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Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

I want to start out this blog by making a confession. I am not a big star Wars fan. I know this is sacrilege and I have been lectured up and down about this a number of times over the years by friends who worship the star Wars universe. I never saw any of the movies past 1979 and I have been fine with that. I read all of Marvel’s star Wars comics when they came out and thought they were fine for what they were. When Dark horse took over the star Wars license I saw that as an opportunity to stop buying a line of comics and I never read a star Wars comic again.

Star Wars Legends epic Collection: empire Vol. 1

Last week, marvel released star Wars Legends epic Collection: empire Vol. 1. Being a comic dweeb, I could not resist the pull of the name “Epic Collection” as I love these collections from Marvel. regular readers of this blog will know this as I have raved about the epic Collections over and over. I bought this book thinking, “well, I have never read any of the material so I will give it a try. At worst it will look nice on the shelf with my other epic collections.” As an aside, these marvel epic Collections are reprinting all of the Dark horse star Wars comics but in the order the stories unfold, not the order they were published. There are three different star Wars Legends epic Collections; Empire, Old Republic, and new Republic. There are rumors of more titles to come.

Star Wars: Dark Times #2

As I mentioned, in the last star Wars I saw Luke and Vader were having family issues and has was encased in carbonite, so reading these stories was brand new and fascinating to me. I must say I really like them. I found the stories to have very quick pacing and the art was very good to excellent. This volume reprints a number of single issues as well as a complete miniseries and the first few issues of the star Wars: Dark Times series. I think part of what I enjoyed so much was this was all new to me. all of these stories take place with a very young Darth Vader and his early role in the empire and his burning desire to get rid of all the Jedis. While the stories are by a variety of creators, and they were first published at various times over the last twenty years, when they are reprinted in sequence like this, it flowed like water. Each story builds on the prior one and each story adds a little to who Darth Vader is and why he is the way he is. There was a fair amount of background about Darth Vader that I had no idea about, and I am guessing it may have been in the movies I never saw, or perhaps this back story was done just in the comics. Either way, it made for compelling reading.

Star Wars Purge: The Tyrant’s Fist #1

For those interested, this volume reprints the following Dark horse comics, star Wars: Republic #78-80, star Wars Purge one shots (three different ones), star Wars: Purge two part miniseries The Tyrant’s Fist, Darth Vader and the lost Command #1-5 and star Wars: Dark Times #1-5. This adds up to over 400 pages of action and adventure. I enjoyed this volume so much, not only am I looking forward to the next volume in the star Wars Legends epic series, but I might go back and watch the four movies I missed now.

Convergence #0

DC just started releasing their newest event, Convergence. This is an event made by necessity more than the traditional reasons as DC moved their offices from new York (where I use to work) to Los Angeles (where I would have liked to work) and throughout the move DC farmed out all of their books to freelancers for two months to give all of the staff a chance to relocate. Thus, this two month Convergence is a storyline designed to fill space and tell a good story. There is an eight week title called Convergence and then a slew of two-part titles set in various times of DC history. stories are set during Pre-Crisis on infinite Earths. Zero Hour. Flashpoint, and others times in the past ten, twenty, thirty years. I must say I was disappointed in the first weeks’ worth of books. I thought they were contrived and looked just like the rest of the new 52. To be fair, this might be me as I expected the books to be done in the style of the time period they were set, say for the stories set in the Pre-Crisis period to look like Jerry Ordway or Tom Grummet. Yet all of the books look like the traditional new 52. I have spoken with a number of people who have read the Convergence titles and greatly enjoyed them so this may just be me. I thought the first two issues of the Convergence title proper, issues zero and one, were pretty good. It was traditional Dan Jurgens storytelling with Superman and a ton of different Brainiacs from different times and universes, but it was entertaining. I think my expectations got the best of me with Convergence as I thought it was a chance to re-live the DC I loved. instead allI got (after only one week mind you) was a third rate secret Wars. (I hope Marvel’s new secret Wars is better than this has been right out of the gate.) One final thought on Convergence; knowing DC and a number of the creators involved with the creation of this series, it would not shock me if they were able to pull this out in the end, so I will revisit Convergence after it concludes.

That is all for this time. As always, I welcome and encourage your thought and opinions. Please send them to MFBWAY@AOL.COM. nothing written in this blog reflects the thoughts or insights of Westfield Comics or their employees. It is all mine, and only my thoughts. until next time…

Thank you.

Classic star Wars covers from the Grand Comics Database.