Star Wars Allegiance #1-4: Too Short, Right Amount of Sweet

With every new episode of the Sequel Trilogy, Lucasfilm has lead a campaign to prepare fans for the new worlds, creatures, events, and characters involved with each one. They span both comic and novels to connect each episode and give a wider story to those who would seek it. With The Rise of Skywalker’s theatrical release on the horizon, Marvel has prepared a four issue mini series to tell audiences where the characters are in relation to the beginning of the new film. In this series, Leia and her handful of rebels struggle to gain more personnel, ships, and weapons to repel the now governing First Order, lead by the villainous Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. There has been a large gap in the timeline between the last film and the new one. One would think there would be hundreds of stories to tell, but over the last couple years, very little has been told. Sadly, this four issue series was simply  not enough story to properly accomplish this. Despite releasing each issue a week apart from each other to make sure fans get a chance to read the entire story in time for the film, the series just doesn’t give the amount of content needed for its success. This is not to say the series is without merit, just not enough to make a real impact. No new revelations come from it, and it feels more like just a in between mini adventure with the main gang. This is in stark contrast to 2017’s Phasma “Journey to The Last Jedi” mini-series that explained how she survived the events of The Force Awakens to be present and unpunished in The Last Jedi.

As stated, the story is not bad at all. Leia takes a team to Mon Cala to try and secure ships for the fleet she needs to build, only to find a struggle there. Poe Dameron teams up with Finn and BB-8 to secure a weapons cache for the fight to come, only to run into a group of bounty hunters looking to cash in on their capture. The main thing this series does accomplish, is to show the full gang, albeit on two missions, in full teamwork mode.  Rey fights and trains with Rose and Chewbacca as back up. Leia is wise and diplomatic. Finn gets punched in the face a lot, never backing down from his fight. Poe and BB-8 sneak around, helping Finn out of jams during their mission. One of the huge missed opportunities here is representing the opposition. The first issue has The First Order in the fight with Kylo Ren, and General Hux present, but they sort of disappear in the series quickly. This is again a tragic byproduct of having this series so short and rushed. Although, not totally absent, The First Order seems left on the cutting room floor. Fans may end up finding what they are really looking for in the much more robust “Resistance Reborn” novel that is part of the same “Jouney to The Rise of Skywalker” event.

They very best thing about this series is all the interconnection between different Star Wars tales. Although these issues are meant to tie in with the films, it ends up tying in with other Marvel series much more. The group of bounty hunters following Finn and Poe are from the Galaxy’s Edge mini-series. One of the most frustrating things about reading Star Wars tales, is having to getting to know, and getting comfortable with new characters. This was an issue with these hunters at first in the Galaxy’s Edge comic, but seeing them show up here gives them more life to become more well know characters. This is how we got great Characters like Sana Starros and Doctor Aphra, in fact. Hopefully we will see more of them in the future. The connections don’t end there. The main liaison Leia deals with on Mon Cala is Admiral Ackbar’s son, who was mentioned in the SW youth novel, Spark of Ressistance.There is an aquatic battle droid from The Battle of Mon Cala from the Clone Wars show. That kind of media inter-connectivity is the very thing the Star Wars new canon needs now.