Review: 'Star Wars: Battle Of Jakku'

Star Wars

Jan 26

Battle Of Jakku art — Image Source: Wookieepedia

Back when it was announced, Battle of Jakku seemed like an exciting series, set to summarize and include many stories surrounding the Battle of Jakku over the past ten years since its introduction into the world of Star Wars canon. It was written by Alex Segura, who wrote the excellent novel Poe Dameron: Freefall, which did some heavy lifting to fix the choices made involving Poe in The Rise of Skywalker that clashed with his existing background. Instead, Battle of Jakku has been a canon-contradicting series with some strange characterization for many of its characters and ultimately tried doing too much without the space to fully expand on its ideas. CultureSlate breaks down the series, with its final issue released on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025.

Summary

The Battle of Jakku series was a maxi-series built of three, four-issue miniseries that released its comic issues with incredible frequency over the end of 2024 and the first four weeks of 2025. These miniseries were titled Insurgency Rising, Republic Under Siege, and Last Stand. The first miniseries explored the establishment of the Iron Blockade, an attempt by Governor Ubrik Adelhard to seal off the Anoat sector of the galaxy from the New Republic. Luke Skywalker, alongside a few new and returning characters, arrives to put a stop to him and succeeds in winning a fight and freeing captives, though not fully defeating Adelhard. In Republic Under Siege, Luke and a new friend start their search for an important Jedi artifact, but face the Acolytes of the Beyond and Doctor Aphra appears to lend a quick hand. Elsewhere, Leia and other members of the New Republic struggle against the Imperials, and Adelhard similarly begins to lose his support despite getting closer to his Acolyte contact, Reyna Oskure.

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The final comic arc was one of the strangest miniseries in Star Wars to date. Half of the issues dealt with lingering details from the prior miniseries, particularly ongoing attacks against the New Republic and its heroes by the remnants of the Empire, in the form of those loyal to Adelhard, the Acolytes, and Gallius Rax. The final two issues of the series jump to Jakku and explore the events taking place, but in such a hurried way that it does not feel like a proper build-up from the prior issues.

Following a series of betrayals in his camp, Adelhard is looking to fight both the New Republic and Imperials but instead encounters a pirate-led Super Star Destroyer, a plot point and character from the Aftermath Trilogy. In the end, this pirate vessel is destroyed (though its captain escapes), Adelhard is confronted and killed over Jakku, and the Spice Runners of Kijiimi who have been playing a notable role in these events continue their rise to power after betraying Adelhard. The comic ends with a newly born Ben Solo, cradled by Leia and watched over by our main heroes.

Pros And Cons

As was mentioned in the introduction, Battle of Jakku unfortunately doesn’t work well, with few notable positive qualities. The biggest issue, especially for this reviewer, was the lack of content from Star Wars: Uprising. Despite taking the character of Adelhard and other smaller elements from the sadly defunct mobile game, little else from that game made it into this comic. The criminal underworld of the Anoat sector plays next to no role in fighting to break Adelhard’s control as other criminal factions like the Spice Runners of Kijimi are instead shown supporting Adelhard, though they all later betray him. The narrative from that game, while admittedly old, is still accessible and remains referenced in modern Star Wars material. To see it skirted around feels like a waste of bringing Adelhard into the story when so much else could have been added to the plot of the first miniseries or appeared in the other two, taken from that game.

The next problem is the copious continuity issues. While some of it can be up to personal interpretation, others cannot be so easily explained. The second miniseries, Republic Under Siege, was the epicenter of these contradictions, with characters like Rae Sloane not matching up to her narrative or timeline from the Aftermath Trilogy in several key ways. A final issue we will highlight in this review is the character work. Luke’s adventuring companion for the macroseries, Rynn Zenat, seemed to fall flat for many readers, Reyna Oskure was very strange and constantly betraying or manipulating Adelhard who was aware of her actions yet kept her close at his side, and a myriad of new side characters left little impact in the story since there were so many of them in a relatively short period. But this last problem has a bright side, in the characterization of our major heroes. Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, and others like Mon Mothma were all written well and generally fit with their existing traits and personalities.

Alex Segura is not done with Star Wars after this macro series, as he is tackling a new main run of comics set after Jakku, focused on our main trilogy of Luke, Han, and Leia adjusting to the new world born by their actions. After Battle of Jakku though, the coming reboot of Marvel's Star Wars flagship series should be looked at with caution. Hopefully, Segura’s work with an ongoing comic run, able to breathe and take the time to explore its different plot points, with a focus on familiar characters, will result in a better-received series and one without the problems outlined in this review.

Rating: 6/10

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