Yesterday saw the release of Marvel Comics’ Star Wars: A New Legacy celebratory one-shot, which marks a full decade since the relaunch of Star Wars comic books under the Marvel brand in 2015. Below are my brief recap and thoughts on this issue.
A New Legacy is made up of three separate stories, the first of which stars rogue archaeologist Dr. Chelli Lona Aphra and her on-again/off-again girlfriend and partner-in-crime Sana Starros. It’s set two years prior to the events of the original Star Wars film, which I believe makes it the chronologically earliest Aphra tale to be published so far. Here writer Charles Soule (of the upcoming Star Wars: Legacy of Vader series) and artist Ramon Rosanas (Star Wars: Age of Resistance) bring us to the “Third Decennial Imperial Jubilee” on Alderaan, in commemoration of three decades since Emperor Sheev Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic (in the 1999 film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace). Apparently Chelli and Sana have been hired to steal a statue from the event’s art exhibition and replace it with a holographic replica, and knowing how these two operate it feels unlikely from the start that this plan is going to work out well. Complicating matters is the fact that Aphra is being hunted by Beilert Valance (who originated in the 1970s Marvel Comics Star Wars title) and his partner Rik Duel (another carry-over from the old comics).
The other– and probably most significant– wild card in this situation is the presence of the possessed mask of Darth Momin (first seen in Soule’s 2017 run of the Star Wars: Darth Vader comic), which predictably takes control of a curious stormtrooper and runs amok. The writer is having a lot of fun here playing with some of the characters introduced in Star Wars comics old and new, and that sense of free-wheeling whimsy is infectious to the reader. Although it might seem at first like the accidental resurrection of an ancient Sith Lord at a high-profile event like this would become galactic news, it makes sense that the Empire would want to sweep it under the rug. The story ends with Aphra incapacitating Valance using her electro-tattoos and heading off with Starros on another adventure. I enjoyed all of this quite a bit… and I haven’t even mentioned the cameo appearances by Grand Moff Tarkin and Commander Ellian Zahra (who Soule created for his run on Marvel’s flagship Star Wars title in 2020). Great stuff!
The next story sees writer Jason Aaron (who penned the 2015 Star Wars reboot for Marvel Comics) revives a group of characters that he created– namely the Scar Squadron of elite Imperial stormtroopers and its lightsaber-wielding leader Sergeant Kreel. This is where I put together the pieces that Task Force 99, which is Scar Squadron’s official designation, was named after Clone Force 99, AKA The Bad Batch. But where that latter group broke free of its allegiance to the Empire, Scar Squadron runs rampant over the galaxy, hunting down and executing anyone affiliated with the Rebel Alliance. This tale is a fascinating character study of Kreel and his men as they find themselves in a changed galaxy after the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first Death Star. I particularly enjoyed the moment when they find a group of kids play-acting as Luke Skywalker and his friends on the planet Horford, and artist Leonard Kirk (Star Wars: Han Solo – Imperial Cadet) has a suitably kinetic style to his drawing that really brings these characters to life on the page.
The final– and shortest– story in this one-shot circles back around to Doctor Aphra, and was written by the character’s creator Kieron Gillen (2015’s Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 1) with attractively cartoonish artwork by Salva Espín (Star Wars: Dark Droids – D-Squad). Here Gillen gives us an entertaining romp starring Aphra’s infamously evil droid frenemies Triple-Zero and BT-1, the latter of which engages in a game of dejarik, AKA holochess, with the fearsome Wookiee bounty hunter Black Krrsantan, also created by the same writer. This tale is a dark twist of the scene in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope where R2-D2 plays holochess against the slightly-less-malevolent Wookiee Chewbacca, although both members of that species evidently threaten to rip limbs out of sockets when they lose. But Trip and BT put up more of a tooth-and-nail fight than Threepio and Artoo ever would, and the conflict escalates until the droids and Wookiee have made a big mess of Aphra’s ship, and it’s up to Darth Vader himself to set the proper order to things. I really enjoyed all three of these stories, and while Soule will return with Legacy of Vader next week, A New Legacy made me want to see Aaron and Gillen back writing Star Wars regularly again. I’d recommend picking up this one-shot to anyone even remotely familiar with or fond of the comics coming out of A Galaxy Far, Far Away over the past ten years.
Star Wars: A New Legacy is available now wherever comic books are sold.