One of the most amazing things about Star Wars is whenever we see a story we wonder, how did we get here? And Star Wars is always willing to answer that question. We know where Darth Vader comes from because people wanted to know and George Lucas had an answer. A lot of times this works exceedingly well. The film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is one of the best examples of this. I didn’t know I needed that story but I was blown away by it. Andor the television series is another example.
The Star Wars comics have even more room to tell stories to fill in gaps. I was curious about the Rogue One: Cassian & K-2SO Special comic so I decided to give it a read. Like almost all of the cannon Star Wars comics the artwork is incredible. My favorite way to read is to throw on the soundtrack from one of the movies and make it feel even more immersive. It’s like I have gone to a galaxy far, far away.
As far as the artwork of the piece, I have no notes, It’s perfect. As for the story, well, that’s a little different. It’s not that this is a bad story. There’s a good amount of action. There are characters who communicate by emitting smells which is something I have not seen before in Star Wars. And there are good, funny quips and dialogue like you might expect. I felt like there could be a lot of potential with those two olfactory characters but there’s not really time here to go into their backstory and it doesn’t feel like we’ll be seeing them again anytime soon so they do end up feeling a bit wasted.
The problem with the story is that it is a story we don’t necessarily need. I never wondered how Cassian ended up with K-2SO. It doesn’t bother me that I have an answer to that question but the oversaturation of Star Wars is a bit of a problem. I’d rather we have an all new comic story about characters we haven’t met than this one. In the same way explaining the fuzzy dice on the Millenium Falcon in Solo feels unnecessary, so does this story. It’s a little indulgent but still fun.
Still, if you love Star Wars, there are much worse ways to spend 15 minutes of reading time.
In conclusion, if you are looking for an entertaining Star Wars read with amazing art that has a story with fairly low stakes (we know who will live here) then this is a good comic. And there is only the one shot so once you’ve read it you are done with this particular story.
May the force be with you!
P.S. if you want to check out another of my Star Wars reviews, take a look here.
