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

I'm a huge Marvel Star Wars fan (1977 - 1986), and have the 7 DH Trades of the series that were reprinted in 2002-2003, as well as the smaller size DH Omnis that reprinted the series in the past 4 years. In any case, just wanted to point out that there were less expensive options out there; these may be a good alternative for some, instead of shelling out a lot of cash for these pricey forthcoming Marvel Omnibuses. It sounds like now that Marvel is getting the SW license back, they're fine with charging an arm & a leg for these reprints.

That being said, these DH reprints may be tougher to find these days since they were released some time ago. Also, note that re: the previous DH reprints, the 7 Trades do not reprint the excellent Al Williamson/Archie Goodwin ROTJ adaptation (1983). However, the 7 smaller-size Omnis do reprint this ROTJ adaptation.

And, for what it's worth, I'm not collecting any of the forthcoming Marvel SW comics. The past 23 years of DH SW comics have been great, but now is a good time to end collecting these (for me, at least). I'm getting kind of tired of these stories at this point anyway.

 

Star Wars: A Shattered Hope. I have no idea why this is the trade title other than that it's a perfect summation of Wood's Star Wars run. The first arc is almost decent, with a post-Death Star Vader setting out on an unsanctioned quest for revenge. It's poorly plotted and largely incoherent, but that's inescapable with Wood's work. It's at least not ruining anything and it feels a bit like the sort of story that could have fit into Empire. The concept of a subordinate viewing Vader is a tired one by this point, but Wood actually does a halfway decent job of making it work. It's just that the story ultimately adds up to nothing and deliberately forgoes doing anything that would actually fit it into the series, like wrapping up Birrah Seah onscreen (that would involve figuring out WTF the point of the character was, and Wood just isn't up for that). And it's too full of crap that doesn't make sense or is just stupid. It's a big waste of time. The second arc is a bigger waste of time, though, as the gang hauls in an uncover spy who knows Leia vaguely and likes to monologue about the history of nature preserves to her astromech instead of Wood just using exposition boxes. There's just no point to it and it accomplishes nothing to end the series. The spy reaches out to Leia completely at random for reasons that make no sense, and Leia goes off to rescue her, and despite this making no sense as a plot without some kind of twist bigger than "IG-88 has the wrong personality" there is no twist and everything is exactly as it seems and they just pick her up and leave and now maybe they know a little more about what worlds they might put a base on which is totally information worth blowing your utterly vague deep cover over. Wood's plotting is so bad. He's like the Troy Denning of comics, but even more incoherent. The only saving grace of this series is the great classic artwork by Hugh Fleming on the covers. The trade also includes The Art of the Bad Deal, a Free Comic Book Day comic by Joss Whedon's brother. It's very short, a light Han-and-Chewie adventure that's functional but unexceptional. It's nice to see Chewie as the big hero of the day, though.

Rebel Heist. I hoped for more. The art is largely run of the mill, except for Leia, who is more pin-up than ever. The writing isn't quite there for me, either. I like the general concept and what it's going for, but a lot of it feels clunky. The new characters through whom we're observing the heroes don't really land; they feel generic. The stormtrooper is especially bad, since he feels so generic and his racism is so overdone and paint-by-numbers while being the most boring possible take on Chewbacca. And the plot is all building up to the titular heist, but there doesn't end up being much to it; it just sort of happens and the artist screws it up anyway by making the shield generator completely the wrong size. I see what Kindt was going for but he doesn't reach it. There are some pretty nice sequences and bits of the book, but it didn't do much for me overall. It's nothing we haven't seen before, and the execution is only so-so.

Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir. So when TCW ended, Dark Horse made a comic of an unused script in which . . . Darth Maul's story is advanced one chapter rather than being wrapped up. Thus making it sort of pointless to advance the cutoff point for Maul's (incredibly stupid) unfinished story to a different arbitrary point somewhere in the middle. Judged on its own merits, it's still pretty boring. Palpatine plots to kill off Mother Talzin by setting everyone against each other and it's TCW so I soooooooo don't care. People are sliced with lightsabers. Palpatine says plotty things. Lots of Sith throw lightning around. Maul's idiotic crime empire crumbles. Whatever.

Legacy Volume II: Empire of One. Much like Dark Times, the lackluster conclusion of this series brings with it the determination that fundamentally it failed. The series meandered its way to nowhere before abruptly applying a wholly unearned massive-battle deus ex machina in place of an ending, thus wrapping up the "plot" of Darth Wredd, such as it was, but deliberately denying us closure on any of the parts of the series that were actually interesting, like Ania's backstory and ancestry, or what AG's deal was. The ending didn't do anything to resolve the series' ongoing issues, which were that it had a nice low-key chemistry in its main cast but fumbled in advancing its overarching plot, excluded the Jedi and GA from the Triumvirate, characterized Sia and the Triumvirate shoddily, and never figured out how to make Wredd a legitimate threat. And those last two pages are just too cute by half. This series had a lot of potential but ended up squandering it in an aimless mess of horrible plotting. A disappointing arc to end a disappointing series.

 

more or less what I thought too about the final TPBs

 

Marvel's May-August 2015 catalogue:

http://images.abovethetreeline.com/ea/TW/pdfs/MARBKPREVIEW2013006_full_lr.pdf

May 2015:

Star Wars: A New Hope HC - Oversized, $24.99 (page 8)

Star Wars Legends: Epic Collection: New Republic Volume 1 - Oversized, $34.99 (page 10 for issues listing) - Doesn't paste well from PDF and it's a real grab-bag of issues.

June 2015:

Star Wars: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Volume 2 - Oversized, $125 (page 46)

July 2015:

Star Wars Legends: Epic Collection: The Old Republic Volume 1 - Oversized, $34.99 (page 85), collects KOTOR #0-18!

August 2015:

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back HC - Oversized, $24.99 (page 126) - same deal as done on ANH.

 

That New Republic collection is so stupid, but the Old Republic Collection sounds great.

 

Probably be the cheapest option for those who want to read but don't have the material too.

 

The Old Republic Collection sounds great to me as I wasn't able to get the Volume 1 KOTOR Omnibus, but own volume 3 and plan on getting 2 very soon. I'm just so disappointed Marvel is being Marvel with their random collections.

 

But you and I know that's business as usual for Marvel right?

If anything the Vol 1 is encouraging, as it suggests there will, at some point, be a Volume 2 and maybe Volume 3.

 

Yeah. I think the worst part is that I'm going to buy all these, or most of them despite owning or planning to own the majority of Dark Horse trades and omnibi. I've never had interest in their Epic line (but really like their Ultimate/Complete Collections), looks like that might change.

 

It's fair to say for me I can't see myself being tempted, it just feels like Marvel's free-loading!

 

I want The Thrawn trilogy, the X-Wing series, Crimson Empire trilogy, Jedi Academy Levithan, Union, Invasion etc.
I want those! They did say Tales right? What issues were listed?

 

Go. To. The. Link!

EDIT: Not SW related but there's a Secret Wars box set of hardbacks in there listed, on page 86, that they're flogging for, wait for it..... $500!

 

Here is what is in the New Republic cra...errr...I mean TPB.

COLLECTING: Star Wars: Mara Jade - By the
Emperor's Hand 0-6, Star Wars: Shadows
of the Empire - Evolution 1-5, Star Wars:
The Jabba Tape, Star Wars: Boba Fett - Twin
Engines of Destruction; material from Star
Wars Tales 1, 3-5, 10, 14-15, 20, 22

I'm really upset about the Secret Wars box set being so expensive, I was going to pre-order it. It's nice, but that price is insane even for Marvel.

 

Oof, that NR collection.

Marvel is doing strict chronological placement, which is commendable I suppose, but the first three aren't even in the era, and Jabba Tape is only in the most technical sense. Might as well include Shadow Stalker as it ties in with SOTE and Jabba Tape better than the inevitable "Rebellion: The Middle Years" collection. Twin Engines of Destruction does go here chronologically but thematically it should shack up with Dark Empire or with other Fett comics.

I actually like pulling stories from Tales, but where once that would have "promoted" them from Infinities to C-canon, now it doesn't actually mean anything, so whatever.

 

Something I notice is that it says Shadows of the Empire - Evolution 1-5. Implying to me Shadows isn't included this collection just Evolution. Knowing Marvel, their will be a more complete Shadows, Tales, and Boba Fett collection later in a different line than Epic. I wonder how many times under Marvel will people end up buying the same Star Wars stories from different TPB releases.

 

Hm, good eye. Taking that into account, I stand corrected. I'd forgotten Mara Jade was post-ROTJ (probably #0 being pre-ANH muddled my memory), and with SOTE not included, this makes sense after all. It's still a weird jumble of issues but that's what happens when you go chronologically.

Note to self: fact-check my Marvel-pessimism next time.

 

HAHA the Jabba Tape... that one's always a laugh to come across in my collection; I have my stuff sorted chronologically, and that sucker sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

Going completely chronological is something new, even the Omnibuses collected series in their own volumes. If I didn't have almost all the TPBs I want from DH I would be tempted. But I have, so I'm wondering why they reprint KOTOR so soon (exactly the same Omnibus came out in 2013)? At first I thought that they would this way have the best material out first to sell for years to come but do they keep these Epic collections in print for that long?

(By the way, I would like to see how they'd collect the clone wars and rebellion comics, just to see what timeline they would use)

 

Hard to say, Marvel's keep in print policy is pretty mercurial at the best of times!

 

Yup.

 

So I finally read Legacy Vol. II (all four TPBs), and am I correct in inferring that we still don't know (and at this point never will know) which twin Ania Solo is descended from?

 

Correct! Sadly.

 

Maybe Marvel will pick up this story and then Ania will do a crazy spell to reveal she was never blood related to a Solo or Skywalker in the first place.

 

You sicko!

 

No More Skywalkers.