Star Wars #49: The Path Of Light To The Series Finale

Star Wars #49 is the penultimate issue in the five-year run of this series and brings closure to the first story arc following the battle of Hoth involving former Commander  Zahra, Tarkin’s protege. Bent on getting revenge. Zahara has lured Leia and Luke into a trap using the Alderaanian Fleet, the last survivors of the planet Alderaan.

In the span of two pages, Soule deftly brings readers up to speed on Zahra’s story, when it could have a full story arc in and of itself. The exchange between Leia and Zahra is very wordy, yet it works to move the story along, ultimately bringing Zahra’s story to a close, of her own doing. Luke also has a chance to shine showing off his Jedi skills leaping out of the rescue pod, and traveling through space like Leia in The Last Jedi, making it back to the ship in order to save Leia.  Luke also showed his fighting prowess in a beautiful action sequence by Morales that flows and exudes finesse and his honed fighting prowess that has developed since his confrontation with Vader on Cloud City.

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The final pages bring the series to the point where Leia, Luke, Lando, Chewie, and the droids are ready to risk it all to get Han from Jabba’s palace. In the closing pages, Soule shows how much Leia has grown, not only as a person, but a leader in the Rebellion. While it looks like what happens from the last page to the beginning of Return of the Jedi is a story to be told another time, the ending, as it sounds like the last issue is a flashback story, wraps the series in a satisfying way.