Princess Leia and Commander Zahra come face-to-face for their final battle in Star Wars #24, written by Charles Soule, art by Ramon Rosanas and Madibek Musabekov, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
As both the climax to the Commander Zahra/Tarkin’s Will/“reassemble the Rebel fleet” story arc and the series’ second year since relaunching in the post-Empire Strikes Back time period, Star Wars #24 underscores just how much Princess Leia is the central character of this iteration of the book.
Certainly, other characters have been in the spotlight. Luke has been featured in a few different solo outings as he attempts to explore the legacy of the Jedi and deepen his training. Lando has, at times, emerged as an emotionally-complex character carrying out his arc from scoundrel to general. Certainly, Shara Bey and her fellow pilots in Starlight Squadron, as well as her husband Kes Dameron and his special ops Pathfinders, are reliable supporting characters capable of holding their own in the spotlight.
But at the center of it all has been Leia. For twenty-four issues, the overarching plot of the series has been about the Rebel Alliance, collectively and through the lens of specific characters, coming to terms with the collective and individual defeats suffered in the course of The Empire Strikes Back. This came to be symbolized by the scattering of the Rebel fleet and the efforts to bring it back together while escaping the harrying being conducted by Commander Zahra. Everything – from the need to develop a new code unknown to the Empire to establish communication with the scattered elements to the big showdown last issue – has been about dealing with the aftermath of defeat. Even the series’ involvement in the line-wide “War of the Bounty Hunters” crossover stemmed from the desire to rescue Han, whose capture and encasement in carbonite was the most personal of all losses suffered.
Throughout it all was Leia, the Rebel commander orchestrating the military efforts to reunite the fleet. She oversaw the various missions working towards that end, called on Lando’s expertise and knew when to keep Luke close, and when to let him go off on his own adventures. Even in “War of the Bounty Hunters”, it is Leia for whom the stakes are the most personal as the core cast works to rescue Han Solo.
It is fitting, then, that she remains at the center of the conclusion to this nearly two-year long arc. Following the large-scale sturm-und-drang of the previous issue’s starship battles and Zahra’s climatic personal challenge to Leia, here the Rebels follow the crashed Tarkin’s Will to the surface of Panisia to finish things off. Zahra, true to her tactical nature, has orchestrated things to ensure that Leia seeks her out, and on terms most favorable to her, despite having lost most of her resources. She draws Leia ever deeper into a cavern, stripping Leia along the way of her own resources to ensure they are on relatively even ground. It is ultimately only Leia, Kes Dameron and Chewbacca who remain when Zahra reveals herself deep inside the cavern. Before long, the two women are facing each other alone.
What follows both comes somewhat out of nowhere while also being a familiar Star Wars beat. Zahra is undone by an attack by a big three-eyed dragon-frog creature, in revenge for her casual and gleeful slaughter of some of its young (ostensibly to save Leia – for herself, of course – but the art intentionally leaves unclear how much of a threat they actually posed to Leia before Zhara killed them). The creature incapacitates Zahra. Leia – after taking the opportunity to remind Zahra that her beloved Grand Moff Tarkin calmly ordered the destruction of Alderaan while standing right next to Leia, so she doesn’t really give two craps how sad or angry Zahra is about his death – pulls a Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and doesn’t kill Zahra herself, but doesn’t save her, either. Instead, she leaves her to the mercies of the large creature approaching menacingly from the shadows.
“The Empire fails to respect nature, gets beaten by nature” is a theme in the franchise as old as Return of the Jedi and its Ewok-laden climatic battle, and if the repeat of the theme here lends a somewhat anticlimactic feel to the conclusion of the Zahra/Leia confrontation, it is at least still in keeping with the saga’s overall ethos. So too is the notion of a hero entering a cave to face a trial in the form of a doppelganger, and emerging with a better understanding of their own self. If nothing else, Leia’s cathartic admonishment of Tarkin and Zahra’s obsession with him, and her delineation of when and why she kills – and how that’s different from Zahra’s worldview – is satisfying (she also handles a confrontation with her dark reflection much better than Luke did in Empire).
It is also illustrative, as the story ends with Leia victoriously atop the moral high ground, the Rebels reunited, if reeling, underscoring just how much this is – and has been – Leia’s story all along. While the focus hasn’t always been on her, the story that has unfolded over the preceding two years of issues, of the Rebellion putting itself back together, of reestablishing and rededicating itself to its purpose even in the face of tremendous challenges and personal losses, has been Leia’s story all along. Commander Zahra’s attacks were Leia’s journey inside the cave (metaphorically and, as of this issue, literally), and in the end, she emerges stronger and, if not triumphant, at least victorious.
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
