Author: Ben Crofts

With the first salvo of the trade collections of Marvel’s Star Wars material now out, it’s an excellent opportunity to kick off a new series that takes an askew look at the trades. This inaugural edition will be looking at Star Wars: Volume 1: Skywalker Strikes, Darth Vader: Volume 1: Vader, Princess Leia, Kanan: Volume 1: The Last Padawan, Shattered Empire and Star Wars: The Marvel Covers: Volume 1.

On their superhero lines Marvel have often used a core book technique, with one book being the high-profile one where the big events happen, with a second in a supporting role. One of the things they like to claim is both can be read on their own. To a degree, that is true, to another degree it’s utter rubbish. You can read the Darth Vader book without reading Star Wars, yet what goes on in the latter is often in response to what goes on in the former! Kieron Gillen does his best to enable the reader to know what they need to for the story he’s spinning, but it’s still a reductive summary at best.

The main book does indeed start off with a bang and if Marvel are doing one thing very well – it’s setting up excellent creative pairings for particular arcs. John Cassaday is not – as anyone who ever read Planetary will attest – a monthly artist, but Marvel gave him enough lead time to have all six issues done! What he has going for him is an excellent narrative style that gives a great sense of energy and movement to the panels. The story also works on the basis that while people may talk of the Force, they know little of it or what command of it permits the likes of Vader to do. Had they known? Events would have played out very differently! Read More

The use of spoiler tags in internet discussion arose from the best of intentions – and therein lies the rub, for where does the road of good intent often lead? In this case to a hell of spoiler tags! Like so many other things, the problem is not tags but how they are used and understood. This in turn raises the question of what a spoiler is understood to be, past and present. It should be emphasized here that there are no The Force Awakens spoilers, of any kind, in this article.

The key point is it used to be that a “spoiler” piece of information was deemed to be that of a major story revelation. No one is ever going to have any mercy or understanding for the guy who tells someone who has just started The Empire Strikes Back, having never seen it before or heard of its plot bombshell – yes, it’s possible – that they will never believe Vader is Luke’s dad. It will always come under the category of a douche move. Over time, however, the understanding and definition has widened greatly, to the current point whereby any information about a story in advance of its release is deemed to be a spoiler. Can this really be correct and worthwhile for anyone? I am highly skeptical, especially as marketing relies upon giving the consumer information snippets to engage their interest.

On some Legends books there would be a Dramatis Personae list of the main characters in it. Often this would be one of the preview items ahead of the book’s release, as it teases plenty but gives little of the actual plot context. For TFA, I’ve used a very successful strategy of having no interest in the numerous clickbait rumours and miscellaneous crap that’s been spewed across the internet in the manner of a permanently incontinent pigeon. It’s worked. While I have watched long-time net friends work themselves into great distress over the latest stream of bullshit, I’ve been fine. Due to the lack of exposure, the little pieces of official info I’ve come across lack much in the way of plot context. I may have a couple of pieces of a, say, 500-piece puzzle, but I don’t have the overall picture, so I am well insulated against any spoilers. So, unless you have some actual knowledge of the plot of a story, a Dramatis Personae list, on its own, tells you bugger all about it, save that it has this or that character. Read More

When the Journey to the Force Awakens campaign was announced, it was notable for having some quite interesting authors in its Young Adult complement. Names like Jason Fry and Greg Rucka being the cases for me. Even so, I can’t say I usually opt for YA material, but then those guys are writing it… Decisions, decisions – a good pre-order deal made it for me, might as well bag four hardbacks for around £30. At the same time, I also got Aftermath. The big surprise? Of these books Aftermath feels far more restricted in what it can do, while this YA quartet actually drops hints about the upcoming The Force Awakens and the galactic situation. Surely Aftermath should have done that? Nope.

The other surprise factor here is how good each book was at its assigned task. Writing Luke Skywalker has been compared to writing Superman and Captain America, how do you make such a decent guy interesting? Fry made it look easy. A story of Han and Chewie? That one is the deceptive option, the one everyone thinks is easy, but really isn’t. Rucka sent that one to the stratosphere. Castellucci and Fry then double teamed to deliver a great Leia story. And with Lost Stars, Claudia Gray delivered one of the most unexpectedly epic books in years. What made them work? Brilliant foundation concepts and character observations. Concepts that after you have read each appear so incredibly obvious, yet, if they were that, why did these stories not exist already? Read More