#discanon

Not to mention it was this year when they finally cracked and declared some books as non-canon before publishing. It’s like a code for “we didn’t bother to check them over to make sure they are canon“. They promised back in 2014 about everything new being 100% canon and caring about continuity. I guess it was all a lie then.

The main criticism of this kind of novels is that they span a long time and tell the life story of the main character, instead of concentrating on specific important event or just one interesting time in their life. Filling up all gaps in just one book is going to limit new stories we can get about the character.

The article doesn’t consider why this is happening. In my opinion, there are two reasons - there are no plans for more big stories about the character, because they are relatively minor (example: Galen and Lyra Erso in Catalyst) or the book is actually a backstory of a character (example: Thrawn) and there is a big possibility of stories about their future adventures.

Anyway, the article’s criticism can be debunked easily, because these novels leave a lot of gaps for future stories.

Rebel Rising - Jyn’s time in Saw’s partisans wasn’t documented day by day, there’s a room for more missions. Jyn’s time as a drifter for a few years was also skimmed over, giving room for more adventures.

Catalyst - actually, I doubt we’d get any more stories about Galen and/or Lyra in this novel’s timeframe. It’s a prequel and backstory for their opening scene in Rogue One. But there’s room for more Krennic appearances during Clone Wars and Empire era as he had a life outside of hovering over Galen.

Tarkin - backstory of Tarkin which I doubt we would have gotten anywhere else + one adventure about getting the rebels that stole his ship. Still gives lots of room for more appearances during his time in Judicials, Clone Wars, and Empire era.

Thrawn - the story of how he became admiral and got involved with Lothal issues. Still doesn’t tell us anything about his days in Chiss Ascendancy, meeting Anakin during Clone Wars and there’s definitely room for more stories with Thrawn in the Imperial ranks.

Dooku: puts himself in the softcore version of the Embrace of Pain

Me: What in Yuuzhan Vong is going on here

And then he teaches Qui-Gon 😲

It’s been a long time for me without reading any new SW content, so I decided to see how the comics are doing. And it’s surprisingly good!

I started with Darth Vader comics, because of chronology. After the Jocasta Nu arc there’s a story with family of bounty hunters having a contract to kill Vader. And it’s Chanath Cha’s family! So we get two things at once: an interesting little story about Vader dealing with his enemies and some of Chanath’s origin. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I liked it, especially Palpatine’s teachings there. And the art of Vader’s meditation was really great. It was shown from a Force plane and he looked like fire golem? Amazing.

Next arc was aptly named Burning Seas, the story of Imperial subjugation of Mon Cala. It was a pleasant surprise to see Tarkin again, though I don’t get why only 3 years after ROTS he already looks like the same old man from ANH. They should have drawn him younger. The story features more familiar faces, continuing the Mon Cala storyline from TCW (the memory panels with Jar Jar, Padme, Ahsoka and Kit Fisto! Ahh), as well as showing us Raddus from Rogue One. Vader’s and Tarkin’s goals coincide and intersect on Mon Cala and it was cool to see more of their cooperation. Literally one of the best things in new canon is the development of Tarkin-Vader working dynamic. Predictably Vader hunts another hidden Jedi, who he has a broader agenda than expected. Also, the Inquisitors as Vader’s squad is a little weird, because Vader is such a loner and gets annoyed when the little shits dare to try save him, as if he would ever need saving, but it all works out. All in all, Mon Cala arc of DV comics was quite the satisfying and enjoyable read that I feel added to the universe in a positive way. I’d say the writer finally found his feet with telling Vader stories.

This brings me to the latest oneshot (Bad Ground), which is absolutely great and fresh concept and well pulled off and in this case I absolutely love the synergy between the Tarkin novel and this comic. Basically, the premise is: Tarkin and his handpicked band of pro hunters hunt Vader. Why? How? What? Read it. It’s worth it. I really liked how it’s both a standalone and an epilogue to what happened between Vader and Tarkin on Mon Cala.

After finishing with Vader, I read the ongoing Star Wars main comic and the arc was titled... Mutiny on Mon Cala. Very fortunate for me to read them in that order after both Mon Cala arcs were published completely, so I could enjoy the full story in both time periods at once. Our heroes, Luke, Han and Leia visit Mon Cala to get them to join the Rebellion and what’s most important, bring those sweet Calamari ships along. I think everything in this story clicked, the Big Three dynamics, Chewie and droids in important supporting roles, the adventure itself with Luke being the Big Damn Jedi Hero :)))

And then I got to issue 50 and the start of new arc and I need to say that I enjoy Queen Trios so much as a character and her evolution from the very beginning in DV comics was a fascinating read. I hope she’ll survive for much longer, because she’s one of my top new canon characters.

Star Wars Annual 4 was a nice story about old Sith lightsaber that gets people very very angry and slashing everyone around. And it has Luke doing some podracing with Vader watching him :))) I think that’s the best of annuals so far.

So that’s it for now, but my adventure with SW comics will continue as I’m going to re-read Doctor Aphra instead of just catching up with the latest arc. I had a blast with this year’s comics, for two reasons - they had good stories that add to the universe with well-written interesting characters and there was consistency both between comics and also with TCW, movies, books and even Rebels (that Hera cameo! :)