In issue 4, Poe Dameron and his Black Squadron went to a prison to get information out of a hutt. Agent Terex of the First Order also showed up, and the hutt will only give information on Lor San Tekka’s location to whoever breaks him out first. In issue 5, Terex instead conspired with other major criminals on the prison planet to kill Black Squadron, and interrogate the hutt before killing him too. That comic ended with Poe’s squad surrounded by a bunch of rioting prisoners, without their guns, while their droids worked on taking over the space station above the prison planet.
Written by Charles Soule, this comic is so much fun. It’s split into two major action scenes. The first is about the squadron fighting off the criminals, trying not to get overrun, the other showing the droids sneaking around, defeating a large security bot and then taking over the station to remove the gravity dampers from the planet. It’s a very clever solution to what seemed like an impossible situation in the previous issue. Each member of Black Squadron gets a bit of character development throughout this story arc, and Poe himself is as awesome as ever. It’s hard to say too much more about this issue without spoiling the fun, but the ending promises more struggles with Agent Terex to come. Well, that is after the next few issues go further into Poe’s past first.
Phil Noto’s art and colouring is great. BB-8’s spherical body reflects light realistically while he’s rolling around the station, and there’s great use of his head movements to convey his emotions. On that matter, facial expressions are also great at conveying emotions, not to mention each character looks like their movie counterpart. There’s a good mix of various alien species and humans with a wide variety of outfits on the prison planet and in the station. The fight scenes flow well. The comic is also bright and colourful in lighter environments, while the red alarm lights on Terex’s ship, along with sparks in the control room, emphasize the intensity of the space battle near the end of the comic.
This series is so much fun, and an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoyed Poe Dameron’s character in the Force Awakens. In some ways it feels like the X-Wing books from the late 90’s, except instead of being legacy books (I still enjoy them of course), this comic is canon.
8.5/10
