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One of the coolest elements of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the planet Crait, the location of the big final battle with interesting creatures and a covering of salt. That salt got its own blip in a scene where a character licked the soil to confirm what it was. Leave it to Marvel to devote an entire one-shot to the planet as we learn Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie had an adventure there post A New Hope and pre Empire Strikes Back.
So what’s it about?
Read our preview.
Why does this matter?
Besides revealing new details about Crait, Star Wars: The Storms of Crait also offers an adventure with a pre Empire Strikes Back cast of our favorite heroes. They’re rendered with photorealistic art by Mike Mayhew, who has drawn a few fantastic one-shots for the Star Wars series so far.
Fine, you have my attention. What’s good about it?
Awesome opening full page spread.
It’s safe to say if you like Star Wars or loved Star Wars: The Last Jedi then you will need to read this issue. It reveals new details about Crait including the man running the show, the purpose it previously had, and even a few of the creatures we didn’t get to see in the film. It’s also pretty cool to see Luke and Wedge Antilles flying around in that weird ski ship Poe and Finn were flying about too. The plot of this issue also has a similar plot to the recent film as it opens with Leia and the Rebellion fleeing the Empire. They end up on Crait due to Leia’s recommendation, but for all intents and purposes, Mon Mothma doesn’t think it’s worthy of their resources.
Ben Blacker and Ben Acker have got a strong handle of these characters and their dynamics. Fans of the original trilogy are going to want to read this just to see a cocky Luke who seeks adventure, an ornery Han who secretly has the hots for Leia, and a princess Leia who has way too much swagger for her own good. There’s a fire in the characters that’ll get you remembering the classic films and it’s fun to see the writing team show off their classic personalities.
Fans of the comics will also want to check this out as it includes the special ops Stormtrooper group. That means we get to see some Stormtrooper lightsaber action with Luke going toe to toe with Kreel in an epic 3-page fight scene. Mayhew draws an excellent lightsaber duel and it’s a pity he can’t just draw an entire issue of this.
For the most part, the planet, ships, and costumes are fantastic. There’s a reason Mayhew’s art is so realistic looking and it comes down to the finer details. The opening spaceship dogfight is excellent and there’s some high intensity use of blur and light that makes the scene that much more realistic.
I’ve definitely seen Leia’s face look just like that in the films.
It can’t be perfect can it?
The problem with using photo-realistic depictions of the characters is that they can look way off from time to time. Take for instance a scene before the characters land on Crait: Luke is talking over an intercom and it just doesn’t look like Mark Hamill at all even though it’s a perfect mirror image of him later. Han looks exactly like Harrison Ford for much of the book, but he looks almost like Kurt Russell at times too. The same issue comes up with Leia too, but only rarely. The strangest thing about using these photorealistic likenesses, however, is how the face can sometimes look too realistic for a panel. The surroundings and costumes don’t quite match up, as if the face was copy-pasted into the scene.
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There are some serious action and adventuring going on in this issue, but ultimately not a lot happens. That’s a danger with a prequel series like this since you can’t have much longlasting change seeing as they have to show up in Empire Strikes Back with their arms and legs intact. Aside from giving Crait a bit more backstory and detail the adventure is more of a filler sequence that can easily be forgotten.
Is It Good?
If you dig Star Wars (especially the latest movie) I can’t see how you’d not love this little adventure. There’s a lot of fanservice going on in this issue from the characters to the fun tidbits about Crait. The problem is the actual adventure doesn’t matter much at all and it’ll leave you wanting more.
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