Lit Star Wars #5: In The Shadow of Yavin, part 5 (of 6)

Great visuals and solid use of colors, but the plot is a bit lacking. We know Leia will survive and having Wedge with her means we already know that only the Corellian gal can potentially die. Great scenes, but they lack suspense or drama. Ditto for Han & Chewie.

I still love the series, but this issue was a bit lacking, IMO.

--Adm. Nick

 

Finally got my issue. And agree with you AdmiralNick22, the drama wasn't top notch here, but still a great series. This Bircher guy is intriguing, as is Birra and Prithi. I wonder if there's a connection somehow. Could also be that Prithi is genuine and only seems suspicious since she's obviously Force sensitive and we're so used to Luke hooking up with Imps that she becoms automatically suspected. Anyway, there's plenty of room for surprises. Do we know if there will be more than eight issues?

 

It's not the author's fault that there was a Return of the Jedi. Hopefully some of the potential redshirts get into interesting situations.

 

True, but I would hope that Brian Wood fleshes out a cast of characters that we care about and root for, otherwise too much focus on the Big Three robs suspense. Don't misunderstand my, I love the series and I think Mr. Wood is doing a great job, but we need more new characters. Having Wedge, Luke, and Leia is a situation together doesn't exactly make me nervous during a dogfight, for example.

--Adm. Nick

 

Its not so much that using established characters means they can't die so no suspense of course, its just the plot is... pedestrian. Its not horrible, its just not the most gripping. Great characterization of Leia, but not sure there's any point for Han and Chewie to be in the story even. If we had seen them negotiating with Rebel cells on Coruscant or actually meeting with someone, maybe, but instead they've been on the run for a while now and nothing else new. Not to mention I don't care about spy stories much, so watching everything go wrong isn't that unusual either.

The art is pretty good, the arc is just plodding along. The other starfighter pilots are potentially interesting, and the Leia characterization is good, but a lot of these five issues have already been spent in X-wings and wondering who the traitor is and no sign of that changing. I'll keep following it, but... well, some of Dark Horse's other comics have shown fun, quick stories with established characters (such as, what was it, Han Solo and the Hollow Moon?), so here it hasn't reach that level... yet. I'm still following the series but have a hard time remembering past issues. Doesn't help that its a six part arc so those sometimes drag on.

 

The problem Nick is a multi-pronged thorny one:

1. Nobody's already identified this one - in order to make the reader forget about the temporal setting, a strong plot is needed to command attention - if that isn't in place, then the reader's eye wanders.
2. However, short of aging the characters to a ludicrous degree this chronological notion of character shields blights the EU's capacity for new stories greatly. Do we want more stories of Luke, Han or Leia or don't we? Is potential death such an important ingredient? If the characters are in a dogfight for instance I'm more interested in how they get through it than whether or not they survive - although a case where you do end up wondering how on earth Wedge can live through it is his duel with Fel in In The Empire's Service, but that does emphasise point 1!
3. Few people really care about new characters. Sad but true - we're not getting a resolution to the Sunber plot for instance and that's, technically, not even a "new" character, as Sunber was Tank! I suppose we can hope Wood does pick up characters from Rebellion but I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

 

I have to question this. Techincally, we already have new characters in this series; Prithi, Tess, potentially four other pilots - we even have two Imperials: Bircher and Birra. Any of them could expand in an eyeblink - how many more do we need? Also, the positioning of the series is such, that no one of these will appear later - unless you write them into upcoming stories down the timeline.

Indeed, I'd even say there's a problem with introducing 'new' characters in an old place of timeline - the risk of them being used as canon fodder at soem point of the series is so big, that readers have a problem investing love in them. Able was a perfect example of a great, new character taht had enormous potenial - but that was butchered thoughtlessly to up the tension in a single, silly storyline.

Same goes for me, definitely.

And that was one of teh best SW tales of recent years! Indeed, I so much hope we see that storyline picked up! And I'd like to see Deena again too - she was one of the funnier character additions! But yes, as you point out, the comics are no good in using other comics' characters. Question is, if they're actually not even worse than the novels

 

Able, yeah, I forgot about him!

As to use of characters, it's dependent on people knowing of them and being able to then weave them into the story without requiring people to read the older stories, invite them by all means but don't require. Very hard trick to pull off.

 

So this series might improve if they used the new characters as the focus of future storylines rather than the stars of the original movies?

Spoiler

Was wondering if Bircher's recent success was due to his spy being present as I can't see them being able to pull off that stunt by singling out Leia's starfighter whilst it was still aboard Home One.

What do you think, was Wedge the actual target of the TIE Bomber and it was only because Leia led the attack on the Interdictor rather than Wedge is the reason why it suicided on her?

Wasn't sure if I should post that without spoilering it.

 

If people invest and keep buying the series, perhaps. Trick then is to do a story with the new characters alone.

 

In a word: no.

Do people ever really worry about Iron Man living to the end of the film? Or Harry Potter? Sure, people may have been on their seats a little in Deathly Hallows, but through books 1-to-6 you knew full well nothing would happen to Ron, Harry or Hermione. Certainly, it can add something to a narrative -- see the ending of Dark Knight Rises, albeit they ended up not killing Bruce Wayne -- but there's absolutely no reason for a story to believe it requires it like much of the EU has grown into the habit of thinking.

So if there's no feeling of suspense, it's not because we know in advance that the characters will live -- if that mattered, why ever rewatch a film? -- but simply because a story isn't getting the blood going properly.

The question on a reader's mind shouldn't be "Will Luke Skywalker survive!?" but rather "How will Luke make it through this alive?" In that respect, I can't help but think part of the problem sometimes comes down to the way stories are advertised, as the number of "Is this the final story of Luke Skywalker?!" blurbs has arguably been a major reason for people to grow bored and to have stopped approaching stories with the correct mindset. In contrast, take something like Scoundrels or Shadows of Mindor. They weren't even advertised as ever being something where anyone would die: their focus was on getting readers to embrace the pure fun of a pulp adventure. That's something that too many stories fail to emphasise, choosing instead to focus on "WILL THEY DIE?!"

(I should note I've not read Star Wood yet, so I'm only talking from a general point here.)

 

I personally would not be suprised if the editor would had said:
-This is going to be a moneymaker so Brian you have to include all these familiar characters if you want to write Star Wars.

Hey, if this generates enough revenue to pay for more KnIght Errant/invasion with a decent steady artist i am all for it.

 

Hmm... their story has been dealt with pretty much to death, if they want this to go any further they need a new cast perhaps have Leia pass leadership to one of the other pilots and the surviving members (excluding Wedge, Luke and so on) cope with being a new Rebel unit perhaps having that new contact of Han's being the new smuggler member to replace Han and Chewie (assuming she has a co-pilot of her own!).

With Imperials like Bircher out there it would make sense to split the unit allowing the Rebels to operate with some chance of success if Bircher's spies have to cope with multiple units to betray or go after Leia like they seem to be doing so they can find their new base without the Empire discovering it since they're being blindsided with this charade.

 

Hopeless, I can't see why Wedge would me a more likely object than Leia. As I understood the scene, what Bircher did was

Spoiler: SPOILS!

simply following them to hyberspace, then fired on Leia. The questions is then, how did he get the cordinates? I think it's linked to the scene with Artoo and Threepio in #4 where T states "it was NOT Mon Mothma's override code I just entered." Then again, we also have that mysterious incoming priority call to Mothma in the same issue, that may be linked to the Slave I looking vessel...

 

That TIE Bomber was launched just as the three X-Wings took its base ship out, not only that it was able to lock onto Leia's ship and follow it through hyperspace to a location that would have been nigh on impossible save perhaps for a certain former Jedi.

Even if her ship was bugged there wasn't enough time for that ship to lock on, follow and then immediately suicide on her without help the kind of help I suspect could only be possible if they had full access to those X-Wings' computers and R2 units... I may be thinking too much on this but it would have made more sense for that bomber to have fired on Leia with some kind of delayed explosive missile than do what they actually did.

Someone could have allowed Bircher to hack the navigation information but that wouldn't allow that TIE Bomber to do what it did, anyone care to guess how they pulled that off or should I chalk this down to a very bad gm fiat decision?

 

Ah - well, I'm certainly not the right to argue about what a TIE or fighter in general can do or can't. But my impression is pretty simply that her ship is bugged. That would also explain why they've been followed on former missions wher TIE's have appeared very suddenly, wouldn't it?