Comic Book Review: Star Wars Dark Times #10
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Script: Mick Harrison
Art: David Ross
Colors: Alex Wald
Cover art: Zach Howard
Publication date: April 16, 2008
In what would seem to have been one of the most exciting concepts in Star Wars original fiction, the series Dark Times focuses on-- you guessed it-- the rarely chronicled dark ages before the events of the original Star Wars film. Building off a single line by Obi-Wan Kenobi, fans had visions of an era where intergalactic totalitarianism reigned supreme and genocide was something that very likely could happen to you. Dark Horse's comic based on the summary does indeed remind one of pain and suffering, but it mostly comes from the story's slow nature and fairly uninteresting premise.
The "Parallels" arc followed two stories. As the name implies, these similar tales follow the slowly crumbling relationships a galaxy apart-- a single mother separated from her padawan son has joined a crew of rogues, while the kid is stranded on a planet with fan favorite character K'Kruhk and an entire ship of kids. All of these people are being pursued by space pirates of some sort, with the bulk of the characters originating in previous comic series or are fairly uninspired aliens you've seen with nose piercings or, perhaps, new hats.
The Jedi hero of the previous arc, Dass Jennir, is nowhere to be seen. His dinosaur-like sidekick takes a more central role here, and there's a lot of fighting, explosions, and other obligatory let's-wrap-up-the-story elements here. In short, this is a comic written for its upcoming trade paperback, and as a result the story isn't much fun. Were this the 1980s, each story would probably be on its own and take one, perhaps two issues at the most. Due to the modern comics business model, which relies heavily on those collected books, we're being given stories which go on much longer than necessary only to give us fairly hollow tales.
K'Kruhk's post-Order 66 adventures are the reason to pick up this book, and the arc as a whole. If you enjoyed him over the past decade's worth of prequel-era comics, you will probably want to see him here-- but he's pretty lifeless compared to previous outings, and really the primary Star Wars-y component of the story. Aside from borrowing numerous character and vehicle designs from the movies, there story and events really don't expand the universe in any meaningful way. There's a lot of treading water here, which is a shame.
The Dark Times book has also been tormented with incredible delays. Issue #1 hit in November 2006, and was the start of what I believe was initially solicited as a monthly series. Obviously, that didn't work out too well.
Next time in Dark Times #11: The Vector crossover hits the post-prequel era, and the covers promise more of Darth Vader doing stuff. Will it be cool?
Posted byAdam16bit at 12:34 AM
Labels: Comics, Comics: Dark Times, Dark Horse
