In the midst of “Operation: Starlight”, Kes Dameron & Princess Leia reflect on their lost loves in Star Wars #12 written by Charles Soule, art by Ramon Rosanas, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg, and lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles
While this issue technically continues the “Operation: Starlight” storyline, which features the post-Empire Strikes Back Rebel Alliance trying to stitch itself back together while under attack by a devotee & protege of Grand Moff Tarkin, it breaks from the usual format a bit to present two separate flashback tales centered on the respective lost love interests of Kes Dameron & Princess Leia. Kes is grappling with the absence of his wife, Shara Bey, who went missing-in-action following a disastrous mission in the previous issue, while Leia is, of course, mourning the loss of Han Solo, currently encased in carbonite and in the hands of Boba Fett.
Kes proceeds to tell Leia about how he and Shara first met, when Kes, attending a Star Wars bachelor party, put a last minute bet on a “Crestrace”, then won big when his pick beat the odds; after the race, he sought out the winning pilot on a whim, and she turns out to be none other than Shara Bey. It’s a perfectly fine but largely unremarkable tale, featuring a new variation on the “it’s like horse racing but sci-fi!” trope, similar to podracing in The Phantom Menace or the Fathiers in The Last Jedi (here, Shara is the pilot of a speeder racing through channels created by artificial waterfalls). Soule has, commendably, used this iteration of the ongoing series to explore some of the non-movie characters, like the Dameron/Bey family (Kes & Shara are the parents of future Sequel Trilogy star Poe Dameron, who appears here briefly as a baby in a holographic recording), allowing the book to both fill in some lore while also depicting more character growth than is possible with the “locked into their character arcs” main characters from the films, but the reveal of this first encounter between Shara & Kes does more to check a box on a list of character facts than actually add or reveal much about the characters themselves. It is now known how the couple first met, but the depiction of that meeting does little to emphasize or add to what we already know about them and their relationship.
Artist Ramon Rosanas packs a ton of detail into the panels (each of the ships throughout the issue, for example, strike the right balance of being depicted with an impressive level of detail, but not so much that it becomes distracting), but the actual layout and depiction of the action is like the story: nothing bad, but largely by-the-numbers. The Crestrace in particular seems like a missed opportunity, a chance to feature some big sweeping action in a setting the Star Wars universe doesn’t often explore (water) but which instead comes across as unexciting & routine, relying too heavily on Kes’ narration to explain the action insteading of letting the art show it.
Leia’s tale, meanwhile, continues that grand tradition of Star Wars stories set in the time between Empire and Return of the Jedi: the Han Solo flashback. Because Han is off the board during this era, writers working in it have long endeavored to find ways to feature the lovable rogue without breaking Han’s destiny of becoming future artwork on Jabba the Hutt’s wall. Lando is, of course, on hand to lend these stories some of Han’s roguish charm & looser morals (and Soule, who also wrote a Lando miniseries earlier in this second Marvel run of Star Wars comics, has deployed him well in previous issues of this book), but fans & creators alike always want more Han, so here we have the untold tale of how Han & Chewie saved the Rebel’s Echo Base on Hoth from becoming an irradiated ice crater.
It works a fair bit better than the first story not because it features Han, but because Leia is, not surprisingly, a more nuanced and fleshed out character than Kes Dameron at this point, so watching her reflect on this experience from her past and the way it came to inform her understanding of (and eventual love for) Han carries more impact. This is another area where a series like this can excel – fleshing out the known emotional arcs of the main characters in more detail than the limited time, perspectives, & priorities of the film can allow – and Soule takes advantage, not to change that arc, but to build out the emotional journey of Leia’s feelings for Han from irritation to affection. In the course of the tale being told to Kes, Leia shares her realization that Han’s constant grousing about the cold on Hoth was, in fact, an indicator of his own feelings (for both her and the Rebellion), that, for as much he complained (and genuinely hated the cold), he still stuck around; the constant drumbeat of Han’s complaints, therefore, became a kind of endearment, a representation of Han’s continuing presence, and that came to mean something to Leia. Unlike in the first story, the point of the Han/Leia tale isn’t that it checked off some minor bit of lore (“Han Solo really hates the cold!”); the actual revelation is its depiction of Leia coming to a better understanding of Han and how that later informed the blossoming of romantic affection.
It is perhaps unfair to ding an issue for doing a better job with the story centered around the two characters with decades of characterization under their belt who also happen to be ⅔ of one of the greatest cinematic trios of all time (unfair, and also possibly obvious), but that comparison is invited by the pairing of the stories together in this issue. Ultimately, the problem with the Kes Dameron/Shara Bey story isn’t that the characters are newer & relatively underdeveloped, it’s that their story in this issue does little to change that.
Force Facts
- The whole “Han hates the cold” bit in this issue carries a little extra weight (something Soule unnecessarily points out via narration towards the end) thanks the fact that while Leia is telling this tale, Han is encased in the cold & dark of carbonite hibernation.
- During the Hoth flashback, when Leia briefly evacuates in the Millenium Falcon, a Sullustan who is presumably Nien Nunb is piloting the ship; he will later co-pilot the ship with Lando in Return of the Jedi.
- Amongst the various bits & pieces in Shara Bey’s Star Destroyer hideout are parts from an Imperial security droid similar in model to K-TSO from Rogue One.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
