Today saw the release of the fourth and final issue of Marvel Comics’ miniseries Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising, which itself is part one of a three-part maxi-series. Below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
The Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising #4 begins on Moff Adelhard’s star destroyer in the Anoat sector, where the captured rebel pilot Preeti wakes up in a holding cell. There she finds double-agent Imperial officer Kith Alaytia staring down at her, and insisting that she make her escape. Meanwhile in another part of the ship, Luke Skywalker confronts the Purge Trooper Commander Bragh and his cloaked Inquisitor accomplice, who have knocked unconscious the other group of escaping New Republic agents. Luke and the Inquisitor have a one-on-one lightsaber duel, which is interrupted by Bragh getting laser-blasted from behind by Preeti, who then reunites with her girlfriend Rynn Zenat. As the soldiers regain consciousness and take out their stormtrooper captors, Luke corners the Inquisitor and demands that they remove their hood, revealing the face of none other than… Reyna Oskure from the Acolytes of the Beyond, who was introduced to the Star Wars canon just three issues ago in this very miniseries.
It’s a bit of an anticlimactic unveiling, but it’s also quickly breezed past by the reintroduction of Lando Calrissian, who we had not yet seen in the pages of Insurgency Rising. Princess Leia calls Lando as he travels on the Lady Luck and requests that he help rescue Luke and the other New Republic operatives, a proposition to which he agrees immediately, being an all-around good guy. Meanwhile, the rebels take Oskure and Bragh into custody and prepare to evacuate, but Luke still has one matter of business to attend to… namely bringing Adelhard to New Republic justice. There’s a big showdown on the bridge that’s intercut with the soldiers making their escape, while outside in space Lando arrives with reinforcements in the form of additional rebel ships. We get some interesting details about Adelhard’s motivations and his distaste for the mysticism of the Force as Luke cuts down a battalion of stormtroopers and then tricks the Anoat governor into falling deep down into a chasm below the bridge.
So Luke (probably unwisely) lets Adelhard live to fight another day and then makes his way to the hangar bay to escape with his friends, but artists Luke Ross and Jethro Morales don’t make it quite clear enough what happens to Reyna and Bragh, who kind of disappear halfway through the issue even though they had been tied up by the rebels. It’s nice that Rynn and Preeti were reunited and I enjoyed Luke’s quoting of Mad Men’s Don Draper in saying “I don’t think about you at all” to Adelhard, but otherwise I’m left feeling a little underwhelmed by this back half of Insurgency Rising, after being super excited by the first two issues. I think I would have been more satisfied if a better reason had been given why Adelhard wasn’t killed, but at the same time I’m intrigued by his last-minute reconsidering of taking Reyna up on her dark-side offer. The only problem with that is I’m still very confused as to the status of Oskure by the end of this issue. Hopefully writer Alex Segura will make things clearer as the story continues in the second part of this maxi-series Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege later this month.
Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising #4 is available now wherever comic books are sold.