Star Wars #7 Review

If you’ve ever heard of a little book called Local, then you’ll be pleased to see the creative team joining forces once again as Brian Wood welcomes artist Ryan Kelly onto his ongoing Star Wars series for three issues. Kelly’s art style isn’t far off from that of previous series artist Carlos D’anda, and with the same colorist on board, the visual style and tone go unchanged. This leaves Wood to continue to tell this story at his determinedly restrained pace as he sets up an excellent spy versus spy situation with a few elements that nod to what happens in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Kelly’s artwork is sound, save for a few shots of Luke’s face that make him look like a completely different person. The inking and coloring might be the culprit there, but it’s hard to tell. Whereas the previous issues had some glorious space battles involving X-Wings and Tie Fighters, Kelly is charged with drawing a garbage truck ship mixing it up with two bounty hunters. It’s a nice changeup and he handles it well considering the amount of humor that naturally stems from such an image.

As much as I am enjoying the plot here, the characters are beginning to feel a little alien, and not because this is a Star Wars book. Princess Leia’s personality is as dry as the sands of Tatooine. I have enjoyed her empowering moments in this series, but she is nothing like the character I fell in love with in the movies. Likewise, Luke has done a lot of growing up and we see great evidence of that in this issue, but he seems a little too self-aware for him to be the same guy who will one day abandon his Jedi training to save his friends. So the actual story isn’t bad, but it’s starting to feel like Wood has morphed these characters so much that this series doesn’t feel like a continuation of A New Hope anymore.

Joshua writes for IGN. If Pokemon, Game of Thrones, or Green Lantern are frequently used words in your vocabulary, then you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com