The one redeeming quality of this graphic novel is that it is about Star Wars, which I love. If it were not about Star Wars, this would definitely get a 1.

Where to begin? First, the artwork. The panels are bright and colorful, but the pencilling is fairly amateurish. Characters' faces fluctuate from panel to panel, and the color of Xizor's skin is alternately green and pink. The artists are also poor at showing action: although there are several busy scenes, they are never really clear, to the point that I couldn't tell who was blowing up or what was happening unless one of the characters provided such helpful dialogue as, "Oh no! The Death Star has exploded!" The confusing action scenes in this book made me realize how much I had taken for granted the eloquent artwork of Alan Moore's or Frank Miller's works. This book tries to have a few impressive panels that show, for example, the entire rebel fleet. But the overall cartoonish quality of the artwork prevented me from feeling any real awe.

The dialogue in this graphic novel is awful. The Star Wars movies also had awful dialogue, but the movie was saved by some earnest acting and by James Earl Jones. Here, neither of those factors are present. And the dialogue suffers accordingly. To wit: "Boba Fett! Surrender your prisoner and you have a thirty percent probability of surviving this encounter." And, perhaps even more impressively, "The Force! I sense a threat!" Boba Fett, a major character in this shameful book, contributes to the execrable dialogue with his habit of engaging in ridiculous monologues whenever he is on his ship; viz, "I have come to hate the sight of you, Solo! Pursued by rebels and my fellow bounty hunters alike!" That's right, just tell me your emotions, since this is a graphic novel and obviously there's no way to portray emotion except through BLATANT EXPOSITION. And to make things worse, Boba Fett begins peeling of one-liners by the end of the book. For instance, at one point he shoots off an enemy's arm and quips, "That's what I call disarmed!" Please.

Finally, the plot of the book is boring. Prince Xizor is such a stock villain (he's big, green, and lecherous) that he no longer seems frightening; a central tension of the book is lost. The book just recycles action sequences from the other Star Wars films: the bike scene in Return of the Jedi, the journey through the sewers (and a fight with the exact same creature that Luke fought in the garbage compacter), etc. And the plot is full of jumps and deus ex machina moments. At one point, a Darth Vader minion named Jix tries to infiltrate Jabba the Hutt's gang. At first, Jabba is suspicious about this random stranger about whom he knows nothing. But Jix insists, and in the next panel Jabba lets Jix into his gang, no further questions. And then: at the end of the book, Jix needs to open a door, but he doesn't have the proper code. Suddenly he is ambushed by an alien that we haven't seen before. Jix kills the alien and--wait for it--finds the the right codebook on the random alien that he just killed.

I would like you to realize that I have just spoiled much of the plot to you. If that prevents you from reading this excuse for a graphic novel, then I will have done my duty by the comic book gods.

Copyright © 2001 Steven Wu