Expanding boldly upon IDW Publishing’s Star Wars Adventures line, their Forces Of Destiny mini series continues to tell the stories of heroines in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Issue #2 follows up the Leia-centric debut with a tribute to the sequel trilogy’s Rey.
Taking place during the events of The Force Awakens, we’re given a brief, first-person-narrated catchup to the scavenger’s life on Jakku, before jumping into the moment she meets BB-8, rescuing the droid from capture by Teedo. But whereas the movie then cuts away for the evening, this strip focuses on what happened next, and the obstacles the pair encountered before we see them at Unkar Plutt’s ration-shack the following day.
This 20-page story comes to life with art from Arianna Florean, whose dynamic, cartoonish style has previously featured in the pages of IDW’s Star Wars Adventures, with colours by Adele Matera capturing the ochre landscape of Jakku in perfect synchronization with the inks.
Truth be told, it’s a combination which seems to work more naturally with Star Wars than the Forces of Destiny animated micro-series, and that’s a comparison worth making as this comic is effectively a print-adaptation of the Sands of Jakku and BB-8 Bandits episodes of the show.
Issue-writer Jody Houser expands on Jennifer Muro’s original animation script, giving us moments from The Force Awakens and our central character’s inner monologue throughout, but the story itself remains the same and this feels like a slightly squandered opportunity to tell another tale from Rey’s desert exile. That said, comic-adaptations of screen-entertainment are hardly unheard of in the Star Wars canon and, as mentioned, the version of events in print seems more fun than the cartoon iteration anyway.
With the upcoming issues centring around Hera Syndulla from the Rebels-era, Ahsoka Tano and Padmé Amidala from Clone Wars, and Rose and Paige Tico from The Last Jedi, it will be interesting to see how wide the storytelling-net is cast. The personalities here are certainly strong and varied enough for the writers to drop some surprising character-expanding moments into the mix (which is what the Forces of Destiny project is inherently about), but the young target audience and limited page-count could well see IDW err on the side of caution. But either way, more of the ladies of Star Wars is never a bad thing…
Star Wars Adventures: Forces Of Destiny: Rey was published on 10 January, available from your preferred comic outlets. Check back here once you’ve read it and leave us your thoughts!