Harlequin Station: Star Wars novels, comics and more

We are back again with Star Wars #39 and "The Ashes of Jedha" continues. A quick correction, I identified the character that shows up on the last panel of the last issue as Two-Tubes but I was mistaken- it's actually his eggmate Benthic. There is actually some well done, hand drawn art by Larroca in this issue. As I've said before I like his work, apart from his photo referenced faces. I think faces must be his weakness as an artist because he very infrequently does them by hand, choosing instead to paste a photo-face in there. Other than that, he's a fine artist. I've  liked his work on the first Vader series, back to his work on Punisher MAX. When it comes to his photo referencing however, there is some really shameful looking stuff in this issue- take a look: Just absurd. This is the main reason readers have a problem with Larroca. Who thinks this looks good? As you can see, other than the face, it's a decent drawing with detail. The face ruins ...

The wisecracking archaeologist Dr. Aphra continues her galaxy-trotting scams and smart-mouthed schemes in "Remastered" the third story arc of the series "Doctor Aphra". Aphra is one of the current Marvel series that has a slightly more comic edge. She was a brand-new character, originally created for the first volume of "Darth Vader" by Kieron Gillen. Over time, she proved so popular that after that series concluded its 25 issue run, Aphra got her own spin-off which is now as critically acclaimed as the first Vader series was. Aphra is a conflicted, three-dimensional character as written in Vader and also here in her own series. She leaves a wake of carnage wherever she goes in the pursuit of money, but she also has moments of regret. The first arc of this series also illustrated her complicated family life. Aphra is a well developed character, and part of the reason I like this series is because she's a character created from nothing, just for the c...

Darth Vader #8 marks the second chapter of "The Dying Light" where we are introduced to the Inquisitors, fallen Jedi who are led by Darth Vader as they hunt down the survivors of the Jedi purge. We get to see the grand Inquisitor from Star Wars Rebels as well as a few more of them that have appeared on the show too. They're hunting for the Jedi librarian and custodian of the Jedi Archives  Jocasta Nu (first seen in Episode II), who is in hiding on a remote planet. With the extensive knowledge that she has, she is one of the final steps on the path to eradicating the Jedi forever. From the beginning this series has been the best Marvel has to offer. From the first volume (by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca), it has been a fascinating look into Darth Vader's inner thoughts and motivations. We learned a lot about him without his character feeling watered down because we now "know too much". Volume 2 is continuing this tradition, but the art gets much high...

In Star Wars #38, Kieron Gillen joins as main writer, replacing Jason Aaron who had written  Star Wars  up until this point. My personal opinion is that Aaron's run overall, has been hit and miss and he didn't seem to have a good grasp on the characters. Now that Gillen has joined the comic, I hope he can breathe in some fresh air, and I thought this was a good point to start writing this blog. I'm a  big fan of Kieron Gillen, his  Darth Vader  comics were very well done and really captured the character of Vader. I also very much enjoyed  Uber , his alternate-reality, extremely gruesome World War 2 title. So I am very interested to see where Gillen is going to take the story, after Jason Aaron's run left us with many "one-off" arcs that did not particularly have any importance to the wider canon and didn't really offer much character development or insight for Han, Luke and Leia. I thought "The Ashes of Jedha" started off with promise, I ...

 Harlequin Station is named for the XQ1 platform from X-Wing Alliance, my favorite Star Wars video game. I've been reading Star Wars comics and novels almost my whole life, and always wanted to start a blog on it to document them as I go. So here it is. There will not be any particular order to things, but I do read all of the new Marvel comics as they come out. I've also read probably 90 percent of Dark Horse's Star Wars comics and I love to revisit them from time to time. The novels I keep up with as well, as of this writing I'm currently a bit into Phasma , so I have a little catching up to do, what with Leia: Princess of Alderaan , The Legends of Luke Skywalker , and the two young adult Join the Resistance books to get around to as well.