Comic Book Review: Star Wars: Infinities: Return of the Jedi #1 (of 4)
by Rob Irwin
Published: January 24, 2004
Title |
Story |
Creative Team |
Publisher |
Price |
Grade |
Star Wars: Infinities #1 (of 4) |
"Return of the Jedi" |
Adam Gallardo
Ryan Benjamin |
Dark Horse Comics |
$2.99 US
$4.99 CAN |
B |
For more information: Dark Horse Comics |
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How many times have you found yourself wondering, "What if..." about a particular topic? It might have been after running into an old girlfriend at the mall who's now married with kids. What if you hadn't split up during college? It might have been after you forgot to apply the brakes and had a fender bender with the car infront. What if you'd been paying more attention to the road ahead? We've all been there and done that in one way or another.
Which brings us to the Star Wars: Infinities series. Unlike just about everything else in the Star Wars canon which is triple checked for continuity and, allegedly, shoved under the nose of George Lucas at some stage to ensure it doesn't mess with his "vision," Infinities sets out to deliberately break the rules and essentially pose a "What if..." to the reader. Now, for some fans, this could be akin to setting their rare Ewok plush toy on fire, but for those who are "post-fandom" (or those who were never hardcore fans in the first place), this is an interesting concept.
As we already know, Return of the Jedi is the sixth of the Star Wars films. Released in 1983, it capped off the Star Wars story with good triumphing over evil, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker redeeming himself and all manner of cuddly thoughts in between. Although it was widely thought that George Lucas would go on to make Episodes VII, VIII and IX of the series, this never eventuated and, more recently, the Big Man has made it clear that he won't be doing them ever. Well bah humbug to that.
So here we have the first part of the final Star Wars movie... with a twist.
While you can probably think of many diversions the movie could suddenly break out into, writer Adam Gallardo has played it safe and gets his first major plot twist into the story early on. Do you remember the scene in Jabba's palace where Princess Leia appears disguised as a bounty hunter? In that scene, you might recall that it was C3P0 who translated between the disguised Leia and Jabba. In this issue of Infinities, however, C3P0 gets knocked out of commission by an irate Jabba before he can finish translating the negotiation. This leads to Leia being unveiled a lot sooner than in the movie version... and the story flows from there.
While I feel the initial plot twist here is relatively weak and I'm not completely sold on some of the artwork, I'm not going to let it bother me too much until I see how all four issues pan out. There are some other elements in this story - particularly on its final pages - which hold a great deal of promise. For that reason, I won't be too harsh with my rating here, but I certainly can't sign off by making it clear that with 'infinite' possibilities, the writer has, ultimately, played it 'infinitely' safe.
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