The Gutter: Back from A Galaxy Far, Far Away...
Well this is awkward. The Geek Beat, normally so meticulous in its timekeeping that you can all but set your watch by it, is late. Very late. Here at the Geek Beat HQ we like to think of ourselves as an omnipresent force in your life that's so universal that we're like death, taxes and bad Michael Bay movies - always here whether you want us or not. And yet, for the last fortnight instead we’ve been conspicuous only by our absence and way, way, way past deadline.
What is there to
say dear reader apart from humbly extending you the sincerest of apologies? The perfect storm of a forgotten
MacBook charger, a loaned copy of The
Witcher 3 and the inconvenient intrusions of real life mean that it’s taken
me a fortnight to get back behind the keyboard and begin blogging again but I’m
back with a bumper blog to inject a little Vertigo love back into your hearts.
There’s been Scrooge McDuck levels of geek gold to roll around in over the last
couple of weeks too: A big part of me wants to simply write and write about how
ace an RPG The Witcher is, especially considering that I found last year’s coma-inducing Dragon Age: Inquisition underwhelming to say the very least. The
Skyrim-esque narrative perils of open-world RPG storytelling were coupled with
boring fetch quests and a combat system that seems to have lost its path; maybe
there are people out there that enjoy spending forty-five minutes hacking away
at a dragon’s foot – but alas, I am not one of them. In fairness though, a buddy of
mine did ask me at the time if I’d perhaps overhyped the game’s arrival to
unrealistic proportions: looking back, perhaps the four novels/twenty-odd comic
books/anime movie/Felicia Day web series/prequel text-based online adventure
game pre-launch marathon may have slightly overcooked things.
Or maybe the
game just really wasn’t that good.
Unlike this one. Which is video game Heisenberg meth.
The odd thing
is, The Witcher in many ways is oddly
similar to Dragon Age: Inquisition in
design and yet it suffers from few of the flaws of its rival. The story has to
deal with the loosely-wound narrative approach typical of all open-world games
but doesn’t suffer for it; the game has fetch quests but for the most part
they’re actually interesting, often
concluding with a moral conundrum that develops the roleplaying aspect of the
game, something Bioware, the creators of the Dragon Age series used to excel at. And then there’s the dust-ups.
Whilst Inquisition seems to be caught
in a halfway house between being an action-RPG and a tactics-based combat game
(and doing neither well, like that time when Paris Hilton tried to be a
celebrity and a human being and failed miserably at both) The Witcher sets its stall out squarely as a fluid action game and is all the better for it, improving significantly on the combat featured in its predecessor, Assassin of Kings.
Speaking of Bioware, the Dragon Age developers, there’s a lot of
interest online for the Canadian design team to get on with a ‘true’ Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic sequel for
the console platforms, rather than continue to focus on their PC-based MMO
offshoot but frankly, with each subsequent Bioware release I get a little less
excited about the prospect of this happening. I’m way more stoked instead by
the prospect of Visceral Games' as-yet unnamed Star Wars project that’s being developed by Amy Hennig, the head
honcho behind the wildly successful Uncharted
games.
And with that
neat little sidestep we’re into new territories; Outer Rim Territories you
might say as we segue seamlessly into the world of Star Wars, the subject of this week’s blog. When the Mouse House
appropriated the rights to A Galaxy Far, Far Away back in 2012 they eventually decided to do away with decades of
George Lucas-approved Expanded Universe continuity such as books, comics and video games, rebranding them instead under the
non-canonical Star Wars: Legends banner.
Fans were understandably peeved that the series of novels that they’d devoured
insatiably; the video games they’d loved – that the content created by writers
and designers that had worked so cleverly and intricately to fit into the
existing confines of the Star Wars universe
over so many years was suddenly considered superfluous – well, it left a bad
taste in the collective mouth of fandom; fans cried bantha poodoo and lamented
the loss of iconic EU characters such
as Mara Jade, Corran Horn and Jacen Solo.
I however,
refrained from joining the massed ranks of keyboard warriors and joining in
with a million voices in crying out in terror; instead I kept my own counsel… when
it comes to beloved franchises getting the scorched-earth treatment this isn’t my first rodeo and sad as it is
to say, like a lot of fans who get to a certain vintage, you have to watch
aghast as the Heroes of your Youth slowly become the Heroes of Antiquity; the
stories and legends that made them truly yours
slide from relevance, ultimately disappearing before the heroes re-emerge sometimes, but
not as they once were: retooled, reimagined or rebooted for a newer generation
with a longer consumer lifespan than yours.
It’s the Circle
of Life, a crushing inevitability that will always happen as long as art and
creativity continue to be governed by market forces. DC Comics jettisoned over fifty years of
continuity to attract a younger, new readership with The New 52, WWE alienated
millions of Attitude Era fans to evolve into the PG-13 WWE Universe because
kids will buy toys (but at least this particular sea-change brought us Total Divas, right?); I’ve blogged
before (See April’s Civil War
special) about how Marvel’s Brand New Day
reboot of Spider-Man changed the nature of this here reader’s connection to
the character irrevocably. Before he made a deal with the devil (Lame BTW
Marvel) he was a thirty-something harbouring delusions of being a
twenty-something (check); he was
married (check); he had a demanding
job that asked more of him than he could possibly give but he gave it his best
shot anyways (check); sometimes he
got things wrong, made bad decisions (check!
check! check!) but he took responsibility for them and learned to become a
better human being (check - I hope). In short, he’d become a grown-up. Despite never having
quite the money or the time to be truly comfortable in his own skin, the
character of Peter Parker found a way to be a real, functioning person,
establishing meaningful relationships with other people, despite the continual
and ever-changing difficulties that this presented; he’d find a way to make a
positive difference in the lives of others even when he wasn’t wearing the
tights.
Everyone knows
that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ but you know what else? Without great power comes great
responsibility too. That’s just part and parcel of being a grown-up. And
somehow, Peter managed to deal with this. And I loved him for it, that’s what made him a
hero to me; forget the webs and the madcap adventures; forget membership into
The Avengers and cosmic battles galore; for me it was all about shared
experience: here was a guy that was somehow traversing the same
constantly-shifting perils of adulthood as me… and usually, by the skin of his teeth he'd get by.
That was of
course until Marvel piled Peter’s plate higher and higher with problems until
it seemed impossible for even someone with his pluck to find a blessed chink of
daylight; during Civil War he
unmasked live to the world; lifelong enemies gunned for his family; endless
lawsuits rolled in; his dear Aunt May was shot; friends turned against him. It
seemed like there was no way out for Peter.
Surely his spider-sense didn't agree to this?
And there
wasn’t.
Marvel, having
painted themselves into a narrative corner hit the big, red reboot button: Peter
made a deal with the devil(!) to sacrifice his love with MJ for the world to
forget his identity. The Peter that came out the other side of the
much-maligned One More Day arc was a
character that I no longer identified with. Free from the constraints of
continuity and the travails of the adulthood life, this younger take on Peter
was single, footloose and fancy-free, a throwback to the sixties and seventies era of
the character. I’ve been told by both fans and one or two people inside the
industry that the stories that followed were some of the best of Spider-Man’s
long and storied history and maybe they were: but I wasn't around to find out.
Let me just be clear for a moment here: it wasn't the fact that the rebooted character suddenly led a commitment-free life whilst my life had to carry on regardless that bothered me: changing the status of a character they own is Marvel's prerogative, no matter how grubby the reasoning may be. But as someone who writes and relishes good writing, what really offended me was the way in which Marvel did it. Deals with The Devil? The whole world suddenly forgets? I can't think of anything less Spider-Man if I try. They may as well have just gone the Dallas route and made the whole thing Bobby Ewing's dream and it wouldn't have been any less puerile. I spent months and months looking forward to seeing how Marvel were going to write Peter's future - if they wanted him single then at least have the stones to write a divorce story and treat your audience like the adults they are (and they are; kids don't buy comic books anymore); if they want to unmask him and build palaces of pure gold outta the huge sales spikes that follow then at least follow it through and explore all of the interesting tales that spin forth from this huge event.
Don't, whatever you do, for the love of sweet zombie Jesus - don't pull the deus ex machina twist on us.
But they did.
The point I’m
trying to make amidst this Death Star-sized pile of digression-reeking bantha
droppings is that I learned something back then; It was a little bit like
peeling back the curtain and finding out the truth about the Wizard of Oz –
only with Marvel, what I saw behind the curtain was uglier still; it was profit
driving creativity, storytelling harnessed by avarice. It wasn’t a pretty sight
but in the consumer-driven we world we live in it has a horrible sense of
inexorableness to it. To paraphrase The
Matrix: ‘You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of
inevitability... It is the sound of your (insert favourite character’s name here:) death.’ And rebirth. Isn't Wolverine getting the 'he's-dead-but-not-really-we-just-need-a-quick-sales-spike-to-pay-The-Mouse-his-tithe-before-he-invokes-Prima-Nocta-on-our-asses treatment at the moment?
The reason I
didn’t get so wound up as others about Disney/Lucasfilm’s decision to jettison
the Expanded Universe like an escape
pod from a Star Destroyer didn’t come down to a crushing sense of inevitability
though or apathetic world-weary cynicism; when the Mouse House announced the commencement of the sequels back in
2012 I was as skeptical as the next Star
Wars fan, probably more so because I’d been burned so badly by the prequels. Back in ’99 at the tender age of twenty,
I was so amped for the arrival of Episode
I that I couldn’t wait the extra spoiler-filled six weeks that it would
take to arrive in the UK from across the pond. So, a couple of friends and I
cobbled together some cash and flew to America to watch the film.
It's been sixteen years since that day but I still vividly remember standing there in the harsh Texan sunlight outside the Lowes Theatre, my face plastered with a bloodless, frozen grin as my pals and I outwardly pantomimed our enjoyment of the movie. But on the inside, behind the Smilex rictus grins plastered to our faces, each of us contemplated just how underwhelmed we felt. The rest of the trilogy came and went and did little to shake this feeling. The only thing that changed was that viewings of the next two movies didn't require passports. Or enthusiasm.
I'd love to say that we mingled with the locals and steeped ourself in their culture... but we pretty much just beat the hell out of each other in the hotel room.
It's been sixteen years since that day but I still vividly remember standing there in the harsh Texan sunlight outside the Lowes Theatre, my face plastered with a bloodless, frozen grin as my pals and I outwardly pantomimed our enjoyment of the movie. But on the inside, behind the Smilex rictus grins plastered to our faces, each of us contemplated just how underwhelmed we felt. The rest of the trilogy came and went and did little to shake this feeling. The only thing that changed was that viewings of the next two movies didn't require passports. Or enthusiasm.
Sixteen years later and I still haven't washed that hand.
If you’ve been
reading this blog for a while then, you’ll know that my feelings towards the
new trilogy have manifested themselves as a kind of ‘courteous detachment’ to
quote Harper Lee and that’s probably putting it mildly. But I have to say, the
more I see of Force Awakens, the more
I like. Even the call to abandon decades of beloved Expanded Universe material seems to be a choice made with the
storytelling at the heart of the decision. The existence of decades of
in-universe continuity hampers the ability of Episode VII’s storytellers to tell the tale they want to tell and let’s
face it… if there’s one lesson to be learned from the flatulent mess that was the prequels
- it’s that’s this time, storytelling has
to come first. Before ‘just because
we can’ CG, before fan-pleasing easter eggs; before ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…?’ moments – storytelling has to come first.
And it seems
like it is. The original purpose of this week’s blog was to review Marvel’s new
Star Wars comics but I seem to be
taking my sweet time getting there. If I had to coin it in a soundbite though,
that would be it. Storytelling comes first. Star
Wars, Marvel’s flagship title is only six issues in and despite
the way the license may have landed in their lap because of their Mouse
Overlord’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, The House of Ideas sure aren’t taking the franchise
for granted. They've amassed a slew of superstar talent from the industry to make a second trench run at the Star Wars franchise and this time it seems to me that they might just be painting a Death Star on their fuselage pretty soon.
That's not to say that all three of the titles they've released so far have all been successful. The Princess Leia miniseries by Mark Waid and Terry Dodson is something of a misfire. Beginning at the precise moment that A New Hope concludes, it follows Leia's attempts to round up and protect the many Alderaanian expatriates following their planet's destruction at the hands of the Empire. It isn't that the series is particularly bad - in fact the premise of the story is a somewhat intriguing one. Leia is forced to balance the need to maintain a composed royal facade whilst simultaneously dealing with the inner turmoil that she feels at the destruction of her home planet. To add to this, she's also tasked with finding a equilibrium between her role as figurehead for the under-fire Rebel Alliance whilst discharging her duties as leader to her fellow Alderaanians in a terrible time of crisis.
Like I said, it isn't bad. It just isn't great either, especially when you look at the credentials of the two legendary creators behind it. Unfortunately, the other two titles in the current Marvel line-up, Star Wars and Darth Vader are both excellent which means that the mediocrity of the writing and the art are amplified. Yep, that's right... even the art is a let down. Terry Dodson may be great at drawing the female form (he relaunched Wonder Woman back in 2006 for DC and has also pencilled huge stories for Harley Quinn and Black Cat in the pages of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do) but in the Star Wars universe where we expect Leia to look like her film counterpart, he struggles to even create a likeness. Again, this issue is further highlighted by the quality of the artwork in the other books; John Cassaday's Leia (along with the other key players) look as if they've leapt straight from the screen itself every aspect of the heroes' features intact and spot-on: Leia's trademark glares, Han's lopsided smiles and Luke's dim-witted, blue-eyed "I-went-to-Toshi-Station-to-get-some-power-converters-but-somehow-ended-up-being-a-jedi-isn't-life-weird? faraway gazes are all nailed by Cassaday. Dodson on the other hand only really has to get Leia right and he somehow makes a mess of it.
This isn't to say that the series is entirely without merit. It has some good moments here and there, one particular highlight being in the first issue were we see Admiral "It's a trap!" Ackbar, the belligerent Mon Calamari berating hapless human rebels for only be able to see in one direction. And there was me thinking that he was such a dick to Lando in Jedi because he was black; now I get it - he just doesn't like any humans.
It isn't like the book is going to find it's feet either; as far as I'm aware it has only one issue remaining of a five run arc, so barring the most dramatic of finishes, it's going to go down as something of a damp squib. Happily, the other two books are way, way better in terms of writing and art. Like Princess Leia, Gillen and Larocca's Darth Vader is another character-based miniseries that asks the right questions - only in this case, the answers are resoundingly well written and drawn. Marvel's original run with the Star Wars franchise lasted from 1977-87 and is considered to be a little hokey. At one point they even gave us a giant green bunny rabbit sidekick, a character so ridiculous that he was reportedly hated by none other than George Lucas himself.
Even Marvel themselves acknowledged the cornball nature of their original run with the variant cover for Star Wars #1 pictured below. In fairness to them though, you have to consider what they had to go on. One movie's worth of canonical plotline, ties with Lucasfim who were scared to green light anything in case it clashed with George's vision for the future movies and Lucas himself, a creator who kept changing his mind about major story issues ('they're romantically involved - no, wait, scratch that: they're brother and sister! Hmmm, perhaps they're a romantically involved brother and sister?). Of course, all of this meant that the original run of comics were a hot mess of continuity issues and general ridiculousness. By the time Dark Horse won the license in 1991 they had three times as much film material to work with, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy of novels were coming out and Lucasfilm were in the process of building a cohesive, structured Expanded Universe. As such, the quality of the Dark Horse books is a vast improvement over Marvel's original run. You see where this is going, of course.
In 2015, with Marvel now back in control of the franchise, they have six films worth of lore to go on; an entire non-canonical Expanded Universe to borrow from as they see fit and with the seventh film all but wrapped and other Anthology movies filling in others periods in the Star Wars timeline, a clear idea where the saga is headed. Gillen and Larocca's Darth Vader utilises this crystallised understanding to maximum advantage; six films into a saga that is chiefly concerned with his story, Darth Vader is no longer the mysterious figure that he once was and Gillen exploits our understanding of the Sith Lord's past to great effect. Within the first six issues we see the fallout of his inability to prevent the Death Star's destruction and the resulting consequences; we see Vader return to his home world of Tatooine and perhaps most interestingly of all - we see him uncover the truth nature of his relationship with Luke. All of this is well written but it's the pencils of Salvador Larocca that really give the story the cinematic visuals that it deserves. His Vader has the imposing, fearsome presence that one would expect from the Sith Lord but there's vulnerability there too. At times, when Vader is under duress, there's more than a touch of Anakin about him and it's easy to see why the Emperor is so quick to distrust his young apprentice despite having invested so much in him.
I'm not sure if this title is a limited-run series or if it will run ad infinitum but for the foreseeable future there's plenty of mileage in it. Star Wars, the final title in the current line up is equally as good, perhaps even better. Jason Aaron's credentials as a quality writer have been firmly established since Scalped and he does a great job here of capturing the dazzling scope and swashbuckling bombast of the Star Wars universe. The plot begins simply enough with our beloved rag-tag bunch of Rebels trying to destroy an Imperial weapons factory but naturally enough, things quickly become complicated by the arrival of one Darth Vader. The scale of the resulting conflict is appropriately Star Wars, and as I've mentioned already, Cassaday's pencils are eerily close to the character's likenesses giving the whole book a slick, widescreen feel. It's in the aftermath of that first battle though, that Aaron moves things in really interesting directions. Luke gets dusted by Vader and suffers his first real crisis of confidence as a jedi; we see him questioning Leia's leadership style and he undertakes his first quest as a teacherless padawan - a return to Tatooine to the old Kenobi place in search of answers. We see Han and Leia's relationship develop as they scour deep space for a new home for the Rebel Alliance... that is until Solo's wife turns up to join the party.
Yep, you read that right. Han Solo, everyone's favourite Corellian smuggler and renowned intergalactic flirt is actually married! Details beyond that are sketchy apart from the fact that Mrs Solo seems very peeved with her husband (but let's face it, which woman he tries to charm isn't?) and I'm looking forward to next issue to find out more. Plot lines like this are a welcome new direction for the saga and provide a fresh take on characters who we thought we knew so well; yet despite this radical departure for Solo it still feels true to the character - it figures that Solo would have a girl in each port, doubly so that his reasons for marrying her then cutting and running are probably part of some botched get-rich-quick scheme that led to him laying low on Tatooine.
Aaron counterbalances these bold new moves with story beats that nicely ape moments from the existing we movies: we see an Imperial boarding party storming a cruiser like the beginning of A New Hope; a hazardous flight through an asteroid field like in Empire and in a nice touch of foreshadowing we see a fresh twist on the blaster-under-the-cantina-table trick.
It only gets more interesting from here on in. With the two ongoing titles going from strength to strength and the Princess Leia miniseries being replaced by Shattered Empire, a Force Awakens prequel of sorts, the future of A Galaxy Far, Far Away seems to be in good hands. Let's just hope Marvel can resist the lure of the Dark Side with this one...
That's not to say that all three of the titles they've released so far have all been successful. The Princess Leia miniseries by Mark Waid and Terry Dodson is something of a misfire. Beginning at the precise moment that A New Hope concludes, it follows Leia's attempts to round up and protect the many Alderaanian expatriates following their planet's destruction at the hands of the Empire. It isn't that the series is particularly bad - in fact the premise of the story is a somewhat intriguing one. Leia is forced to balance the need to maintain a composed royal facade whilst simultaneously dealing with the inner turmoil that she feels at the destruction of her home planet. To add to this, she's also tasked with finding a equilibrium between her role as figurehead for the under-fire Rebel Alliance whilst discharging her duties as leader to her fellow Alderaanians in a terrible time of crisis.
Like I said, it isn't bad. It just isn't great either, especially when you look at the credentials of the two legendary creators behind it. Unfortunately, the other two titles in the current Marvel line-up, Star Wars and Darth Vader are both excellent which means that the mediocrity of the writing and the art are amplified. Yep, that's right... even the art is a let down. Terry Dodson may be great at drawing the female form (he relaunched Wonder Woman back in 2006 for DC and has also pencilled huge stories for Harley Quinn and Black Cat in the pages of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do) but in the Star Wars universe where we expect Leia to look like her film counterpart, he struggles to even create a likeness. Again, this issue is further highlighted by the quality of the artwork in the other books; John Cassaday's Leia (along with the other key players) look as if they've leapt straight from the screen itself every aspect of the heroes' features intact and spot-on: Leia's trademark glares, Han's lopsided smiles and Luke's dim-witted, blue-eyed "I-went-to-Toshi-Station-to-get-some-power-converters-but-somehow-ended-up-being-a-jedi-isn't-life-weird? faraway gazes are all nailed by Cassaday. Dodson on the other hand only really has to get Leia right and he somehow makes a mess of it.
One of these panels resembles Princess Leia. The other looks like Penelope Cruz doing cosplay.
Hater.
It isn't like the book is going to find it's feet either; as far as I'm aware it has only one issue remaining of a five run arc, so barring the most dramatic of finishes, it's going to go down as something of a damp squib. Happily, the other two books are way, way better in terms of writing and art. Like Princess Leia, Gillen and Larocca's Darth Vader is another character-based miniseries that asks the right questions - only in this case, the answers are resoundingly well written and drawn. Marvel's original run with the Star Wars franchise lasted from 1977-87 and is considered to be a little hokey. At one point they even gave us a giant green bunny rabbit sidekick, a character so ridiculous that he was reportedly hated by none other than George Lucas himself.
When the guy who created this monstrosity hates your alien sidekick, you know you're in trouble.
Even Marvel themselves acknowledged the cornball nature of their original run with the variant cover for Star Wars #1 pictured below. In fairness to them though, you have to consider what they had to go on. One movie's worth of canonical plotline, ties with Lucasfim who were scared to green light anything in case it clashed with George's vision for the future movies and Lucas himself, a creator who kept changing his mind about major story issues ('they're romantically involved - no, wait, scratch that: they're brother and sister! Hmmm, perhaps they're a romantically involved brother and sister?). Of course, all of this meant that the original run of comics were a hot mess of continuity issues and general ridiculousness. By the time Dark Horse won the license in 1991 they had three times as much film material to work with, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy of novels were coming out and Lucasfilm were in the process of building a cohesive, structured Expanded Universe. As such, the quality of the Dark Horse books is a vast improvement over Marvel's original run. You see where this is going, of course.
"Shhh. Keep quiet and Bucky O'Hare will go back to his own comic."
In 2015, with Marvel now back in control of the franchise, they have six films worth of lore to go on; an entire non-canonical Expanded Universe to borrow from as they see fit and with the seventh film all but wrapped and other Anthology movies filling in others periods in the Star Wars timeline, a clear idea where the saga is headed. Gillen and Larocca's Darth Vader utilises this crystallised understanding to maximum advantage; six films into a saga that is chiefly concerned with his story, Darth Vader is no longer the mysterious figure that he once was and Gillen exploits our understanding of the Sith Lord's past to great effect. Within the first six issues we see the fallout of his inability to prevent the Death Star's destruction and the resulting consequences; we see Vader return to his home world of Tatooine and perhaps most interestingly of all - we see him uncover the truth nature of his relationship with Luke. All of this is well written but it's the pencils of Salvador Larocca that really give the story the cinematic visuals that it deserves. His Vader has the imposing, fearsome presence that one would expect from the Sith Lord but there's vulnerability there too. At times, when Vader is under duress, there's more than a touch of Anakin about him and it's easy to see why the Emperor is so quick to distrust his young apprentice despite having invested so much in him.
I'm not sure if this title is a limited-run series or if it will run ad infinitum but for the foreseeable future there's plenty of mileage in it. Star Wars, the final title in the current line up is equally as good, perhaps even better. Jason Aaron's credentials as a quality writer have been firmly established since Scalped and he does a great job here of capturing the dazzling scope and swashbuckling bombast of the Star Wars universe. The plot begins simply enough with our beloved rag-tag bunch of Rebels trying to destroy an Imperial weapons factory but naturally enough, things quickly become complicated by the arrival of one Darth Vader. The scale of the resulting conflict is appropriately Star Wars, and as I've mentioned already, Cassaday's pencils are eerily close to the character's likenesses giving the whole book a slick, widescreen feel. It's in the aftermath of that first battle though, that Aaron moves things in really interesting directions. Luke gets dusted by Vader and suffers his first real crisis of confidence as a jedi; we see him questioning Leia's leadership style and he undertakes his first quest as a teacherless padawan - a return to Tatooine to the old Kenobi place in search of answers. We see Han and Leia's relationship develop as they scour deep space for a new home for the Rebel Alliance... that is until Solo's wife turns up to join the party.
Yep, you read that right. Han Solo, everyone's favourite Corellian smuggler and renowned intergalactic flirt is actually married! Details beyond that are sketchy apart from the fact that Mrs Solo seems very peeved with her husband (but let's face it, which woman he tries to charm isn't?) and I'm looking forward to next issue to find out more. Plot lines like this are a welcome new direction for the saga and provide a fresh take on characters who we thought we knew so well; yet despite this radical departure for Solo it still feels true to the character - it figures that Solo would have a girl in each port, doubly so that his reasons for marrying her then cutting and running are probably part of some botched get-rich-quick scheme that led to him laying low on Tatooine.
Solo, you old dog.
Aaron counterbalances these bold new moves with story beats that nicely ape moments from the existing we movies: we see an Imperial boarding party storming a cruiser like the beginning of A New Hope; a hazardous flight through an asteroid field like in Empire and in a nice touch of foreshadowing we see a fresh twist on the blaster-under-the-cantina-table trick.
Neat trick Mrs Solo. Gunning down hapless Rodians is clearly a family hobby.
It only gets more interesting from here on in. With the two ongoing titles going from strength to strength and the Princess Leia miniseries being replaced by Shattered Empire, a Force Awakens prequel of sorts, the future of A Galaxy Far, Far Away seems to be in good hands. Let's just hope Marvel can resist the lure of the Dark Side with this one...
That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. This has been a Vertigo production.
Head back this way next week for the monthly RETRObituary with myself and Shaune Gilbert...
Until then be sure to follow me @VertigoDC but know this in advance: I'm not the droid you're looking for. Laters Potatoes.
