TITLE: Star Wars #6
AUTHOR: Jason Aaron
PENCILLER: John Cassaday
PUBLISHER: Marvel
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASED: June 3, 2015

***WARNING: Spoilers lay ahead for Star Wars #6.***

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

Marvel’s Star Wars series is just starting to get good, and even make some headlines…and John Cassaday leaves. Go figure.

Star Wars #6 brings Luke Skywalker face to face with Boba Fett in, of all places, Ben Kenobi’s former home. Luke must fight against the galaxy’s deadliest bounty hunter, whose mission is to bring him to Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Han Solo gets some alone time with Leia. But a secret is revealed that will dramatically change their relationship.

The big news from this issue was that Han Solo has a wife: Sana Solo. A surprise, to be certain. But it doesn’t drastically change anything as far as I’m concerned. This is obviously the byproduct of some kind of whirlwind adventure Han and Chewie were on, which culminated in their escape. Now, Sana’s back to either kill or claim her husband.

I’m guessing the point of this Sana story is to show A New Hope-era Han Solo in a relationship scenario, so we can put his eventual transformation from scoundrel to hero in perspective. That’s a cool thing for Jason Aaron to shoot for. I’m wondering to what extent this is being done with The Force Awakens in mind. Obviously Han and Leia ended up together in Return of the Jedi. This begs the question of whether they’ll still be together come December 18.

As for Luke and Boba Fett, they spend most of this issue in a clumsy fight. It ends on an eye-roller, but the fight itself is pretty good. We see that Luke is no match for him, and were it not for what little Jedi training he has, his lightsaber, and some luck, this wouldn’t be much of a fight at all. That’s exactly how it should be at this stage in Luke’s life. Cassaday does an excellent job adding some nice drama and suspense to the fight. Aaron, who I’ve criticized for his work on this series, nails the dialogue from both characters. It ends on a silly note. But from a writing standpoint, it’s hard to imagine another way to get Luke out of this dilemma quickly. So I commend both men for their solid work here.

By the end of the issue, Luke has a journal kept by Obi-Wan Kenobi, which was in a box marked for him. The idea of a Kenobi journal is cool. But there’s a hole in it from an in-story perspective. If the idea was to give Luke the journal at some point, why didn’t Obi-Wan bring it with him when they left Tatooine? They obviously weren’t planning on coming back at any point…

We close the issue with Fett and Darth Vader, in a really cool scene where Vader finally discovers the name of the young pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and to say the least, he’s not happy. This same scene was also done in Darth Vader #6. Not surprisingly, Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca pulled it off better. But the essence of the scene is the same here, and it’s awesome. Aaron and Cassaday’s execution is quieter, with no flashbacks and fewer dialogue. There’s definitely something to be said for that.

And so, John Cassaday’s run on Star Wars comes to a close. While it wasn’t perfect by any means, and I wish he’d had better writing to work with, Cassaday’s art has an undeniably iconic feel to it. It was cool to get to see him play around in the Star Wars universe.

Image 1 from polygon.com. Image 2 from comicbook.com.

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