Star Wars No. 61 review: Our trio returns to the Rebellion

Han, Luke, and Leia have made their way off of the planet Hubin, but now they have to find their way back to the Rebel fleet, or at least, the remnants of it. Spoilers for Star Wars no. 61 follow.

Star Wars as a series has been taking its sweet time getting where it needs to go during these past five issues or so. It’s been a slow, often uneventful story being told, but has still had some great character moments while laying the groundwork for the next big story. This issue though feels the exact opposite of the rest of the storyline. It’s extremely fast paced with very little time to breathe, but it finally brings our main three back into the fold of the Rebellion while also wrapping up the arc in a decently satisfying way.

Man though, this issue is extremely fast-paced in a way that is rarely seen in any Star Wars media. There are at least five different locations during the entirety of the issue, and by locations, this means star systems and planets, with so much happening in the span of twenty-two pages. Luke sees the results of his actions on other people’s lives, in this case Tula Markona. The trio finally returns to the Rebellion that currently still exists, which is seemingly only Home One at this point. There’s also a point where C-3P0 is able to finally get new legs for himself, in what is a very humorous scene because nothing can be understood.

Image by Marvel Comics/Art by Andrea Broccardo

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Honestly, it’s great to see things finally happening again within the context of the mainline Star Wars series, but by doing so much in one issue, it makes everything feel so rushed. It really felt that this one issue could have been split into two or three issues, whereas the previous five felt like they could have been condensed to three or four. The pacing for this entire arc has been wonky and ill-fitting at best and that continues with this issue, just with extremely fast pacing instead of slow pacing. Pacing is something extremely hard to get right, but it’s been done by Kieron Gillen before with “Hope Dies,” so hopefully “The Scourging of Shu-Torun” will be better paced.

Andrea Broccardo takes over on art duties for this issue and doesn’t a really solid job throughout. He doesn’t quite have that realism-heavy style that previous artists on the series have had, but it fits well enough into the style that it’s not a completely jarring change in style. It helps to have the same colorist too in order to keep a consistent tone.

Where Broccardo shines though is in his wide, reveal shots. Where it be the reveal of the Home One coming out of a nebula or Han seeing the Millennium Falcon again after being away from it for so long, they’re beautiful. He picks the exact right angling and distance to create a compelling shot, which carries each scene afterward.

7.5/10 

Star Wars ends an okay arc with an extremely fast-paced issue that leads directly into the next big story for the series.