Today saw the release of the third issue in Marvel Comics’ Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege miniseries (and seventh issue overall in The Battle of Jakku macro-series), and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege #3 begins on the planet Kijimi, where the character named Tomasso (who first appeared in the 2020 young-adult novel Star Wars: Poe Dameron – Free Fall by author Alex Segura, who also wrote this comic) meets with Zeva, the current leader of the Spice Runners. Tomasso brings in a contact with some information he believes Zeva will find interesting, and it turns out to be none other than the freedom-fighter Weazel, Warwick Davis’s character from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Solo: A Star Wars Story. Weazel informs Zeva that Adelhard has hired deadly bounty hunters to kill Luke Skywalker, but Zeva dismisses him, claiming that it was indeed the Spice Runners of Kijimi who “own” that contract. Still, Zeva remains wary of Adelhard’s growing influence in the galaxy, and we cut to a location called Hamix Outpost (newly introduced here), where Republic spy Calder Behrens meets with bounty hunter Beilert Valance (whose ongoing comic title Star Wars: Bounty Hunters ended at the beginning of this year) about pressing matters of galactic importance.
Next we find ourselves in a far-flung sector of the galaxy called the Exterior, where Grand Moff Randd holds a holo-conference with an unknown caller, suggesting that they “make their move” from the inside of Adelhard’s fleet, despite the fact that the rogue Imperial officer already suspects there to be a traitor in his midst. On Chandrila, a suddenly very pregnant (with Ben Solo, presumably) Princess Leia Organa meets with her twin brother Luke Skywalker and New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma, when they are ambushed by an unnamed Trandoshan bounty hunter. The assassination attempt fails, but leaves Mothma injured and the other shaken, with the assailant refusing to say by whom he's been hired. Then in the Anoat sector, we see Reyna Oskure from the Acolytes of the Beyond pretending (?) to stage an assassination attempt on Grand Moff Adelhard, but this encounter just concludes with them making out again, though Adelhard still believes everyone is out to get him, and probably rightly so.
The final scene of this jam-packed issue sees Behrens on the planet Krassinique (another new one), where he finds that a politician named Galward Paronis has been murdered, much like Mirim Kess in the previous issue. These men were both intended to become members of the New Republic Senate but were shot down before they could be inducted. And then on the last page we get the reveal of the cyborg Arcona bounty hunter who did the dirty deed: it’s Lan-drus, who first appeared in the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – The Rebellion one-shot (also written by Segura) last year. Lan-drus also kills Calder and declares that the man’s friends will also fall victim to his assassination skills. I thought this was an exciting issue, but there’s so much going on here that Segura and artist Stefano Raffaele didn’t have much time to spend in any one location or focus on any of the many characters present. I’m also growing a little weary of the device of keeping certain characters in the shadows until their unveiling at a to-be-determined later time… this feels a bit hackneyed and can be kind of confusing when you’re trying to keep track of who is who and what’s going on where. Still, it’s really fun to see Weazel again, and I hope he continues to play a part in The Battle of Jedha going forward.
Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku – Republic Under Siege #3 is available now wherever comic books are sold.