Star Wars: Battle of Jakku – Last Stand #1 – The Stage Is Set

Star Wars: Battle of Jakku – Last Stand #1 begins the final chapter of the latest Star Wars comic book story bridging the time between the fall of the Empire in Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens, telling the story of the main characters that were not the focus of the Star Wars: Aftermath novelization trilogy. As the various factions of the remaining Imperial Fleet jockey for control pf Palpatine’s Empire the New Republic continue to struggle with the daunting task of setting up a new governmental system.

Writing / Storyline:

This issue begins with The Acolytes Of Beyond staging an attack on Chandrila, as a pregnant Leia and her new attache are attacked, leaving the latter dead. This seems to be a separate attack from the one that takes place on Liberation Day in the novels held by Chancellor Mothma to try and convince other planets to join the fledgling government. Having two separate attacks occur on the same planet, seems a bit much, but perhaps the two attacks could have been combined to provide a more meaningful event leading to the Jakku conflict.

Meanwhile, Luke and Rynn Zenat are hunting Adelhard in the Annoet System, to see if he survived the mutiny led by Reyna Oskure, who betrayed Adelhard in the final issue of the Republic Under Seige story arc. This section and the backup story seem to rehash Adelhard’s origin and motivations, while providing little new information, and at times seems like filler.After Adelhard escapes capture by Luke, he returns to his ship and confronts Oskure as the coalition that he has worked on creating with the smugglers and bounty hunters begin to come together, leading Luke to realize that Adelhard’s endgame is not power, just revenge.

The issue begins to seemingly set the stage for the Battle of Jakku, but seems to take time away from the upcoming battle which, at this point seems to be still down the road a ways. The issue cliffhanger of Han Solo returning will be interesting to see how it is handled as his role in story and what he has been up to during this was told in the novelization.

Art / Color:

The artwork and colorwork in the issue are good and nothing really stands out as being off, although Aldelhard’s facial look does seem to change back and forth with regularly throughout the issue which can be a slightly off-putting, but remains adequate.