Han Solo is known for talking his way out of any situation. Guess Marvel thinks he’s also good at selling comic books because with Han Solo – Imperial Cadet they launched a second, ongoing comic book series focused solely on Solo. A month after Marvel began its movie-to-comic adaptation of Solo: A Star Wars Story, they launched the first issue in the Imperial Cadet series.
The setting is pretty self-explanatory (which is ironic, but more on that in a bit), but for a quick refresher: To get off Corellia, Han signs up for the Imperial Academy and enlists with the Imperial army. One of the many exciting moments in the Solo movie was when we saw Han fighting as a grunt in the army, but that scene (spoiler) came at the end of Han’s military career, we saw nothing of Han’s army life between deciding to enlist and being out on his last mission. The Imperial Cadet series looks like it will fill in some of the gap that the movie flashed-forward over.
The first issue of any series is almost always going to be a little slow. Characters have to be introduced, worlds have to be established, and most importantly the reader has to let the book into their imagination. Luckily, Star Wars is already an expansive universe with movie, novel, comic and television show content having laid a firm groundwork for stories to kick start off from.
So it was surprising to me that Imperial Cadet spent so much time (about half the book) going over content that was already largely established in the movie, let alone in the adapted series that readers received last month. Going through the opening pages felt like deja vu, with Han and Qi’ra pulling off heists and getting screeched at by their sewer-slug overseer. Han promises Qi’ra they’ll get out into the galaxy one day, that chance comes, Qi’ra gets captured…I found myself wondering why the writers felt the need to cover this plot point for a third time.
Comic books are not cheap. While I appreciate the artwork that goes into translating a scene from a movie to a comic book panel, if I wanted to a recap of the movie I’d just buy the book based on the movie. Comic book pages are valuable real estate and good writers and artists know to take advantage of it. This isn’t a story about some obscure character in a relatively unknown franchise, this is a book about Han Solo. I’d be willing to bet that anyone willing to spend $4 on a comic book about Han Solo had already seen the Han Solo movie.
Give the readers something new, not a third iteration of the same scenes.
Apart from that pretty substantial chunk of repetition, Imperial Cadet felt like an a pod racer without a pilot. You have this really exciting character, countless adventures and planets to base a narrative around, but there was nothing driving that content. In fact, Imperial Cadet #1 ends exactly how it begins. Solo, surrounded by foes, hands raised in a lazy surrender, “I can explain,” bubbled over his messy hair.
It’s not Solo’s explanation I’m concerned with, it’s the creators and why they wasted half of this book going back through stuff that doesn’t need to be explained again. I want to hear their explanation about that. I love Star Wars and I’ve always enjoyed Han as a character. Those two reasons, in addition to the great art by Leonard Kirk, will have me coming back to Imperial Cadet for its second issue. I just hope the story hits the thrusters hard in issue two.
I read and buy my comics on ComiXology. They are not a sponsor of Epic Brew.
