REVIEW: Star Wars The High Republic #10

Coming off another Star Wars comic, I have to say that I am very happy that we are getting such quality work from these books. It is fantastic to see that Marvel and Disney are coming together to do some great stuff with the Star Wars Extended Universe. Between the art and the book design, this is a really good book. Normally we don’t talk too much about book design because most comic books go with the standard stuff for laying out their book, a quick recap (sometimes longer than I would like), a credit page, and then a coming soon page at the end. Whilst this book has both of those things it also has a very neat timeline page that allows us to see exactly where this book fits into the whole movie universe of Star Wars, and that’s wonderful because it creates a cannon that is easily verifiable unlike that of old school Zelda and it’s crazy timelines and alternative universes. On top of that, Carlos Lao laid out that credits page in such a nice way! They did it in such a way that it feels as thus we are watching another installment in the Star Wars movie franchise by having the recap and credit text positioned in a vertical skew that looks just like the movies, it’s such an obvious choice for a Star Wars recap and yet I hadn’t seen it before, so major points to Carlos Lao for that.

Next, we jump into the art. This is some epic stuff, I have such a soft spot for this type of indie style where the character designs are heavily stylized and even though they are all humanoid, they all still feel distinct and alien which is perfect because they are actually aliens, and most of the Star Wars characters should feel like that, not just boring humans. Speaking of boring humans, did you know that before the original movie was made, Georgie Boy actually wanted Han Solo to be a toad man? I don’t know how I feel about that because Dirty Harry star, Harrison Ford killed that acting gig, but it still makes me happy to see that the comics are as weird as ever. Especially when we have character designs that feature pointy ears, weird squid heads, blue fishy people, and Chtulu-faced monsters. I’ve said once and I’ll say it again, to me this is the real Star Wars right here. Alien people battling it out with forced-infused weapons and superpowers. Love it a whole lot and the art by Ario Anindito is packed to the brim with all of it. If comics were smelly snacks this would be a sardine can because it is packed with salty alien goodness.

This story also features several Sith artifacts that are infused with dark energy, and I really appreciate that because in the actual movies, all we really know about is the lightsabers, and yet the comic’s world is so rich in lore and crazy cool items that each time a new object is brought up and used in battle I am outstood by the cool mechanics that it possesses. I know it’s a bit hard not to compare the comics to the movies but when you are able to see that the comics have such rich characters, such rich words, and such rich action sequences, it kinda makes the movies fall a little flat in comparison. Well in any case, being a Star Wars fan ever since my dad showed me the first movie (the old one, not the Anakin one, although I did see that one years later.) it’s nice to see that there is so much more lore out there to sink your claws into and enjoy.

Back to the comic, I am happy I read this. Happy because the art is stellar, the coloring is fantastic and the lettering is spectacular, oh but wait, there’s more. The inking was actually done by a third person. Mark Morales, not to be confused with Miles Morales of Spidey fame, is the inker in this issue, and damn do they do a great job! The inking gives this story such a great amount of personality, the hatching, the lines of action, the little details in the clothes, and the use of heavy black for deep shading make this such a wonderful piece of comic crafting. I’m not sure if they used a brush pen for this or if it was done digitally but I just love how the lines are so varied in weight and it feels really spectacular, to have received this inking on top of the art of Ario Anindito must have been a great moment and no doubt Frank William must have had a wonderful time adding colors to the inked pages because the inking already gives so much detail that Frank probably looked at it and said, “Man, this is gonna be a cake walk, I’m gonna go crazy with that shading and that electricity effect.”

All in all, this is fantastic work and before we leave this review, we have to make a special mention of the fantastic work of letterer Ariana Maher who turned that script into literal gold with word balloons that fit perfectly into the panels and a nice spritzing of sound fxs that make each scene pop. I am particularly fond of the sound fx text used for the lighting attack scene, that is pure magic right there and it works so well with the rest of the action of that page. Really great stuff. Oh, and I gotta mention this; there is almost no use of fully white pages, pretty much all the pages are either full-page illustrations, or they do away with panel borders bringing the gutters in for some of the fun or they break up the panels in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a white page with squares on top of it. I counted only 4 pages, read that again, 4 PAGES, of panels on top of white backgrounds with no modifications or going outside the borders. This is literally thinking outside the box. So what are you waiting for? Go pick up this series!

Writing- 5 Stars
Art – 5 Stars
Colors – 5 Stars

Overall – 5 Stars

Writing by; Cavan Scott
Art by; Ario Anindito

Inking by; Mark Morales
Colors by; Frank William
Lettering by; Ariana Maher
Cover art by; Rafel De La torre & Marecelo Maiolo

Variant Covers by; David Lopez, Leinil Francis Yu & Sonny Gho

Book Design by; Carlos Lao
Published by; Marvel

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”