Dark Force Rising #2 (of 6)

Story: Mike Baron (adapted from Timothy Zahn)
Pencils: Terry Dodson
Inks: Kevin Nowlan
Color: Pamela Rambo

Leia goes to the Noghri home world. Han, Luke and Lando are assisted by a mysterious commander. Reviewed 07/02/97 Story Again, to me the script does a decent job of capturing the essence of Zahn's novel. There's not much action in this part of the story, so it's tougher to make a great comic out of it. Overall the pacing is good, with the possible exception of Jedi mediation scene which carried on a touch long. Art While the art is definitely above average, I'm not as excited about it as with issue #1 (where I was fearing the worst). The interior backgrounds were weak, often empty or just three horizontal stripes. While Ms Rambo's color work was spared my scorn in issue 1 because of her choice to use the HTTE color schemes, she's back in my bad books here. Granted, she often had to fill large empty spaces, but the mottled color style really didn't turn my crank. Again, the likenesses to the actors were inconsistant. It's OK if Luke doesn't look exactly like Mark Hamill (HTTE being a great example), but then don't try to make it look like him half the time. I'm interested in what rassm thinks of these Noghri as opposed to the beefed up Kenner version in HTTE. I thought the facial close-ups here were alright, but the distance shots were flat. Overall, I prefer the HTTE version. I don't know why the Rodian had to have the same basic outfit as Greedo. The Rodian in ROTJ:SE wore red, why not something different here? Summary Zahn's story is still the best post-ROTJ story we've got and it's fun to see it in comic form, despite minor complaints. 8/10. Recommended.
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