Review: Dark Horse’s “The Star Wars” issues 1 and 2

This series is based on a great idea: take George Lucas’s unpublished rough draft of Star Wars, and turn it into a “What If” story. There are a few familiar concepts and a lot of familiar names, but the Star Wars universe you know has been turned upside down and made into a completely different saga. It’s a chance for readers to see the story that was never told, a look at what Star Wars might have been.

That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, it’s surprisingly hard to read.

By the time I finished the first two issues of The Star Wars I was completely confused. I love the movies (four through six anyway) and a lot of the novels, so why am I having such a tough time with these comics? Am I missing something? I’ve never read any of Dark Horse’s other Star Wars series, is this just what they’re like? Are they all this boring?

(I’m kidding, that was a rhetorical question, please don’t kill me. I’m sure there’s a lot of great Star Wars comics. Feel free to recommend some in the comments. Seriously, I’d love to know what the good ones are like.)

The writing was the weakest part of the book, but that’s not entirely R.W. Rinzler’s fault. I’ve read some of Rinzler’s books (The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and The Complete Making of Indiana Jones) and he has a very casual, laid back style that draws the reader in, even when delivering a lot of technical details. I couldn’t find that anywhere in this comic. Panel after panel is just “telling not showing.” Every line feels flat, full of unnecessary information and way too much exposition.

It’s pretty clear Rinzler is trying to be true to Lucas’s original draft, which I think is a huge mistake. Given a little creative freedom, I’m sure Rinzler could come up with dialog that sounds more natural (or at least less irritating.)

Mike Mayhew’s art (accented by Rain Beredo’s beautiful colors) is for the most part gorgeous and well laid out. There are glaring exceptions unfortunately, as when Annikin’s father delivers a sideways flying kick to one of the bad guys in the first issue. It’s supposed to be a dramatic moment, but the pose is just so funny and awkward I wondered if it was intentional.

I wondered if all of it was intentional, the writing and the art. Rinzler is a talented writer, Mayhew is a fantastic artist, and I started to think they were being intentionally hamstrung. The comic-book-conspiracy-theorist in me thought “maybe it’s supposed to be bad. Maybe it’s supposed to encourage any of us who pick holes in the prequels to shut up and be thankful for what we have, because it could’ve been a lot worse.”

It would explain why the characters are so unlikeable. Leia is a shallow, spoiled brat, Annikin’s father takes a belt to his little brother for not paying attention, and General Luke Skywalker pulls a light saber on his Padawan for making out with a girl. That sounds like we’re supposed to dislike them.

It’s more likely that they were trying to make the book charmingly quirky, a little intentionally dated. We’re supposed to look at it and think “how funny, this was what he came up with first.” If that’s the intent, it was a nice idea, but it can’t hold up for a whole series. And the book takes itself way too seriously to ever be considered “quirky.”

I feel like Dark Horse has missed a great opportunity. I’m sure George Lucas’s first draft wasn’t much to look at. (I’ll credit Lucas with being a ground breaker, a trend setter, and a visionary, but not necessarily with being a good writer.) Dark Horse could have taken the pieces and concepts in that draft, though, and made something interesting. We could have had an alternate universe to stand beside the world we love; the Star Wars that is and the Star Wars that never was.

Instead, we got a forty-year-old script that didn’t work the first time around, this time without the rewrite that could’ve made it into something great. Like Star Wars, for instance.