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cohost's first star wars fanblog, official "Big Name Fan".

 

in my "bad batch s3" era currently



PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA, in her first solo comic outing in the Disney era. Five issues, miniseries. Writer: Mark Waid! Pencils: Terry Dodson! Ink: Rachel Dodson! Letters: Joe Caramagna! Colors: Jordie Bellaire! Editing: Jordan White and Heather Antos! And covers by Terry Dodson!

Man this is a fun comic.

It's the start of what I like to refer to as the "attempted gayification of Leia" by giving her a very large and very likeable Girlfriend Stand-in character (this happens a lot in the comics and it's extremely cute almost every time). In THIS comic it's Evaan Verlaine (who later joins up with Poe Dameron's mom in the Starlight Squadron, if you're curious) who is just... a really good foil to Leia.

See, Evaan is an Alderaanian! And since this story occurs almost immediately after the end of A New Hope, it's mostly about the complex task of being Alderaanian after, well, after Alderaan. It's an intriguing premise, and while Mark Waid is certainly not my favorite writer, I'm pretty happy with his work here.

Leia and Evaan are really the heart of this series, bouncing off of each other each with their own ways of handling the destruction of Alderaan. Evaan wasn't a princess, but she was mentored by Breha Organa, Leia's mother, and has a traditionalist mentality around both general Alderaanian culture and specifically the respect of the throne itself. Leia, in her eyes, is a distant and emotionally cold princess, quiet to the suffering of her people.

There's a good back-and-forth there. Evaan and Leia go on a quest to save whatever Alderaanians they can find, and get into a couple bits of hijinks along the way. It's short and sweet, and I think a very well-told story about trying to save a planet, when the planet doesn't exist any more.

The art, too, really worth a shoutout here. The way that the Dodsons draw Leia in this is just gorgeous - you can tell it's based on photo reference but it's stylized just a bit on top of that. It doesn't have that weird uncanny valley feeling like some modern Marvel does, it's just a really good style.

And speaking of style, man they really put Leia in some cool outfits. Apparently Terry Dodson specifically wanted to put Leia in a bunch of different costumes even in just these five issues, as a nod to how she looks in the movies. And I really think they killed it. Just some really good costumes for Leia (& Evaan!) throughout this comic. A very good balance of 'star wars realism' and cartoony style.

Read this if you're in the mood for mostly inconsequential but nonetheless quite enjoyable adventure romp with a younger, less experienced-with-the-rebellion Leia and her brash Alderaanian handmaiden Evaan Verlaine.


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in reply to @CT-0451's post:

Read this when it came out and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I loved it, you know, for normal reasons.

Honestly, apart from all the things you mentioned, I feel like it finally gives Alderaan's destruction the weight it actually deserves! It really hits while still being a fun adventure.