Lit Star Wars #13: Five Days of Sith, part 1 ( of 2)

If they encounter a Rebel team still working on it I might let them get away with it, if not and the guy is just still sitting there on his semi derelict it would just be another "Why?!" thing

 

Just finished......not sure wth just happened.

 

I actually kind of liked it. Nothing we haven't gotten before with shades of Ghost Prison and Tyrant's Fist, but if you're going to showcase Vader's brutality, this issue doesn't shy away from it. It was certainly not the mess that the last arc was, but you'd expect that from a two-issue story.

But yeah, Obi-Wan mentioning Luke. I suppose if you wanted to get really philosophical, you could make a point about Ben making a comment on Vader's dual nature or something, but... no. That was just dumb. Though I did like the idea of Ben talking to Vader.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of Bleeding Cool but I'm really not seeing the logic here at all:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/01/09/the-destruction-of-the-death-star-a-911-allegory/

Anyone care to take a shot at making it more comprehensible?

 

There's a clumsy moment in the comic where Ensign Nanda states that she's okay with massacring Bothans because she "had friends on the Death Star".so she was "fine with it." Maybe it can be said that this is a reference to Americans being okay with Middle Eastern bombings post-9/11.

 

I'd love to see a Star Wars version of Ron Paul ranting away about how Alderaan was an inside job. Followed on by how they need to return to the aurodium standard, colloidal cortosis is a universal cure-all, and how Bothan teenagers are fleet of feet and a threat to decent humans.

 

That would play nicely off the socialist dictator that Palpatine embodies.....Obama.

 

The image of Vader in his room swinging his lightsaber around at the voices in his head is priceless.

I think we're seeing the attempt to wrap up the series here, as this is going to start bringing some of the threads together.

I have NO IDEA how the spy who seemed to have a weird relationship with Vader and was assigned to the DS2, then kicked off as assigned to the Devestator, and then ran away very fast indeed fits into all this.

If she's some sort of elaborate ruse by Vader...well, it's still not going to make sense.

Wood is usually a much, much better plotter and writer than this.

 

Also, I suppose the idea of "The Wrath of the Empire: sudden, unexpected, and fully out of proportion" that we see going into effect on Bothawui (which implies to me that whatever the warhead she fires is armed with is devastating) could be their interpretation of the US's post 9/11 actions. But that seems like they're just looking for parallels that were never meant to be there.

 

Did I really see what I think I saw? Did Vader actually hang up on the Emperor's face?!

 

...not sure if serious or just dense.

 

Hahaha, wait, is this supposed to be the explanation for how Vader knows about Luke in ESB?

 

Honestly, not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Nice EU references, from the Assassin corvette, Bothawui, Kuat Drive Yards, a Star Galleon, and other little nuggets. The story was average, but not horrible. Sure, this series isn't perfect, but I continue to enjoy it enough to keep up with it.

--Adm. Nick

 

The whole scene is just , though if you want to make sense of it somehow, Vader already knows and is still trying to contemplate it and imagining Obi-Wan tormenting him with it, is my best guess at least.

Still don't you constantly ask yourself what the point is of just about anything that happens in this issue, or many of the others before? Sure the first few did it better, but more do to not having to conclude anything or keep the plot together, at which this series just fails hard.

 

I really just can't believe how little has happened in 13 issues. Even explaining it is confusing.

So, post-Yavin, the Rebel Alliance is looking for a new base (good, good) There's this new Imperial Baddie, Bircher who is hunting them now, and Vader's been demoted (Interesting!) But wait, Bircher was a spy all along! (Wait...what? How...why?) And Leia finds the new base off-page! (Off-page? But wasn't that the point of this storyline?) So Vader hunts down the people who tricked the Empire about Bircher in a HIGH-RISK, VERY SECRETIVE mission.

Then stuff in some pointless Han story about finding weapons, and ANOTHER spy that works for Vader who tucks tail and runs when Bircher is exposed as a double agent. I actually am excited to see how this is all going to wrap up, but it's so meandering right now with very little stakes for the heroes or the antagonists. Especially in the Vader story, the tension is manufactured and boring.

 

Nothing says black ops like a murder spree that includes a capital ship conducting low orbit bombardment lead by a seven and a half foot Imperial Lord you can hear breathing a mile away.

Those Stormtroopers are HILARIOUS though. They're so evil they wear balaclavas under their helmets.

 

He was still unsure last arc from the look of it, but then it is this comic series, so

 

I'm pre-coffee, which is different from Bariss_Coffee, so forgive me a little if I ramble, but one thing that is a let down is that usually Wood has a lock on his plot for years ahead of writing a book. One thing about so many of his stories; DMZ, The Massive, even his current X-Men run, is that he seeds small details, sometimes just in the background, sometimes in dialogue, that might not pay off for ages. The Ghosts of Central Park aren't seen in DMZ until well into the second year of that title. The Massive is all about the slow unraveling of the past lives of the characters and secrets being shown that were only hinted at in earlier issues.

With Star Wood it doesn't look like there was any of that planning.

The scene with the command crew of the Devastator would have been great had be gotten to know the yelling guy and the guy who eats his pistol. As it is...random dude yells, gets shot by young dude, and young dude blasts himself either to escape torture or redeem his honour.

Would it really have been hard for a couple of throwaway panels featuring these guys in previous issues? Either fawning over Bircher or arguing with his decisions. Maybe the yelling guy was a great leader and young dude was a COMPNOR. Imagine if that scene actually meant something.

Imagine if we had met Vader's shuttle pilot before...maybe had her involved in the Han Solo on Imperial Center side story so that he appearance her adds depth.

The point is that I have never seen a Wood comic where there seems to be so little forward planning.

The entire point of the Rebel's mission, which was to find a new base, is somehow accomplished by Leia off panel when she seemingly had no time in which to have done anything, since she had been flying around aimlessly and then returned in time for the assault on the fleet. Some of the questions raised early on can be assumed to be answered; I guess it was Mon Mothra who was leaking info so as to make Bircher look good...maybe?

It's not "OMG! Worst comic evah!", but it's a let down by Wood's standards and as a flagship title just seems disjointed and random. If Vader's mission really is supposed to call to mind the reaction of 9/11...I mean, it doesn't make sense, this is the Imperial Empire lead by the Sith reacting to their world killing battlestation being destroyed, not a trade center on Imperial Center being bombed. we really don't need to be reminded that they overreact. A government that runs on the Tarkin Doctrine doesn't need to be established as blaise about retaliation. I did wonder if the Assassin's low orbit attack was supposed to call to mind a drone strike, but unless someone on the creative team comes out and says that it was supposed to be a 9/11 riff I'm going to assume that was Bleeding Cool trying to drum up page clicks because that's what they do.

 

Yep, also that series seemed to at least kind of know what it wanted to do and show, with tons of little side stories that just tell us more about the world it plays in. Though I have to admit the plot just seemed to kind of die after the Delgado Nation thing.

Or if there was it was clearly not planned for a real ending to any of it's arcs. This whole series just seems to drift from one "that might look cool" moment to the next with very little of any coherent story, which I would not mind if they were just meant to tell unconnected single issue stories, but somehow this still seems to want to do some kind of overarching plot.

 

Blarrrghh...no one let pre-coffee me post ever again, apologies for the typos.

 

patchworkz7

I feel the same way about my pre-whiskey posts in the evening.

--Adm. Nick

 

Well, doesn't it just require a comic to have a picture of a spaceship for you to enjoy it?