Star Wars: Jedi Knights #4 Review

by Henry Wood

Written by Marc Guggenheim

Illustrated by Madibek Musabekov

Colored by Luis Guerrero

Lettered by Clayton Cowles

Edited by Drew Baumgartner, Mikey J. Basso, Mark Paniccia, Danny Khazem, Robert Simpson & Grace Orriss

It’s a chase across the galaxy as several familiar bounty hunters are gunning for a thief in over her head! The rogue Phaedra, first seen in Marc Guggenheim and David Messina’s Han Solo & Chewbacca series, returns, having stolen credits she didn’t know belonged to none other than Jabba the Hutt. Tailed by such bounty hunters as Aurra Sing, Zam Wesell and even the famous Jango Fett, she’ll have to rely on her wits, even with the help of Jedi Masters Qui-Gon Jinn and Shaak-Ti!

Once again, the star attraction of this issue is Madibek Musabekov and Luis Guerrero’s dynamic and detailed art, which elevates an unfortunately pedestrian story from Marc Guggenheim. The story isn’t necessarily bad, but it feels rather predictable, barring the final twist, as well as being a little too compressed for its own good. Guggenheim is clearly angling for a series where each issue is its own story, while also building a larger narrative (which I’ll talk about later), which is a good idea and makes it more new reader friendly, but there are sometimes drawbacks. For example, the set-up for this issue, while needed, drags on, leaving the action feeling too compressed by comparison.

This is a heist story, and Guggenheim uses all the conventional storytelling techniques of a heist film, like flashbacks, but the effectiveness of the techniques is flattened by the page limit of the story. Meanwhile, as for the characters, Guggenheim relies on our familiarity with them to avoid having to fully explore them, apart from Phaedra. This is probably intentional and okay, because Phaedra is the main character of this particular story, despite the title of the comic. The aforementioned twist at the end of the issue recontextualizes her in a way that makes her that much more interesting. Without revealing this twist, I’ll just say that there’s a reason she and Han Solo are running in the same circles in twenty years.

As for the larger story, Guggenheim and company need to achieve two ends in this series, both setting up the story that will culminate in the eventual climax of this series, as well as the galaxy we find ourselves in in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This issue only has one obvious hint to Guggenheim’s larger story with Qui-Gon sensing a presence on Nar Shaddaa, however there is also a good set-up about the deterioration of the Senate and the Jedi’s increasing role in matters that they probably should not be involved in.

Overall, despite my criticisms, I do think this is a fun heist issue with a great ending twist that illustrates the main character of the story in a new light. And honestly, I’m beginning to run out of ways to praise Madibek Musabekov and Luis Guerrero’s work on this series. I’ll just say that there are two panels later in the issue where you see Nar Shaddaa in the background and the way that they chose to show it is incredible.