Review: Star Wars Adventures #31

With the high level quality within Marvel’s Star Wars line, it’s easy to ignore the IDW young readers Star Wars Adventures. But the Adventures books are meant to play the role of gateway comics for less seasoned Star Wars fans and thus plays an important role among comics. This book is too often overly simplistic for anyone except the youngest of readers. But it must of course be held to the same standard of storytelling as any comic, since a bad issue could be the difference between a new lifetime comic reader or a child who decides comics are not interesting.

With this in mind Star Wars Adventures is divided into two very different stories. The first deals with Rey’s love for piloting and Poe training her in the nuances of flying an X-Wing. Within the larger tapestry of Star Wars this story makes almost no sense. We know Rey is such a great pilot that Han passed the torch to her, we know Rey embraces the Force and it’s ability to do good, we know that Rey was never trained in flight by Luke Skywalker.

Somehow within a short span, Rey is made out to be a rookie who needs Poe Dameron to give her basic lessons on flying. Worse than that Poe tells Rey she must fly without the use of the Force, something she spent time and effort in convincing Luke Skywalker was a deep mistake. Rey also claims she was trained to fly by Luke Skywalker. Putting aside these annoyances is the decision to keep her unrecognizable in a helmet the entire issue, so younger fans wouldn’t even know it was Rey if they were flipping through the issue.

All of Poe’s lessons are quickly put aside due to an attack by Buzz Droids. The one joy of this story is seeing these small antagonists from the prequels. Like little space-tribbles, they quickly surround the X-wings and try to pull them apart. In typical Bewitched style, Poe realizes Rey must use the Force to help them. Rey uses her flying prowess and the Force to make quick work of the Buzz Droids.

This entire sequence written by Michael Moreci makes Poe look ridiculous, in spite of years of great development and amazing battles in Marvel’s Poe Dameron comic. The colors by Valentina Taddeo are perfect for this book, classic Star Wars tones but with a simple style that draws readers in.Â The art by Arianna Florean is clear and well done in regards to the X-wings and space battle sequences. But rendering the characters unrecognizable for most of the story is a mistake when trying to draw in younger and older readers alike.

The second story is an adventure of Emil Graf who is the grandson of Milo Graf who was featured in Cavan Scott’s Wild Space books. Here, his grandson carries on his legacy of adventures in ‘Wild Space’. This is a great space adventure the the ‘saturday serial’ style that would make George Lucas proud. Emil is exploring the lost library of Nelgenam when he’s attacked by library droids. Along with his droids Crater, Boo and friend Noni, Emil races through the library and stops the aggressive attack of the Librarian Droids. With Noni’s assist, Emil is able to gain the treasure he was looking for, a Lost Story memory crystal. But just as they are obtaining their goal the team is attacked by a villain seeking to feed on the stories.

By telling an original adventure, steeped in the simple action, character work, villainy and adventures so important to Star Wars, Cavan Scott creates an opportunity for readers young and old to revisit what makes Star Wars great. Star Wars is at its core a story about stories, and the hunt and appetite for these stories is a great impetus for great adventures. Even without the Force, Jedi or lightsabers, this comic showcases what makes reader and viewers love Star Wars: action, characters and danger.

Even though the story takes place in a library, David M Buisan does such a great job on the art that one can tell we are in Wild Space. Emil’s friends are typical of Star Wars sidekicks, but still are visually differentiated enough that you can imagine a child begging their parent to buy them all off a shelf. This is what Star Wars comics needs, staying true to the core of the story-telling while becoming more expansive with the characters and conflicts. Although young children might not recognize the characters, the strong artwork along with the colors by Charlie Kirchoff are enough to draw any reader in through shear story-telling.

‘Squad Goals’
Writing: 2 of 5 Stars
Artwork: 3 of 5 stars
Colors: 4 of 5 stars

‘The Lost Stories’
Writing: 5 of 5 stars
Artwork 4.5 of 5 stars
Colors 4 of 5 stars

Overall 3.75 of 5 stars

Writing: Michael Moreci and Cavan Scott
Artwork Arianna Florean and David M Buisan
Colors: Valentina Taddeo and Charlie Kirchoff
Letters: Jake M. Wood
Publisher: IDW

Author Profile

M.R. Jafri

M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.