Star Wars Rediscovered: Heir to the Empire Part 2 Review

"Remind them that our final victory over the Rebellion begins here."

Welcome to Star Wars Rediscovered and my review of the concluding part of Heir to the Empire. Read on after the jump to find out in Thrawn manages to get his hands on our heroes!

Writer: Mike Baron, Timothy Zahn

Artist: Fred Blanchard, Oliver Vatine

Colourist: Isabelle Rabarot

Cover Art: Mathieu Lauffray

Plot

Issue #4 resumes where we left with Luke and R2 drifting in space with a diminishing oxygen supply. They are rescued by a ship whose leader Mara Jade quickly shows that she hates Luke and promptly attacks him with a electric weapon that stops Luke accessing the Force and his Jedi powers. They arrive at their destination and reveal their plan to sell Luke over to the Empire. In issue #5 Han and Lando are continuing their search for Karrde who can possibly provide Han with cargo ships and a slicer. They find a man called Torve who works for Karrde in a casino and convince him to let Han have a meeting with him. In a turn of events we discover that the man that has captured Luke is in fact Karrde who has learnt that Han and Lando are on their way to see him so he instructs Mara to hide Luke and to let them stay overnight so that the Republic has no suspicion that Luke was ever there. The meeting with Karrde starts off badly with him refusing to form any sort of alliance with our heroes as he is worried that the Empire would find out but is willing to introduce them to his slicer over dinner. It's during this dinner that the worst occurs for Kaarde, Grand Admiral Trawn unexpectedly arrives wanting to talk with him over his refusal to search for Skywalker and the risk of Thrawn finding Han and Lando being treated to dinner would not look good. Luke and R2 meanwhile manage to escape their prison by using the power source in Luke's robotic hand to open the door and steal the first ship they find in the hopes of finally escaping, they are spotted however by Mara Jade who gives chase. Thrawn arrives and tells Karrde that he will "help" by sending a rescue party for the two ships who he saw both plummet to the ground. Issue #5 ends with Luke and R2 starting to investigate the other downed ship when they are held at gunpoint by Mara,

she is interrupted however by the arrival of the Imperial "rescue party" who they all manage to hide from. Issue #6 kicks off with Han and Lando sneaking off to the place where Luke and R2 were kept, they are discovered by Karrde who is forced to admit that is was Luke and R2 that were there and that they escaped and crashed, there is however nothing anyone can do about it right now as Thrawn is still in orbit. We return to Leia on Kashyyyk who is attacked in the night by the same mysterious blue figures that attacked them before, she fights well and is aided by Chewie and they manage to capture one. She talks to the survivor and discovers that they only serve the Emperor because they had great respect for the hope that Vader gave them. Leia decides that she needs to convince them that Vader turned to the light and that the Emperor is not worth following.

We learn that Mara hates Luke because she worked closely with the Emperor but has been ruined by his death. Luke and Mara knowingly get themselves captured by the Imperials hunting them but pretend that Luke is a bounty hunter and Mara his prisoner. The issue and series ends with our heroes escaping the planet thanks to Lando and a battle with Thrawn who is attempting to steal lots of ships. Our heroes manage to stop this by blowing all of the ships up. We end with Leia contacting Han to say that Admiral Ackbar has been arrested for treason and they all leave to deal with it. 

Interior Artwork

The good quality of the artwork continues throughout the final three issues, the use of light and shadow works particularly well. Some of my favourite panels include the scene with Luke hovering in space trying frantically to repair his ship, it was nicely done when we simply could have had Luke give R2 the instruction to try and repair it. The scene of Leia & Chewbacca arriving on Kashyyyk is breathtaking, the sense of scale is immense and it really paints a picture of just how luscious Kashyyyk is. I really liked the little scene of Luke carrying R2 when they are taken by tractor beam into their supposed rescuers ship, I felt

it was quite touching and the dazzling light of the beam that encompasses the image works well. Some of the artwork in issue #4 does dip in quality slightly at times, with the odd panel where Luke looks nothing like himself, these panels are few and far between however. The opening shot in the meeting between Karrde and Lando and Han has a glorious view of the Millenium Falcon, it is a panel you could happily hang on your wall.

Conclusion & Rating

To conclude this was an enjoyable adventure with a good quality of artwork throughout but it never reached the epic heights of Dark Empire and similar amazing series.

Rating: 6/10 - Midichlorians 

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