The Storms of Crait #1 Review

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Decades before the Resistance and the First Order, the Rebellion finds conflict on Crait in The Storms of Crait #1.

This review contains plot details for Star Wars: The Storms of Crait #1.

Storms of Crait #1

Writers: Ben Acker & Ben Blacker | Artist: Mike Mayhew | Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles | Cover: Marco Checchetto | Assistant Editor: Heather Antos | Editor: Jordan D. White

The search for a new Rebellion headquarters is an ongoing in the new Star Wars canon. In the Journey to the Force Awakens, Thane Kyrell and the Rebellion stumbled upon D’Qar. Princess Leia and Han investigated a potential headquarters recently in Star Wars Annual #3. With the recent release of The Last Jedi, Marvel comics explores the potential of Crait as a new base for the Rebellion as a tie-in to the movie. Despite its isolation, Crait poses other dangers for Han, Luke, and Leia in the pages of The Storms of Crait #1.

A Story Out of Chronology

This story occurs sometime after the destruction of the first Death Star. It says so right in the opening crawl for the issue. In addition, it occurs sometime after Luke’s trip to Nar Shaddaa when he met Sergeant Kreel operating undercover as an instructor as Grakkus the Hutt’s arena. In this issue, Kreel is openly wearing his stormtrooper armor and carrying a lightsaber as the commanding officer of SCAR squad. Beyond that it is a little difficult to pin exactly when this issue occurs.

This brings up the question: is it important for new Star Wars stories to neatly fit into the new chronology? Perhaps not. If a story is worth telling, exactly when it occurs is frequently irrelevant. However, Star Wars fans are notoriously picky about chronological details. Plus, the chronology between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back is becoming a bit bloated. Those issues aside, what, if anything does this story offer that is unique or noteworthy?

Common Star Wars Themes

This book explores some recurrent themes in Star Wars comics of late. First, Leia is developing her relationships with Han and Luke. Unfortunately, the level of trust between the trio is not consistent from one story to the next. In this issue, Leia is self-assured and confident, but she has some hang-ups concerning her faith in Han and Luke. In addition, Han has difficulties in trusting Leia’s decisions. All these things come to a head when they arrive on Crait and meet Leia’s contact, Trusk Berinato, and old contact of Bail Organa’s. Those issues work towards resolution when Luke accepts Leia’s assignments and orders and Han takes a blaster shot for Leia. Conversely, Trusk proves unworthy of Leia or her father’s trust by nearly turning the Rebels over to the Empire.

In the way of less frequently visited themes, Luke struggles with his attention span and desire for adventure. Leia tasks Luke, Wedge, and some others with performing environmental assessments on Crait. Naturally, Luke finds this boring and would rather be doing something more adventurous. At the very least, this fits Yoda’s assessment that Luke’s attention was seldom in the moment and on what he was doing.

In the end, this story is reminiscent of several other Star Wars stories. It is entertaining, but fails to offer much that readers haven’t already experienced since Marvel resumed publishing Star Wars comics.

The Legacy of Crait

The Storms of Crait #1 is not the first appearance of Crait in the expanded canon. The planet previously appeared in Claudia Gray’s Leia, Princess of Alderaan novel. In that book, Leia tracked her father and a cell of the fledgling Rebellion to Crait before she knew of his involvement. Before that, it received mention in Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Pablo Hildago as having been recently abandoned prior to the Battle of Scarif. In any event, The Storms of Crait #1 seems primarily interested in creating a tie-in for Leia between the Galactic War era of the original trilogy and The Last Jedi.

The Other Dangers of Crait

While performing his environmental analysis, Luke discovers why Crait is an abandoned dead planet. Crait suffers from salt storms. Luke has seen this before on Tatooine where people were flash-dried during sandstorms. Admittedly, the salt storms are a nice environmental touch for Crait. It also explains why the planet is covered in salt.

The Empire does make an appearance. As mentioned earlier, SCAR squad arrives at Trusk’s invitation. Trusk hoped to receive a bounty on the Rebels. Curiously, the Empire only sent one squad to round up Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca. One might expect a larger Imperial force for such a valuable target. Regardless, their arrival gives the Rebels an opportunity to bring the same skispeeders into combat that the Resistance deployed against the First Order in The Last Jedi. However, the skispeeders are in remarkably better condition this time around. In addition, Luke gets another rematch with Sergeant Kreel, although their duel suffers from Luke monologuing about the toughness of farm boys during the fight. Unfortunately, the vulptexes (the crystal foxes from The Last Jedi) do not make an appearance.

The Dune Reference?

It is difficult to say, but there might just be a Dune reference in this issue. While performing his environmental analysis, Luke comes some indigenous worms. They remind him of “Dune worms back home.” In addition, Luke finds water deposits in the soil of Crait, that he theorizes explains the worms. These worms look something like the sand trout that grow into worms in the Dune novels. In addition, their relationship to the water on Crait is somewhat similar to that of the worms in Dune on Arrakis.

Concluding Thoughts on The Storms of Crait #1

Overall, The Storms of Crait #1 is an enjoyable read. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer much in the way of story that readers of Marvel’s comics haven’t seen before. To some degree, this issue seems like an attempt to create a tie-in to The Last Jedi that just didn’t fit in the main Star Wars title. Some readers might find the photorealism of the character’s faces against the illustrated bodies slightly odd, but that is a hallmark of Peter Mayhew’s art. It works better in some panels than others. Readers that want to learn a little more about Crait might enjoy this story the most.