that would get old, I think. I do like,

as you said, the setup of, you know, Java and

Vader and all of that that we had in the first

thing. I love that Grecus is doing the whole,

you know, fight till you die arena thing. I thought

that was interesting and cool. again the art

is amazing yeah whether it's the space battles

whether it's the it's the gladiatorial battles

in the arena thing whether it's r2 throwing lightsabers

to everybody even then the new characters too

i mean grakus has a look to the game master has

a look to him and they look Like star wars characters

but they look like new star wars characters and

they look like they would exist in that universe

is what i'm trying to say they didn't just get

a draw a. Marvel comic superhero. In that universe

know the created original characters are new

characters that would exist here. I can still

hear her support say. Great next some old wizard

who will be telling me to use the force. Hmm

All right people follow me I Would like pretty

much all of the dialogue I can hear the characters

Which is nice? Don't I mentioned to you should

probably finish off that thought that We see

a little bit of Luke's training. We do the game

master does a little bit of training with Luke

in a lightsaber. So he's at least competent enough

to seem plausible to die. It's a weird weird

thing too, but I like how bad Luke is with the

lightsaber. So. Let's be honest in the films

because Mark Hamill is not a trained swordsman.

He kind of swings it like a baseball bat. Which

it makes sense in. Return at least just because

he's so angry, but in those original ones, yeah,

it would be be real terrible in a fight. Yeah,

he's he's better with the blaster. All right,

I got one. Yeah. particularly in the first uh

in the first trade too he does the same sort

of thing that he's much better with a not just

a blaster but he's better with the speeder than

he is or sorry that's the oh man what's the name

it's not a land speeder but the bikes the imperials

use oh i know i'm exposing the fact i'm not a

big star wars nerd You know, like you said, it

doesn't really show Vader because he's doing

the other stuff, but at the very end of this,

it does. Yeah. It shows Vader telling me everything.

And it shows Luke and, you know, sitting at the

table looking at the book. So that's how it ends.

I have no complaints about this again, either.

I don't either. It's very good. I think I probably

enjoy it even a little more than the Vader series,

which we both liked. Yeah. Five out of five for

me on this. Yeah, same here. I hadn't read this

in a while. So to preface it, I flipped through

the issues finally. Yeah, thanks work for the

show. And I hadn't read this since. It's really

been a couple years anyway. I read it when they

originally came out, of course, and I've read

it since then. I don't remember specifically

when, but yeah. And yeah, I forgot how good these

were. Yeah. Very, very cool. Very awesome. It

makes me want to get the trades. So I can sit

down with them instead of flipping through issues.

Yeah, you should get the trades. So if anyone's

wondering why we did Darth Vader volumes 1 and

2 and Star Wars volumes 1 and 2, it's because

the next thing that we will end up doing is,

for the Star Wars stuff anyway, is Star Wars

Vader Down, where both series converge into a

crossover thing. And then after that, sadly it

won't be probably until April or May, we will

get back to doing Star Wars... Vader volumes

3 and 4, Star Wars 3 and 4, and then we'll see

after that, we'll be doing the Star Wars stuff.

Again, folks, I want to let you know, sorry of

the abrupt end to the podcast this early in the

year, even though it's only November, and the

year's almost over. I can record with Harley.

The cat is not going to give you insightful opinions.

Sarah might. But yeah, I think I should go with

the cat Wow All right then Karen and I are moving

that's exactly why the The podcast is going on

a slight hiatus because I won't actually have

access to my computer until probably February

or March which sucks, but it is what it is Again,

I want to thank everybody for listening in these

past almost seven years to the show. I've done

a lot of interesting things over the last seven

years. This year alone, you and I did the Dark

Knight of True Batman story from Paul D. That

was a very cool episode, a very cool book that

we did. And we've done some other stuff that's

been super cool this year, and I hope everyone

continues to listen, because we'll come back

at some point, hopefully, in the new decade.

When? But sometime soon, anyway. Where can the

people find you online, sir? You can also follow

at GeekCastRadio. Visit the website geekcastradio

.com as well. Make your great escape into comics.

Have a wonderful Christmas season, folks. Happy

New Year and all that happy stuff. Hopefully

the show will be back maybe in March of 2020.

Not sure yet. So we're going to walk around and

see where the computer is going to end up. what

my office is going to look like if I even have

an office. I could be like Steve working out

of a closet. Who knows? I don't know. So yes,

make your greatest gift to comics and we will

catch you next time in the next new decade. It's

going to be the roaring twenties for comics,

folks. Oh, jeez. What? No, it's just another

decade. Getting old. Oh, of course I say that

as... I've spent time watching gargoyles and

all the stuff on Disney that I used to watch

when I was in my teens. Anyway, nostalgia rules

now. It's here, the excitement, the adventure

of a new force at breakfast. We'll call them

C -3PO's. New C -3PO's cereal from Kellogg's.

Twin rings, pays together for two crunches in

every double O. A delicious part of this nutritious

breakfast. Now you can experience the taste of

Kellogg's C -3PO's. A crunchy new force at breakfast.

May the force be with you. the latest episode

of The Pullback, the GCRN's first comic review

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