How is Jason Aaron's Marvel Star Wars Run?

[Rogue22]

Recently I got interested in the new expanded universe. How good is Jason Aaton's run on Star Wars?

[thwhtGuardian]

I thought it was pretty solid and I liked that the story arcs were just as long as they needed to be compared to the current run that is heavily padded to fit the trade.

[Frontier]

I thought it was a solid enough start to the run and for the comic adventures of Luke and company.

There was some eyeroll worthy stuff that happened and Han and Leia's dynamic was way too belligerent for my tastes, but it was overall pretty solid.

[WebLurker]

It's okay. It's kinda episodic and is mostly filler to pass the time between the movies, but there are some interesting stories in it. It crosses over with the first Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra series in a couple places, and those are really good, so you might want to check those out, too.

[thwhtGuardian]

It's okay. It's kinda episodic and is mostly filler to pass the time between the movies, but there are some interesting stories in it. It crosses over with the first Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra series in a couple places, and those are really good, so you might want to check those out, too.

I'll take episodic any day of the week over seven and eight part stories that easily could have been told in two or three like Gillen's and Soule's runs have been.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, the kind of slow burn stuff with Gillen worked much better for the first Vader monthly as Vader's more that type of character but not quite with the main ensemble. Also for some reason Larocca's art was way too focused on using photo reference for his first few issues.

Also Aaron's run I think too more creative risks, possibly because the Disney EU was relatively fresh at the time. Stuff like Luke and Vader having a brief fight before ESB (although it helps give Vader a vital clue as to Luke's identity) for example.

[thwhtGuardian]

Yeah, the kind of slow burn stuff with Gillen worked much better for the first Vader monthly as Vader's more that type of character but not quite with the main ensemble. Also for some reason Larocca's art was way too focused on using photo reference for his first few issues.

Also Aaron's run I think too more creative risks, possibly because the Disney EU was relatively fresh at the time. Stuff like Luke and Vader having a brief fight before ESB (although it helps give Vader a vital clue as to Luke's identity) for example.

The photo-refrencing was laughably obvious.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, you could spot pretty much the exact same parts of the movies he took them from. I think one issue used the "annoyed Leia" photo reference from ESB (I think when she's arguing with Han in the medbay early in the film) *twice*. Plus there's a scene of Han talking with Chewie and it's obviously from the SE-current scene of Han talking with Jabba in the docking bay.

[thwhtGuardian]

Yeah, you could spot pretty much the exact same parts of the movies he took them from. I think one issue used the "annoyed Leia" photo reference from ESB (I think when she's arguing with Han in the medbay early in the film) *twice*. Plus there's a scene of Han talking with Chewie and it's obviously from the SE-current scene of Han talking with Jabba in the docking bay.

Yeah, he reused the same refrences again and again. The worst though was his Trios:

I don't know who that picture is of but it's so different than the rest of the panel that it sticks out like a sore thumb...and even though it looked like utter crap he continued to do it:


As an editor, how do you look at those images and say, "That's awesome, print it now!"?

[Rogue22]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will check it out.

[WebLurker]

Also for some reason Larocca's art was way too focused on using photo reference for his first few issues.

Yeah, that got really bad the longer he worked on the franchise. His work on the Vader series was really good. So sad to see it go downhill to the point it looked like crude Photoshop fan art.

[Frontier]

I thought Gillen wrote a better Han and Leia dynamic at least and was more consistent than Aaron.

[thwhtGuardian]

I thought Gillen wrote a better Han and Leia dynamic at least and was more consistent than Aaron.

The characterization was solid but it was far out weighed by the horrid overly decompressed storytelling.

[Frontier]

The characterization was solid but it was far out weighed by the horrid overly decompressed storytelling.

The perks of reading the run in trade, I guess...

[thwhtGuardian]

The perks of reading the run in trade, I guess...

Even in trade it's not that great because it was obvious the stories didn't need to be as long as they were; the amounts of filler were just crazy. Mike Mignola writes for the trade, but there isn't a single scene or even a single panel that feels like that if it weren't there the story would be the same...but there are literally pages in each chapter that you could cut out entirely and the story wouldn't suffer.