Reviewing STAR WARS The High Republic Issue 1 | Marvel Comics New Releas...

Today I'm taking a look at Star Wars: The High Republic Issue One! Is it good? Is it bad? Maybe a little of both that's what we're going to find out right here! 

Star Wars: The High Republic #1

The Artwork  

First and foremost I'm going to take a minute and talk about the beautiful cover from Phil Noto because I really... really... like it this looks like a book jacket which is great because you're trying to build that synergy between the novels the comic books and leading into the television show trying to build that buzz build that marketing this was a great great cover you can't really tell through the digital screen but if you look at it's very textured it looks like really really nice watercolor there's kind of a grittiness in the watercolor there's like like you splash brown dots I mean it looks really good looks aged looks uh looks exactly like uh like what I would want if I was looking at something chronicling a time 200 years in the past. 

First and foremost I'm going to take a minute and talk about the beautiful cover from Phil Noto because I really... really... like it

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Ario does a really good job with the artwork on the inside, it is well drawn in the same way that every Star Wars book that has come out since the early 2000s is. If I were to go and grab one of the trades and and hold it up you're not going to notice a huge difference it's very cleanly executed but it lacks style, in all but one page. There is one page where the main character is using the force and it's imaginative and psychedelic and I wish they did more of this in this book and less dialogue balloons. The book is super dialogue heavy. I don't know if that's because it's coming off of the world of the novels going into comic books and then trying to transition into maybe a dialogue heavy television show um but there's a lot of dialogue and its up to the artist to not overcrowd the story with the visuals. There's one place one place where the art really betrays itself this mild spoilers but doesn't really impact the plot it's just a cameo, but it's in the way they draw Yoda.  The problem with drawing Yoda is he never looks to scale, now they were smart they tried to shoot up on him so that it didn't look quite as bad. He's still out of scale his anatomy looks wrong he looks like in child's play when it's a dude in the Chucky suit instead of the animatronic.

The coloring by Annalisa Leoni and the inking from Mark Morales are where this book shine. It features a ton of varying line weights and lots of washing. The coloring shifts from really dark, deep, rich, blacks to going really light . I love... love when people aren't afraid to use contrast to its full effect and they use that in spades in this book, and not just from lights to darks but also using complementary colors. This book is very green and blue and the areas where it's really green they use lots of really really strong purples really strong pinks, complementary colors and bright pops. Nothing in this book is muddy.

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The Verdict

As I said there's a lot of dialogue, and luckily the dialogue itself is fine. Scott does a good job of establishing the characters, their personality and interpersonal dynamics through their dialogue, they don't beat you over the head with a lot of exposition. The plot is pretty minimal though, not a lot of ground is covered as it is mostly setup with one big reveal at the end.

This book is a solid 3.5 out of 5