Right on the heels of the Lando finale, Marvel launches its next limited series in the Star Wars book.  Chewbacca #1 by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto launches today, giving readers one of their first looks at a Chewie adventure without his sidekick Han Solo.

First, it definitely should be said that Duggan choosing to leave Chewbacca’s dialogue untranslated to readers was a bold choice.  Selling readers on a book where you can’t actually understand what the main character is saying is tough.  To help counter this, Duggan introduces a young girl named Zarro who can fend for herself but needs Chewie’s help to save her father from the mines.  It’ll be interesting to see how the pair end up working together in future issues.

The lettering work of Joe Caramagna (who has lettered most of the other Star Wars books) definitely should be called out here for what a lovely job he’s done.  You can definitely tell that he had fun with finding ways to communicate Chewbacca’s wookiee roars.

Because of how the story’s told, Phil Noto’s art definitely has to do a lot of the heavy lifting.  If for no other reason, the book’s worth picking up for his art which is, as always, gorgeous.  He’s able to do a heck of a lot with Chewie’s body language and facial expressions.

All of that said, Chewbacca #1 is far from being my favorite Star Wars comic.  It just didn’t grab me like so many of the others have thus far.  But then again, not every comic is going to be everyone’s preferred cup of tea and I strongly suspect that plenty of other people (especially the big Chewie fans) will get a real kick out of this book. Was it enjoyable? Yep. Life changing? Nah. Should you pick it up? Sure, why not? Marvel’s done a darn good job with their Star Wars stories so far including pulling more than a few surprises out of the bag.  It’s certainly worth reading this one to see where they go.