Star Wars #11 (February 3): This issue is spectacular. I have no idea how Soule jams so much in 22 pages. From Threepio double-crossing Talky to Starlight Squadron actually invading the Tarkin's Will, each development was a surprise, though all ones that Soule built off previous developments. Moreover, everyone's actions have consequences. Shara's decision to stay on the Tarkin's Will to swipe the Astromechs' navigational data means that the Rebellion can now track the Tarkin's Will, but Shara is trapped on it. Leia's decision to allow Lobot to keep Talky running gives Threepio time to compile Trawak (meaning they don't need Talky anymore) but leads Lando, not unreasonably, to betray the Rebellion and agree to provide Jabba with Talky. By keeping Talky in play, Soule adds some long-term tension, as Talky - a self-interested party, as we've seen - may fix Lobot at some point to save its own (proverbial) skin. It's pretty rare to see so many forks in narrative in one issue, much less where they're all connected to difficult decisions that various characters are forced to make. It makes you feel like you really have no idea where we're going next.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #10 (February 10): Pak is doing a great job taking us on a tour of the weirder aspects of this galaxy far, far away, from the Eye of Webbish Bog in last issue to the Summa-Verminoth subspecies that serves as Exegol's guardian in this one. Like the Eye, the Summa-Verminoth tests Vader mentally, showing him and Ochi their supposed death. (Vader sees Luke killing him and joining the Emperor, who tells him that it's his destiny to do so.) Because Vader is Vader, he manages to navigate past the Summa-Verminoth, land on Exegol, and use the Force to take control of another Summa-Verminoth. Ochi warns him that the Emperor will kill him for using the Force. But, in the most Vader way possible, Vader concludes that the fear the Emperor tried to inspire in him worked: fear led to anger, and anger leads to power. As Vader approaches the Emperor's Exegol compound, he announces that the Emperor should fear him. Again, Pak has such a great read on Vader here as these last vestiges of Anakin are disappearing entirely. I'm excited to see what Pak has in store for Exegol, given "Rise of Skywalker" barely touched on its potential.
Undiscovered Country #12 (February 10): "The tech is amazing. I'm less excited about getting murdered by a dried-up old centipede woman who decorates her house with infant brains." - Chang, concisely summing up the team's predicament
This issue isn't a miss so much as it's a torrent of exposition that gets old quickly.
As we learned last issue, Jain created simulations of the team members and sent them to Aurora. The team tries to argue that Aurora will know that it isn't them, but Jain tells them that the zones are just part of an elaborate mega-computer "designed to generate data, process it, and come to a conclusion" when the team makes a decision. Jain will have the dupes make that decision, initiating the "end-conditions," though she doesn't tell the team what they are. (She also doesn't necessarily address the team's insistence that Aurora will know that she's engaged in shenanigans.)
But, Jain's fight with the Destiny Man distracts her, and she leaves the team. As they have no way to escape, Lottie has Chang ride his link to the kids and connect her to them. It's creepy. They live in a playground full of kitties and puppies, though all the kids are colorless and featureless. Lottie tells them that the people who were supposed to love her abandoned her, too, but at least she got a name. When she asks the kids their names, they all terrifyingly became versions of Munch's "The Scream." The kids proceed to take down Unity, freeing the team and preventing the dupes that Jain sent to Aurora from convincing Sam that they chose Unity.
Jain is fighting the Destiny Man at the time, lamenting that he got a zone despite his "betrayal." (I'm increasingly convincing the Destiny Man is actually Daniel and Lottie's father, even though we've seen the man running Destiny in the before times.) Meanwhile, the team discovers that they're all on the island where the U.S. Capitol is located. Ace tries to create a ship with his stylus, but, without the kids, Unity doesn't have the energy that it needs to keep running. Jain appears and helps them escape in the hope that they'll choose Unity after they've walked the Spiral. Jain tells them that they're fools for not believing that every civilization has a cost, revealing that one of the children who they "destroyed" was hers.
During their fight, the Destiny Man dismisses Jain's prattling about technology, noting that it was weapons -- the Colt .45 pistol, the Winchester rifle, Gatling's canon - that made America what it was. He then launches another weapon: the intercontinental ballistic missile. Unity City is destroyed, and we definitively learn this world isn't our world when Ace comments that it's the first atomic explosion since Berlin in 1946. The team outraces the blast, using the iPod - tuned to Danny Elfman's "Weird Science" - to enter the next zone.
In the ruins of Unity, Sam tells the Destiny Man that he brings wasteland wherever he goes. He confirms that Aurora knew that Jain was dangerous in part because she was trying to deceive Aurora. Sam implies that Aurora let the Destiny Man through the wall not because she believes in him but because she needed someone to take down Jain.
Meanwhile, in Ford's Theater, Daniel and Lottie watch the videos that their parents recorded for them. After their father's plays, Lottie admits that she didn't want to believe Daniel because she was jealous that he heard from their father, but she never heard from their mother. Their mother's recording finally plays: we learn that their parents were trying to bring Daniel and Lottie to the United States because their mother was part of the team that developed Sky and they wanted their help to prevent its spread. Lottie is overcome as she realizes that, because she didn't believe Daniel, Sky happened. Perhaps more interestingly, their mother's recording stops when someone clearly stops her, with her saying, "No! Don't! I'm not - I'm loyal! I'm-." (Given Jain's talk of betrayal, it's part of what makes me think their father is the Destiny Man.) Before Lottie can think on the issue more, the curtain opens and a pirate Same stands on a ship along a shore (near a weird golden Micky Mouse-esque character) welcoming them to the next zone, Possibility.
As much as I love this series' mythos, I think that it's probably time for us maybe just to have some action and/or fun in Possibility? After the tedium of Destiny Man and Jain's philosophical argument in this issue, I'd welcome the team just trying to get from Point A to Point B in the most interesting way possible.
Also Read: Star Wars: The High Republic #2 (February 3)
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