Today saw the release of the fourth and final issue in Marvel Comics’ Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege miniseries, which also serves as the eighth of 12 chapters in the larger The Battle of Jakku maxi-series. Below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege #4 begins on the planet Chandrila, which serves as the temporary home of the New Republic government after the conclusion of the Galactic Civil War. Here, Admiral Gial Ackbar meets with Chancellor Mon Mothma, who is recovering from as assassination attempt, as seen in the previous issue. Ackbar reports that General Lando Calrissian’s forces were likely lost in their recent confrontation with Grand Moff Ubrik Adelhard’s fleet, but on the following page we discover that Lando and a lone New Republic pilot named Preeti have survived the assault and made it safely back to Chandrila airspace. Meanwhile on the surface below, Luke Skywalker talks with his twin sister Princess Leia Organa about the looming decision of how to deal with Adelhard’s forces, especially in light of the new information about the Imperial Remnant amassing at Jakku. Then Mothma holds a briefing to let them know about the murder of her spy and advisor Calder Behrens on the planet Krassis.
At the end of this briefing, Luke proposes that he, Lando, Preeti, and fellow rebel pilot Rynn Zenat lead a strike force to take down Adelhard once and for all, even though it will mean splitting up the New Republic fleet just before the attack on Jakku. Aboard his Star Destroyer Scepter in the Anoat Sector, Adelhard is approached by Lieutenant Kith Alaytia, who informs him of Acolyte of the Beyond Reyna Oskure’s status as a triple agent, basically selling Adelhard out to his rivals in the remnant. And while Luke’s team assembles nearby, with bounty hunter Beilert Valance and his girlfriend / former Imperial officer Jyala Haydenn along for the ride as secret weapons, Adelhard calls in Commander Bragh to eliminate Oskure. But Reyna turns the tables on Ubrik, letting him know that he was merely a pawn in the greater scheme of things after Emperor Palpatine’s death. Oskure takes command of the Scepter and leaves Adelhard’s fate to the Trandoshan bounty hunter Kranor.
Reyna announces over comms to Luke’s strike force that she has eliminated Adelhard and that she will remove his blockade, so the rebels ultimately decide to retreat, but on the final pages we discover that instead of killing them outright, Kranor has placed Ubrik and those loyal to him on an escape pod sent to crash on a planet below. In the last two panels Bragh’s hand reaches up out of the wreckage… so we don’t know for sure whether Adelhard is dead or not, although it seems like anyone without Bragh’s armor would not have survived that explosion. This feels kind of like another anticlimax to me, much like the conclusion to The Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising did, but I suppose we still have the third act of the maxi-series to hopefully pay everything off satisfactorily. So far I’d say writer Alex Segura has been good at kicking off these stories though they eventually just sort of peter out. Part of me hopes we’ve seen the last of Adelhard but the narrative stickler in me wants him to have a better send-off than just realizing he wasn’t as big of a deal as he thought he was. That comes across as a bit of a disservice to readers of these first two arcs of The Battle of Jakku, so here’s hoping Segura and his artists have cooked up something special for Last Stand.
Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege #4 is available now wherever comic books are sold.