Is the Marvel Star Wars monthly declining in quality?

[ChrisIII]

At first I was kind of interested that the Darth Vader team was going to work on Marvel's core Star Wars monthly (Which I felt was kind of just a bit aimless after the "Capture the Star Destroyers" arc), but while the Jedha story is kind of OK writing wise, Larocca's artwork seems even more heavily sourced than ever before (and I've liked his work in the past, including Vader title).

The first panel in particular (From #43), uses a pose of Leia that I'm pretty sure came that scene from ESB where Leia seems kind of unimpressed with Lando (Right before "Hello, what have we here?"). What's worse, although this probably isn't Larocca's fault, is that the speech bubble is in the wrong place, giving Leia Queen Trio's dialogue, which makes it look like Leia is talking to herself, or referring to herself in the third person.

And there's plenty more where that came from with pretty much everyone, including the exact same pose later on. Also Han making the same poses as the corridor argument from the start of ESB towards the end too (except not to Leia).


and Queen Trios herself looks to be sourced heavily from either Emily Blunt or Katy Perry or a combination of the two.

I'm not the only one who noticed this....

https://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-somet...mic-1822347742

[thwhtGuardian]

Yeah, I don't know what's been going on lately with Larocca; whether it's a health issue or if the scripts aren't getting to him fast enough or what but he's relying way more on photo-referencing than he has in the past. While the main characters are distracting Trios is the worst offender in my mind as he isn't using photo-references for her body (as he usually does for the usual characters) so she comes off as looking like she's just had her face pasted onto her body.

[BlueandGold]

Yeah, I don't know what's been going on lately with Larocca; whether it's a health issue or if the scripts aren't getting to him fast enough or what but he's relying way more on photo-referencing than he has in the past. While the main characters are distracting Trios is the worst offender in my mind as he isn't using photo-references for her body (as he usually does for the usual characters) so she comes off as looking like she's just had her face pasted onto her body.

If you check out his "Vader Down" issues you will notice Larocca was using photo references, but the coloring in those issues didn't make it too noticeable. The coloring, currently by Guru eFX, is making it VERY noticeable.

But the worst I've seen is from that Storms of Crait one-shot...there was a panel or two with Scar Squadron that were either taken from cells of the movie or from photos of action figures.

[thwhtGuardian]

If you check out his "Vader Down" issues you will notice Larocca was using photo references, but the coloring in those issues didn't make it too noticeable. The coloring, currently by Guru eFX, is making it VERY noticeable.

But the worst I've seen is from that Storms of Crait one-shot...there was a panel or two with Scar Squadron that were either taken from cells of the movie or from photos of action figures.

He's certainly always done it, but it seems he uses much more often lately and yeah the coloring isn't helping.

[Rise]

Vader by Soule is great and even better than the previous series. Thrawn mini is good too..

The rest are medicore and I wish Marvel would stop milking OT already.

[ChrisIII]

Seems like the current arc is trying to move things even closer to "Empire" with the beginnings of the canon version of Rogue Squadron with Luke reuniting with Wedge and meeting Zev (Rogue Two, the guy who rescues Luke & Han but is later killed) and Hobbie, also tying in somewhat with the Rebels cartoon with Wedge (Also Hera and Zeb make cameos).

[The Negative Zone]

The rest are medicore and I wish Marvel would stop milking OT already.

The whole brand kind of is currently so small chance of that. Prequel era has lost its focus, and the Sequel films are kind of limited till they end. Not to mention their heavy OT influence.

[ChrisIII]

The new Poe issue apparently has Rey, Poe, and Finn chatting on the Falcon, so they're kind of slowly moving forward a bit with the sequel trilogy stuff.

The current Vader comis is "sort of" PT; it's certainly early enough to feature some aspects of it so far, such as Jocasta Nu and some Clone Wars elements such as the Mon Calamari king (Both DV and SW are cocurrently running Mon Calamari arcs set in different eras).

[Cap'n_RDM]

Yeah, I don't know what's been going on lately with Larocca; whether it's a health issue or if the scripts aren't getting to him fast enough or what but he's relying way more on photo-referencing than he has in the past. While the main characters are distracting Trios is the worst offender in my mind as he isn't using photo-references for her body (as he usually does for the usual characters) so she comes off as looking like she's just had her face pasted onto her body.

It is a shame as I used to really enjoy his work...now he's almost as bad as Land.

[WebLurker]

I've seen the new art and it is awful (sad, since I think that Larocca's work on Darth Vader was some of the best in the new canon comics). Haven't had a chance to read them yet, but Gillan has been a pretty consistent author when it comes to Star Wars comics. However, that awful, awful art does not make me want to read them that much.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, the writing's still pretty decent, but the art is pretty much distracting, although the current arc is a bit better.