Star Wars comics and a Black Sails rec
Apr. 17th, 2016 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakKieron Gillan's current comic Darth Vader has been reccommended to me from multiple sides, and since I saw there are two trade collections available already (i.e. something I can actually get my hands on), I went for it. (Also, I really liked Kieron Gillan's sadly cancelled Abigail Brand centric comic back in the day.)
Now, no.1. and 2. of the trade collections (together covering issues 1 - 12) are set shortly after A New Hope (aka original Star Wars). Because of said placement and the very premise, you'd think they suffer from an inherent suspense problem, because the main character's main goal at the time - getting his hands on Luke Skywalker - can't be fulfilled, which the audience knows from the get go, this not being an Empire Strikes Back AU. However, Gillan gets around this in a way that reminds me of plays based on myths - we know already how they end when they start, but if the telling can make the way there interesting, then you've won and it can be fascinating. Also, he introduces some OCs whose fates aren't covered by the movies, which if they're interesting also helps the story to no end. (Which is of course what The Clone Wars managed with Ahsoka Tano.)
Moreover, it always helps to give your main characters obstacles to overcome. Gillon cleverly positions that as the sole survivor of the Death Star destruction, Vader gets the blame for this Imperial PR disaster, which means he gets demoted - another reason for this is that Palpatine just likes mind games, which of course he does - and has to work his way back up, while simultaneously looking for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star and, at the end of volume I, realising just who Luke Skywalker is. Given how ridiculously heavy The Force Awakens laid it on with the "The First Order are SPACE NAZIS SEE THEM HAIL", I can't tell you what a relief it was to find Gillan goes more for the Godfather/Game of Thrones approach in his depiction of the Empire. By which I mean: there's no doubt these people are evil and that their power games come at terrible cost for the population, but they're actually not a uniform mass of cyphers who all have the same goals, but are individuals with conflicting ambitions and ways to fulfill them.
There's also a good use of all screen canon for characterisation. (Including The Clone Wars, because the Geonosian Queen definitely was in the tv show, not the prequels.) In a restrained but all the more effective for that fashion, Vader has the very occasional flashback to his life as Anakin. And the readers aren't hit over the head by the implications; no thought bubbles spelling it out. Great choice, if you ask me.
By far the most prominent original character is (Doctor) Aphra, rogue space archaelogist with a specialization for lethal droids, whom Vader enlists as his secret agent both for rebuilding-a-power-base and Luke related missions. Gillon has succeeded in endearing the cheerfully pragmatic Aphra to me, so now I'm worried about her long term fate for obvious reasons. Gillon's also allowed her to be genre wise; after her first mission with Vader, she informs him she knows he'll kill her in the end and details which execution methods she wants and which she doesn't. (For the record, Aphra is a fan of surprise death by light saber and would rather not be spaced.) This "ah well, doomed either way so might as well enjoy being Vader's secret henchwoman while it lasts" attitude is refreshing but also makes you hope against hope she does manage to make it out of the comics alive. Not to mention that "verbose babbler digging at stoic brooder" is always an enjoyable dynamic for me to read.
In conclusion: I'll definitely keep reading.
In another fandom, have a Black Sails fanfic rec:
Pieces of Silver: which is a wonderful missing scene set in late season 2 in which we see Silver interact with Miranda Barlow (and Abigail Ashe) while everyone is en route to Charleston. Great character voices for all three of them.
Now, no.1. and 2. of the trade collections (together covering issues 1 - 12) are set shortly after A New Hope (aka original Star Wars). Because of said placement and the very premise, you'd think they suffer from an inherent suspense problem, because the main character's main goal at the time - getting his hands on Luke Skywalker - can't be fulfilled, which the audience knows from the get go, this not being an Empire Strikes Back AU. However, Gillan gets around this in a way that reminds me of plays based on myths - we know already how they end when they start, but if the telling can make the way there interesting, then you've won and it can be fascinating. Also, he introduces some OCs whose fates aren't covered by the movies, which if they're interesting also helps the story to no end. (Which is of course what The Clone Wars managed with Ahsoka Tano.)
Moreover, it always helps to give your main characters obstacles to overcome. Gillon cleverly positions that as the sole survivor of the Death Star destruction, Vader gets the blame for this Imperial PR disaster, which means he gets demoted - another reason for this is that Palpatine just likes mind games, which of course he does - and has to work his way back up, while simultaneously looking for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star and, at the end of volume I, realising just who Luke Skywalker is. Given how ridiculously heavy The Force Awakens laid it on with the "The First Order are SPACE NAZIS SEE THEM HAIL", I can't tell you what a relief it was to find Gillan goes more for the Godfather/Game of Thrones approach in his depiction of the Empire. By which I mean: there's no doubt these people are evil and that their power games come at terrible cost for the population, but they're actually not a uniform mass of cyphers who all have the same goals, but are individuals with conflicting ambitions and ways to fulfill them.
There's also a good use of all screen canon for characterisation. (Including The Clone Wars, because the Geonosian Queen definitely was in the tv show, not the prequels.) In a restrained but all the more effective for that fashion, Vader has the very occasional flashback to his life as Anakin. And the readers aren't hit over the head by the implications; no thought bubbles spelling it out. Great choice, if you ask me.
By far the most prominent original character is (Doctor) Aphra, rogue space archaelogist with a specialization for lethal droids, whom Vader enlists as his secret agent both for rebuilding-a-power-base and Luke related missions. Gillon has succeeded in endearing the cheerfully pragmatic Aphra to me, so now I'm worried about her long term fate for obvious reasons. Gillon's also allowed her to be genre wise; after her first mission with Vader, she informs him she knows he'll kill her in the end and details which execution methods she wants and which she doesn't. (For the record, Aphra is a fan of surprise death by light saber and would rather not be spaced.) This "ah well, doomed either way so might as well enjoy being Vader's secret henchwoman while it lasts" attitude is refreshing but also makes you hope against hope she does manage to make it out of the comics alive. Not to mention that "verbose babbler digging at stoic brooder" is always an enjoyable dynamic for me to read.
In conclusion: I'll definitely keep reading.
In another fandom, have a Black Sails fanfic rec:
Pieces of Silver: which is a wonderful missing scene set in late season 2 in which we see Silver interact with Miranda Barlow (and Abigail Ashe) while everyone is en route to Charleston. Great character voices for all three of them.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 12:40 pm (UTC)Because of said placement and the very premise, you'd think they suffer from an inherent suspense problem, because the main character's main goal at the time - getting his hands on Luke Skywalker - can't be fulfilled, which the audience knows from the get go, this not being an Empire Strikes Back AU.
I haven't read these yet, but I was at a Marvel panel at ECCC recently and someone asked Kieron Gillan exactly this question, basically: given that everybody reading this comic knows how the story begins AND how it ends, how do you make it interesting? And he mentioned some writerly things like introducing original characters whose fates can be in question (although the problem is that EVERYBODY dies as soon as you put them in a room with Darth Vader.)
He also mentioned that Empire was the first movie he ever saw in the theater, so literally this is the story he's been writing in his head since he was twelve... "like everybody else," he added, because we've all wondered when Vader found out his own son was the pilot who blew up the Death Star & so on, but also it was very weird to feel like he'd circled around to the very beginning of his fannishness and was writing the prologue to that story. Which I thought was pretty cool.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 01:18 pm (UTC)Gillan writing the fanfiction he always wanted to write is exactly that these comics feel like, which is the best compliment.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 01:58 pm (UTC)Aphra is great, and now there's evil Artoo and Threepio running around, which I find hilarious, though I think some people find it over the top.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 02:36 pm (UTC)re: panels from the "Skywalker" news, I had been wondering how they'd render a reaction from Vader to this particular news the visual way, and lo and behold, they went above and beyond. Everything from the cracks in the glass to the flashbacks to Vader immediately requesting a transmission to the Emperor and then point blank using his anger to deceive him to the final panel was great.
Speaking of added-to-canon, I was intrigued that he didn't tell Palpatine about Luke and his search even before hearing the news from Boba Fett, or, apparantly, of the fact he'd killed Obi-Wan. (At least that's what I take from Vader flashing back to his Obi-Wan duel as well as to Luke when Palpatine asks whether there's been anything else to report, and he replies "nothing".) And of course that bit of dialogue between random Death Star soldier and Vader re: Obi-Wan - "Who was he, Lord Vader?" "An man who thought he could help gifted children. He was mistaken" - which is such a great example of Gillan's writerly economy - it indicates a lot about how Vader/Anakin feels about Obi-Wan without spelling it out hamfistedly in detail.
Oh, and I loved the Imperial Inspector with his Sherlockian deductive skills. And that he's not corrupt or a secret rebel but a danger to Vader because he's a) really competent and b) actually dedicated to his job.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-25 03:32 pm (UTC)It really is! Between that and his "Obi-Wan never was much of a teacher" to Luke when he realizes Luke has barely any lightsaber training, it's like Vader almost has his hatred for Obi-Wan under control (or it's shot through with some kind of melancholy at his perceived betrayals).
I was intrigued that he didn't tell Palpatine about Luke and his search even before hearing the news from Boba Fett, or, apparantly, of the fact he'd killed Obi-Wan. (At least that's what I take from Vader flashing back to his Obi-Wan duel as well as to Luke when Palpatine asks whether there's been anything else to report, and he replies "nothing".)
I wonder if he held the news of Obi-Wan's death back in order to have something good to report in case things went bad for him again and he needed to get back into Palpatine's good graces (such as they were).
no subject
Date: 2016-04-29 03:58 pm (UTC)Yeah! I meant to come back and say, someone also asked him the difference between
original fic and fanfictioncreator owned properties and work for hire on other people's IP, and he said when you're working on a creator-owned properties, YOU care about the characters so much and the hardest part is making other people care. But when you're working on a property like Star Wars, everybody already cares about the characters, and the hard part is figuring out why *you* care about them (like, what aspect of them you find most relatable so you can really get in their heads and write them well.) And sometimes that's easier than other times, but for this it wasn't hard at all because, he also loves Star Wars and has been writing this in his head for ages.