Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker #3 Review

Review by Henry Wood

Written by Jody Houser

Drawn by Will Sliney

Colored by Guru-eFX

Lettered by Travis Lanham

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

Creating an adaptation of a movie in a different medium can be difficult work, but Jody Houser and Will Sliney have so far knocked this one out of the park. These adaptations have begun to grow stale and repetitive, but Houser and Sliney have found a way to be truly innovative in the way they tell this story that has already been told. Almost nobody reading this comic has not seen Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, so it’s up to the new creators to give readers a reason to pick this up.

I believe that Houser and Sliney have done more than enough to warrant Star Wars fans picking up this book. Houser’s script allows Sliney to take moments like Finn’s conversation with Jannah and elevate the emotional resonance of them with a flashback panel of Jannah’s time as a Stormtrooper as well as background flashbacks to Finn meeting Rey and Poe, reinforcing both Jannah and Finn’s dialogue in that moment.

Another example of this is when Rey approaches the throne room in the Death Star II ruins on Kef Bir. Instead of relying on music cues to make the callback to Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker’s duel on the Death Star, which the comic can’t do, Sliney draws in a ghostly vision of Darth Sidious watching father and son cross sabers.

The final change that Houser made in the story was adding a single page where Leia and Rose Tico have a conversation about the alleged Final Order fleet. Rose has found evidence that the big ship manufacturing corporations have missing ships in their ledgers, indicating that this secret of Palpatine’s could perhaps be real and a danger to the Resistance. Along with adding a scene featuring Rose, this gives more explanation and credence to the plotline of Palpatine’s return and the plan surrounding it.

These changes and additions help to enhance the pre-existing story without damaging that story. If you were a fan of the film, you should definitely pick this up, but if you weren’t a fan but want to like it more, you may also want to pick it up and find that enjoyment you were looking for.