Lit The Trades Thread (Discussion and Review for All Comic TPBs)

Kotor Turnabout and Vindication

I chose to combine these two since Turnabout is a single issue. So Alek is finally revealed to be Malak, which isn't suprising, but it's nice to see when it happened. It really amuses me to see him supporting our protagonist. I mean it's Malak. Him managing to convince Vandar and Vrook shows that things are turning around. I loved these scenes, but I still can't help but feel that the story is moving too fast.

Despite my feelings about this series beginning to move to fast, I thought the series' conclusion was superb. I enjoyed learning about Haazan and his motives. I think I enjoyed how it paralleled Zayne's story. They are almost exactly the same, except for one being evil. Lucien's arc was also nice. I thought the final scene with him was a nice touch.

So it's revealed that Gryph was the one prophesized about. That was interesting. I enjoyed that revelation, I had missed it while reading.

Lastly the final battle: it was written in the same style as all major final Star Wars battles. The way the tide turned and how it played into Xamar's vision were interesting.

Again, I should mention how much I love all of these characters. The dialogue is funny, but doesn't take from the story. The characters feel so alive as I read. I could read about them for hours. I really want a KOTOR novel trilogy. I'm sure that's possible, since JJM still writes for DelRay.

 

The Clone Wars: The Enemy Within. It's good. Barlow is good at characterization and themes, and the idea of a clone rebelling against his disposability is solid. It's awkward because it's introduced late in the game, as a twist, which is plotting that I don't think really suits the comic that well, since it's so left-field. A little discussion from the guy beforehand about clone mortality would have helped set it up fairly subtly. I'm not really a fan of the art -- even for the digest house style, it's a little crude. But it's not a distraction, and the rest of the comic, aside from the fairly thin plot, is pretty good. Banks is not the most exciting progagonist, but his straight-arrow ways are welcome in a setting that's become increasingly willing to dismiss the uniqueness of the clones as bred-from-birth soldiers and just make them semi-rebellious "regular guys" because apparent the guys whose whole point is that their experience is completely unlike anyone's anywhere ever need to be "relatable." Barlow has done better, but this fits comfortably within his body of thematically rich, characterization-driven work that asks interesting questions.

 

Havac Did you dislike all of CE, or just 3? I'm too lazy to read through the thread.

 

All of them, to varying degrees.

 

Just picked up Kotor omnibus part 2. Looking forward to reading it since i loved volume 1. Amazon prime is pretty much the greatest thing ever.

 

The Clone Wars: Strange Allies. Really great. A Jedi Padawan who's buddies with Big Gizz takes him and a gang of clones and goes off on a mission to escort an important freighter past pirates. But the story is bigger than that, as Dooku and Palpatine attempt to manipulate the mission, Savage Opress is called in to assassinate the Hutt businessman who owns the freighter, Kit Fisto drops by, and somehow a shuttle of orphans ends up involved. Throughout, it's fun, funny, and entertaining in an old-school fashion. The art is great, the plot is solid, the writing is good. It makes me want to look up the kids' books Windham's been writing with the lead character; this is really just a tie-in to them. The best part is easily the orphans, especially the little Trandoshan guy who spends the whole time insulting Big Gizz. I would read a whole comic series about that kid. I'm totally endorsing this. Go and get it. So much fun. So much Trandoshan child adorableness.

 

The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap. Big meh. Strange Allies was the digest format at its best; this is the Clone Wars digests at their worst, churning out a completely generic, stupid story for the sake of existing. There's a big Seppie ship, so the Jedi go to blow it up, except they get onboard and it's a trap -- apparently the Separatists built an enormous dummy ship just so Palpatine could kill five Jedi. And then the real ship shows up, and the Jedi manage to destroy that and escape the incredibly stupid trap, with the help of Anakin showing up and flying into the bad guys' ship to blow up the reactor, because nobody's ever seen that before. It's just so stupid, so silly, so utterly pointless. This story doesn't do anything, doesn't have anything to say, doesn't serve any purpose other than selling a comic. My favorite part was when Ahsoka throws a hissyfit at some Jedi Knight for being a girl who's getting along with Anakin, because lol jealousy catfight lol. This comic sucks and is nothing but a giant waste of everyone's time.

 

The Clone Wars: The Smuggler's Code. I enjoyed it. You have to get past the premise that Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka are all hanging out on the beach (weirdly heavily clothed) on vacation in the middle of the war, rather than Aclin coming up with a more logical and compelling setup, but once you do that, the story plays out pretty well. Obi-Wan spots and chases after a dangerous criminal he made a vow to bring in back in his Padawan days, but who escaped him. It would be nice to have a little more context on that, and he takes his vow to bring him in "himself" a little too seriously, where a little more emotional grounding would have helped that go down. The pursuit is a fun little mix of chase sequences and detective work and action scenes, all given a big boost by the lush-tropical-archipelago setting, which is visually exciting, unique, and interesting in a way too few new locations are these days. Obi-Wan gets a fun ally, a hard-luck smuggler whose compulsive quest to get an even better deal keeps sabotaging him and getting him in trouble, which makes him even more desperate to turn on people for a quick buck. I really appreciated the ending, which doesn't cheaply redeem the guy, but acknowledges that some people are just self-destructive and won't be helped, while getting in its kiddie-comic moral point with Obi-Wan realizing that he doesn't have to keep making the same mistakes, either. It's a fun little comic, and though it has a few flaws -- the setup would have been easier to swallow if this was set before the Clone Wars, and it has nothing to do with the war so it easily could be; losing Ahsoka wouldn't hurt the comic any -- it's basically an enjoyable, worthwhile read. Plus, it's got pretty good diversity; there's one minor white OC balanced by a ton of aliens and two people of color, assuming that my read of the smuggler as East Asian is correct.

 

Windham books in general tend to be fairly good - I've read most of aforementioned Breakout Squad series, and like them.

 

Well..... crap.....

Either they do collect the final 3 issues in a very slim 4th TPB or they don't!

 

Seriously? a final TPB for 3 issues?

 

It's that or nothing! I know what I'd prefer!

 

I found information could be possibly accurate for more trades.

Star Wars Volume 3: Rebel Girl
Brian Wood, Stephane Crety
On Sale Date: October 14, 2014
Star Wars: Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir
Jeremy Barlow, Juan Frigeri
On Sale Date: October 14, 2014
Star Wars: Rebel Heist
Matt Kindt, Marco Castiello
On Sale Date: October 21, 2014
Star Wars Legacy II Volume 4: Empire of One
Corinna Bechko, Gabriel Hardman, Brian Albert Thie…
On Sale Date: October 28, 2014
Star Wars Volume 4: A Shattered Hope
Brian Wood, Carlos D’Anda
On Sale Date: October 28, 2014
http://comicsbeat.com/119277/

 

Oho? They did that look forward for DC, didn't know they did for DHC!

Great find!

 

Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks. Well, that was certainly an experience. As eighties kiddie comics, you can't expect that much out of them. And you don't get that much out of them. Droids, at only eight issues, three of them a completely pointless and epically late "adaptation" of ANH, in which the visuals and dialogue have almost no relationship to the film and Artoo and Threepio are captured by sentient moles, doesn't have a lot of substance. There are just a couple stories, and they're fundamentally silly adventures that feel only barely tethered to the Star Wars films, as the droids engage in wacky kiddie hijinks and defeat evil robots. There's some kind of postmodernist joke in the fact that Artoo is never, ever, ever drawn correctly (he leans forward rather than back in tripod mode, and is always yellow and red rather than blue), and the art in general is crap. The main saving grace is the Ewoks crossover, which features Prince Plooz. Plooz is quite possibly the greatest character of all time.



I defy you to read anything featuring that ridiculously-grinning, weird-noise-making, absurdly adorable toddling sentient lime (thanks, PG!) and not fall down laughing continually. Just seeing him in a panel is enough to bring on gales of laughter. One panel of Plooz is funnier than the total output of Kevin Rubio combined. So Plooz gets an A+.

Then there's Ewoks. Now, Droids is stupid, disposable juvenility, but at least it has some vague sense of the setting, of taking place in the Star Wars universe. It's a genericized spacey universe, but, you know, rocket ships and warlords and backwater planets with gangsters and robots. It makes some kind of sense. Ewoks is a candy-coated children's cartoon that has no relation to the Star Wars universe whatsoever (except when Plooz comes to visit. PLOOZ!). It's not even really related to the Ewoks that appear in the movie; they're a jumping-off point to jam this kiddie cartoon into the Star Wars brand name, but they're not even drawn to look the same and it isn't at all an organic outgrowth of the group that we see in the movie. Instead, it's a generic eighties kids' cartoon about the magical forest kingdom of a bunch of adorable bear people who fight nasty forest monsters with their good magic every week. At no point does it feel like it has anything to do with the world George Lucas created. It feels like someone crossed the Care Bears with the Smurfs and then slapped the Star Wars brand name on it. It's just a total conceptual misfire. It's decent at being the bizarre children's cartoon that it is, and it's at least an enjoyably silly cuddly-magic-bear adventure comic, but the whole time I was reading it, I was just thinking, "Why does this exist? Why would people who like Star Wars possibly be interested in something that has nothing to do with Star Wars?" And the answer, of course, is Mount Sorrow. And the various other wonderfully ridiculous designs and concepts that are treated with an absolutely straight face, like it's just perfectly natural that sniffing a flower would make you magically shrink continuously, or a cliffside would turn into a magical talking face cave that will only let you inside for so long before it closes, because those are the rules, dammit. I don't know how the Ewoks survive on this world; it's a goddamn death trap. Insane monsters everywhere, yet Chief Chirpa just keeps sending those kids off to do crap far away from the village with no supervision.

Anyway, this collection of comics is completely insane and terrible. You have to buy them.

 

This does sound exactly like the universe Luke is sending his sister's kids off into. Exactly Luke's MO, too.

 

Attention UK Posters - good prebuy prices spotted for a couple of DHC's final trades:

Star Wars: Rebel Heist - £8.62
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Rebel-Heist-Matt-Kindt/9781616555009

Star Wars: Legacy Volume II: Volume 4: Empire of One - £9.16
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Empire-One-Corinna-Bechko/9781616555535

 

Omnibus: Wild Space 2. I bought this sight-unseen because I loved the first Wild Space Omni so much and assumed I would be getting more of the same awesome lost retro adventure comics. Actually, it's basically a bunch of stuff they refused to throw into a "Hutts and the Underworld" Omnibus, plus Visionaries and the collected Tag and Bink.

Visionaries is about what you'd expect to get from telling a bunch of concept artists to create comics. Some of them are just like, "Whatever, man," and they more or less make successive pages of concept art instead. Which is fine for Celestia Galactic Photgrafica because that's what Ryan Church is good at and the pictures look damn neat. Imperial Recruitment is just dumb, though, and The Fourth Precept is pointless, boring-looking nonsense. Some of the concept artists turn out, shockingly, not to be experienced comic writer/artists, and they turn out drivel like The Artist of Naboo and Sithisis, both of which are basically just showcases of heavily stylized, unappealing art with the barest outline of a story slapped over it (in The Artist of Naboo, a particularly dumb, creepy story), Prototypes, which has a bit of an idea but is just poorly written, and Wat Tambor and the Quest for the Eye of the Sacred Albino Cylcops, which is hilariously weird but also so stupid, nonsensical, and incoherent that I have to assume the creator was not only on LSD, but also illiterate. Some of them, though, have a knack for creating a reasonably compelling story and matching their art style to the demands of comics, and we get a range of decent comics that includes Old Wounds, Entrenched, Deep Forest, and The Eyes of Revolution. Deep Forest and The Eyes of Revolution both attempt to tell ROTS backstory, tying into the movie release that Visionaries was tying into. For Deep Forest, that's just an incredibly thin story about the CIS attacking the Wookiees, but at least it's basically competent. The Eyes of Revolution is actually trying to do a little bit of something with the story of Grievous's transformation, and it's not great but it's got good art and it's ambitious. Entrenched goes to TESB to give us the story of a soldier killed at Hoth, and it's a pretty decent little comic, actually the best of the bunch, even with the ending twist that he's Mon Mothma's son, Jobin (It means nothing. I don't . . . I'm drunk. I'm going to call a cab.). Old Wounds is a competently executed, marginally interesting AU story that has been given way too much attention because fandom goes ape**** for marginally interesting AU stories with Darth Maul, apparently, and demands they be canonized no matter how incredibly stupid and nonsensical that would be. So, like, out of eleven comics, five are decent to okay, which is not a winning percentage.

Podracing Tales is a TOS comic tying in to the Episode I podrace. So it's never going to be The Making of Baron Fel, but it's actually pretty amusing for what it is, a loosely plotted collection of vignettes about the podracers. I always enjoy expanding on the background characters, and this ends up just kind of floating through the entire cast, trying to give you some tidbit about everybody before largely ignoring the plot threads it sets up and resolving them offscreen. It's kind a mess, but dammit, I can't help but like it anyway because it's just so offbeat and well-meaning in throwing all this context at you and saying, "There, now the scene is richer. Go imagine more about it, kids."

The four Jabba the Hutt comics are completely insane. They come from that weird period when Dark Horse was just kicking off its comics run in the mid-nineties, and was putting out the weirdest random comics alongside the big-name series. This is one of those ones that just brings up the question, "Who the hell thought that four issues of Jabba the Hutt doing random criminal dealings and having weird adventures was the best way to use the publishing schedule?" It's completely inexplicable, and the comics are in the really weird old vein where people just kind of float around to generic locations and run into generic aliens and have really bizarre generic-sci-fi adventures. But it actually kind of works. The gross-out, gory art and storylines suit the Hutt subject, and the plotting makes good use of the lead. The Gaar Suppoon Hit and The Hunger of Princess Nampi both feature Jabba outthinking opponents in order to crush them mercilessly, the first in a double-cross planned in advance, the second on the fly. The Dynasty Trap, the weakest issue, has Jabba imprisoned due to a long succession of double-crosses, as he spins his way out of one problem only to get cheated and double-crossed. If Jabba had been a bit more proactive and clever instead of constantly suckered and hapless, it would have probably been the strongest issue. Betrayal takes a different tack by focusing on Bib Fortuna's attempt to overthrow Jabba, only for a different assassination attempt to go off, forcing Bib to defend Jabba, who's no good to him dead until he's turned over all his secrets under torture. It gets at the way Fortuna's perpetually trapped in this crappy job, and the loyalty he has subconsciously anyway, and it's fun in that Jabba finally isn't a step ahead of everybody else; he doesn't know how he almost got turned on, so it's a nice change from just always being about Jabba running circles around everybody else. None of them are even close to great comics, but they're surprisingly good, and they're fun just for how completely unusual and bold their focus is.

The Jabba Tape is fun, easily the best comic in the collection. Plunkett's art is just fantastic, and John Wagner's writing is funny and clever as he maneuvers these dumb clods Gizz and Spiker through a caper that's all about things just continually spiraling out of control and them somehow pulling through anyway on sheer dumb (really, really dumb) luck. It's a classically Star Wars bit of fun scoundrel adventure.

This Crumb for Hire is a short piece about Jabba's introduction to Salacious Crumb, by which I mean that Salacious Crumb sneaks aboard his ship while he's trying to scam Han and Chewie, who are just in it so they can be on the cover, and he throws a bowl of goop on Bidlo Kwerve, and Jabba keeps him around because that amuses him. It's really thin stuff, but it's well-executed, Windham's writing of Jabba is on-point and the whole thing is funny, and Allen Nunis's art is good.

Then there are the three Tag and Bink comics. I meant it when I said one panel of Plooz is funnier than the collected works of Kevin Rubio. Rubio just isn't that funny a writer. The Tag and Bink comics are just sort of bargain-basement film parodies, and though he works a few more non-parodic jokes into the sequel comics, Tag and Bink are just never funny characters. They're never really characters. They're just . . . there, going through the motions of an incredibly weak plot with a handful of pathetic attempts at jokes. It's a pity, because Lucas Marangon is a great artist and very talented at doing visual gags, but there's just no humor in Rubio's scripts. It's like amateur-hour open mike at the comedy club. Also, what the hell is up with Bink . . . I think it's Bink, they're not really the most well-distinguished characters, and there seem to be two of them purely so the single character Rubio came up with can bat dialogue back and forth between his two halves . . . anyway, what the hell is up with Bink going from black in the original comic to white the sequels? Seriously, what the hell? Like, were they not indistinguishable enough before, or was there just a "No black people!" note that went out, or was the new colorist Stephen Colbert, or what?

Then there's Sergio Aragones Stomps Star Wars, which should drop his last name for the sake of alliteration but whatever. This is a comedy comic that's actually moderately funny, because it's got gags that don't depend on "Hey, look, it's that part from the movies!" and it gives its main character an actual comic persona instead of just running a bland "smartass" nobody through the movies. It's an enjoyably silly, self-mocking effort from Aragones and Mark Evanier that never makes pretensions to greatness, but delivers some solid laughs on a general mockery of LucasFilm as an enterprise during the prequel and Special Editions years and of Star Wars as a cultural institution, plus Aragones's personal brand of humor.

 

Eh, I liked Visionaries more than some Dark Horse comics (then again I'm a sucker for Tales). I bought it when it first came out and I still read it.
Ewoks must be good scouts and survivalists if their world is booby-trapped like that.

 

Hello Everyone!!!

I am back to do another Star Wars Comic Review! And this time I will do a written review then a video review. So if you are not interested in reading then please check out my video below and give me your thoughts=)

Star Wars (Brian Wood) Volume 2: From the Ruins of Alderaan

Before I start, I will not be spoiling too much in this review or in the video and I am not a writer by any means so please excuse the grammar and errors and nonsensical nature of it all , that are found in this review. And please check out My Volume 1 Review on my channel if you haven't already seen it yet. But anyway, where to start with this Volume. First off, the story is so much better in Volume 2 than in Volume 1. Its exciting and and has some crazy twists that are really cool to see. The last 3 issues especially, were very entertaining. I will not divulge into the story but overall its fantastic.

Leia, who I have to say has become my favorite character in this series. This is coming from a person who couldn't stand her in the movies or any comic series. Brian Wood really shows how Leia should be shown a strong, charismastic leader yet someone who is still hurt from the loss of her planet, Alderaan. She really has to make some tough decisions in this book and she just really stands out in front of the rest. I never rooted for or liked Leia in any way but Brian Wood made me truly love her character. Great Job Brian!

As for the rest, Luke's story is okay and a little boring at times. A little weird that Luke is STILL talking to a dead Obi-Wan, Luke just loves talking to himself, doesn't he. yeah Luke's not crazy at all, of course not! (that was sarcasm by the way=/)

I wish Vader was shown more in this Volume but thankfully he has a heavy role in Volume 3 and he is truly a menacing figure that I have always dreamed him being plus he's a BADASS

I have to say it but Han Solo's story is by far the weakest part of this series. Its very boring and its the same thing over and over again. Han runs away from Boba Fett every single issue. Yes, very entertaining smh.

And I know you can't judge a book by its cover but the covers are far less impressive than issues 1-7 covers which were EPIC!

Now the artwork problems, that I have with this Volume. The first 3 issues were done by Ryan Kelly and is okay at best. Carlos D'Anda did the artwork for the 6 issues and kept me engaged and drooling over the artwork, Ryan Kelly's did the opposite for me and it didnt seem to fit with the overall story.
But Carlos does artwork for the last 3 issues for the Volume and the story became far more entertaining and way better.

Overall I thought this Volume had some great things and had a better story than Volume 1 but had some questionable artwork and character moments (Han Solo).

Here is my Video Review:



Please give me your thoughts of this Volume and this review.


Thanks

 

I didn't release volume 2 of Star woods was out. Time to go hunting

 

You are correct, its not out yet. I went and got ahead of myself to do a review anyway. I have all 6 issues for the Volume so I used that for review purposes.

 

To anyone who is going after older trades: are there any in particular that you would recommend hunting for now rather than later?

For example: Is it smarter to perhaps try getting Chewbacca or Union or classic star wars rather than 2010 era trades or omnibuses?

 

Although I can't answer which ones are better to hunt for currently, I will say that I've seen a sudden jump in Amazon marketplace stuff available recently.

Back in January, I tried to complete my Omnibus collection when I realised time was now of the essence, and (1) I couldn't find everything, and (2) the prices of several were crazy. However, I had another hunt on Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly found all but one of the Omnibuses I'm missing were now there, and (2) not only were they available, but usually with multiple sale offers, and I even picked up some missing TPBs for literally £0.01. Yes, one pence.

Sure, there was £2.50 on top for Postage and Packing, but... I found that price crazy, as they've been virtually like new with hardly any wear.

No idea if this surge in people selling them will be replicated elsewhere, but it's certainly something I noticed on Amazon UK recently.

 

I'm holding onto a load of SW trades to sell in oh, probably a year when people can't find them easily. But as to what is / isn't easily obtainable - hard to say, don't always take crazy Amazon prices as gospel, hunt around - you might snag a bargain when no one's looking!