#markona moments

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PowerPuff Z Mode

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Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 1/23/19

Luke and Kreel have a long-awaited rematch and the people of the Markona must make a choice in this week’s issue of Marvel’s Star Wars.

Star Wars #60 written by Kieron Gillen and art by Angel Unzueta

The Empire has finally caught up to the peaceful residents of Mubin. SCAR Squadron has arrived with a captured Sana Starros in tow and they are not willing to negotiate. As Luke faces down a resurgent Kreel to fight for his and his friend’s survival and freedom, the true plan of Thane becomes apparent.

Kieron Gillen has spent much of this arc digging deep into our central three characters and answering questions about their core motivations and morality. It turns out that, in a typically meta move, Gillen has woven this into the plot itself. We find that the Markona have been testing the rebellion all along to see if they are the heroes they claim to be. It makes for an interesting piece of retrospective storytelling and actually helps clean up some of the messier plotting in recent issues. Thane becomes a more interesting character as a result and the Markona come further into focus as their own culture. It also adds a nice bit of dramatic irony since we know that Leia is in a particularly dark headspace and may be taking the rebellion to morally dubious places in future stories.

Where this story struggles though is in its antagonists. SCAR Squadron are fun and well-designed characters and Kreel in particular was an entertaining recurring villain during Jason Aaron’s run. However, they are very quickly losing their gravitas. Outside of their debut issue and the final installment of Aaron’s take on this series, these elite stormtroopers haven’t really come across as being, well, elite. The various designs often have very little input on their behavior both in action and plotting and they seem to be defeated and thwarted with as much ease as most other stormtroopers. It makes their appearance here lack the weight and tension that it should and as a result the Markona fleeing the planet seems a bit like an overreaction. That being said, when Thane finally gets to let loose against the Empire’s lackeys the result is pretty fun and dramatic and is one of the best moments of fairly solid story arc.

Also, we now know that we have just seven issues of Kieron Gillen on Star Wars after this installment. While it will be sad to see him go, Gillen has told some exciting and dramatic stories and we look to be heading into one of his most consequential yet.

Score: B

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I Present You 36 Questions...

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Thoughts

So I do a lot of reaction threads on Twitter around different webcomics I read. I've been debating bringing those over here but I don't even know how I'd go about this on tumblr since threads are a bit different here haha Guess I'll have to do one and see what happens there :)

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One Thing!

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Be Proud!

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Smile!

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Sweep Over The Dance Hall

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Blood Bank

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A Luckily Unlucky Student!

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Honey Time!

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Another Sleepless Night

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A Valentine's Surprise (MCL Fanfic)

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Yuri On Ice Moment

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Fantasy Self

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Be Still My Beating Heart (An MCL fanfic)