Star Wars: Shattered Empire #1

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This is it! What happens after the final scene of Return of the Jedi.

This review contains spoilers for Star Wars: Shattered Empire #1.

Shattered Empire #1

Writer: Greg Rucka | Artist: Marco Checchetto | Colors: Andres Mossa | Cover: Phil Noto | Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga

Shattered Empire plunges the readers into the heat of battle. It is the final moments of the Battle of Endor. Luke is fighting to redeem his father from the Dark Side as the Rebel Alliance battles the Empire in the space around the second Death Star and on the Sanctuary Moon of Endor. The focus shifts to Green Squadron, a collection of A-wings and their pilots, including Green Four. The adventure follows Green Four as she and her squad mates attack Vader’s Super Star Destroyer and escort Gold Leader to his attack run on the Death Star. Green Four’s mission priority shifts to intercept Imperial craft that may be reinforcing the Empire on Endor and she encounters an unexpected ally departing the battle station. As any viewer of Return of the Jedi knows, the Rebels are victorious, and the Death Star is destroyed. Back aboard Home One, Green Four, also known as Shara Bey, requests leave to join her fellow Rebels on the Forest Moon. Once she arrives there, Shara sets out looking for her husband, Kes, amongst the celebrating Rebels and Ewoks. The happy and relieved couple reunite, but their personal celebration is interrupted the next morning as a certain Rebel general rallies his troops, including Kes, to attack an Imperial holdout base on the other side of the moon. Not anxious to be separated from her husband, Shara volunteers to fly the troops to their mission. After the Rebels successfully take the Imperial holdout, the general emerges to inform Shara that a lot of Imperial data was recovered, and the conflict is not over yet.

Shattered Empire is an excellent companion to Chuck Wendig’s novel Aftermath. While Aftermath details the events on Coruscant immediately after the defeat of the Emperor, the action quickly moves to months into the future as the New Republic begins to take back the rest of the galaxy. Conversely, Shattered Empire continues where the action from Return of the Jedi left off. Some of the protagonists from the films make appearances, and the next steps in the war appear as if they are about to be revealed.

Greg Rucka’s style is similar to and yet distinct from many of his Star Wars comic writing colleagues. As with many of the other writers in Marvel’s stable, Rucka has elected to forego the use of traditional comic literary devices such as thought bubbles and expository text boxes. Instead, the writer allows the art to do the talking. However, the economy of Rucka’s word choice is impressive. There are many panels that have no dialogue at all, but of those that do, the word choice has been carefully considered. Rucka, with the assistance from Caramanga’s lettering, brings the reader into the battle with the com-chatter during the space battle around the Second Death Star. Snippets of conversations are collected and presented to the reader as the Rebels celebrate and cope with the aftermath of the battle. The dialogue, as much as the art, works to establish the atmosphere of this story.

Speaking of the art, Checchetto brings yet another distinctive style to Star Wars. His depictions of the spacecraft and characters, both familiar and new, are outstanding. Mossa uses a slightly muted color palette compared to the work in the core title and Darth Vader, but the choices work well for preserving both the atmosphere of space and the lush forests of Endor. The familiar heroes from the Star Wars saga are instantly recognizable, and the new characters are consistently drawn and quickly become familiar. This may be the best art of any Star Wars series so far.

There is an interesting potential, and somewhat surprising, link to The Force Awakens. If you do not want to be spoiled, please skip ahead to the conclusion.

As Shara is searching for her husband, she is directed to a hut in the Ewok village. As she enters the hut, she asks the soldiers present if they have seen Kes by confirming the name of their unit, the Pathfinders. One of the soliders, Tuck, is reciting the groups motto and is interrupted by Kes. The soldier responds by addressing Kes by his rank and surname, which is none other than Sargeant Dameron. By now, most people know that one of the lead characters of The Force Awakens is Poe Dameron. Therefore, it is quite possible that Poe’s parents were just introduced in this book.

Shattered Empire may not be the payoff to years of waiting for the answer of “then what?” after the Rebels destroyed the Death Star and the Emperor and Darth Vader perished. After all, of the big three characters, only Han sees any significant coverage in this book. Luke is only seen in a single panel, and outside of the cover, Princess Leia is entirely absent. This book sets out to tell a larger story of the days following the Battle of Endor from the point-of-view of new characters. The story is not confined to the drama of the Skywalker family. The perspective is grounded in characters that aren’t famous across the galaxy, at least not yet, but are heroes nonetheless. The concluding panel offers the potential to tell the story of the galaxy at large. As the general says, “It’s not over yet.”

Favorite Panel:

As mentioned previously, the art in this book is first rate. As a result, it was difficult to pick a single panel that was overwhelmingly better than other purely on artistic merit. The opening panels around the Death Star are compelling, satisfying, and successfully convey the urgency and desperation in which the Rebellion found itself as they sought to take down the battle station. The succeeding panels did an excellent job capturing the relief, celebration, and grief of the survivors of the attack as they dealt with the aftermath of the Rebel’s victory. The panels that depicted Kes and Shara’s reunion were touching and sentimental. Checchetto masterfully captured all the emotions (concern, relief, love, determination and anxiety) in the characters expressions and looks. Therefore, it is difficult to pick just one panel from all of this. The solution is to go the comedic route. After Shara has volunteered to fly the Rebels to the holdout, she has to deal with some Ewoks that have come along. The little, furry warriors just can’t keep their paws off the ship’s controls to Shara’s dismay. Take a look. That is the panel of the week.