My Hopes and Dreams for Princess Leia

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Leia_Dodson1Or more specifically: My Hopes and Dreams for the Star Wars: Princess Leia comic by Mark Waid.

When Joe Quesada announced the three new Star Wars comic books at San Diego Comic Con the other week, one series in particular thrilled me more than the others.  We were finally going to get a book staring Princess Leia!  Mark Waid was instantly a choice that I approved whole-heartedly of to write my beloved Leia Organa and that was even before I saw his interviews talking about the book. Terry Dodson on art just made it even better.  They are both perfect choices for a Leia story.  Dodson is perhaps the easier to immediately see.  I’ve never found a reason to complain about his art style and judging from the cover we’ve seen?  We’ll get to see some pretty neat outfits on everyone’s favorite princess that are all logical for her to be wearing.  Dodson also draws a killer action scene so we’ll undoubtedly have a few of those to look forward to.

Waid, on the other hand, might be a little tougher to get.  For me, the gut reaction of perfect! came from his work on Indestructible Hulk over the past few years.  Bruce Banner can be a tricky character to get right but it wasn’t his great work with the Hulk that got me.  No, it was how he handled one Maria Hill who is not a character that all writers get right.  They might get the ‘bitches-get-stuff-done’ aspect of her but miss that there’s more to her than that.  Mark Waid, however, nailed writing her hook, line, and sinker.  Factor in his solidly good work on Hulk and Daredevil in recent years and I was sold.

What doubly sold me were his interviews.  In an interview with StarWars.com, he describe Leia as

I think that she is often misunderstood as short-tempered or what have you, and I think that’s unfair. She’s direct. She’s not necessarily impatient, she’s just exasperated easily by people who are not as smart as her. She’s not bossy…well, okay, alright, she’s bossy. But she is a princess, after all, so you have to allow her a little bit of that.

…and I let out a giant sigh of relief.  It’s these aspects of Leia’s personality that are so important to who she is and how she reacts to situations.  Reading what he had to say about what sort of person she is at her core made me even more confident about how he’ll handle writing her.

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The Clone Wars Soundtrack is Coming, Says Kevin Kiner

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tcw_s5logo_smThe Clone Wars composer Kevin Kiner recently told the Everything Geek Podcast that he is hard at work “compiling a CD of Clone Wars Seasons 1-6.” This is great news for fans of the series as well as fans of Star Wars music in general. Kiner also spoke about the differences between music in The Clone Wars and Rebels. (via)

I’m still waiting on the complete soundtracks for Episodes II and III, by the way. *taps foot*

Del Rey releases first seven chapters of A New Dawn

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new dawnThere’s no winning if you’re Del Rey’s Star Wars team right now. The inevitable changing of the Expanded Universe to its current Legends status was bound to upset folks, and their Facebook page has been flooded with angry comments ever since. It’s worth pointing out and reiterating that this change was outside of their control. More importantly, it was something that needed to happen with new films on the horizon.

Keep that in mind when you see Del Rey’s peace offering: the first seven chapters of A New Dawn. They’re proud of the new direction Star Wars literature is going and the least you can do is give it a chance.

Review: Rebel Heist #4

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The final piece falls into place today as Rebel Heist #4 by Matt Kindt and Marco Castiello arrives in comic book stores.  It’s Luke Skywalker’s turn to take the spotlight!

Han’s captured, Leia’s captured, and Chewbacca’s captured.  That leaves Luke Skywalker to save the day and the Bothan Imperial spy to narrate the events.  Can he get all three of his friends out of jail and still pull off the mission?

This review contains some spoilers.

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John Jackson Miller wins Scribe Award for Kenobi

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KenobiCoverStar Wars Books announced on their Facebook page today that John Jackson Miller won a Scribe Award this weekend for Kenobi.  The Scribe Awards are hosted by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.  Novels for franchises like Star Wars often are often no longer considered serious contenders for Hugo or Nebula awards, no matter how excellent they may be.

Tosche Station has plenty of coverage of Kenobi, including a podcast with John Jackson Miller as our special guest, so be sure to check out all of our posts with the Kenobi tag.

SDCC 2014: Marvel Takes Back Star Wars

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Just as expected, the Marvel Cup O’Joe Panel at San Diego Comic-Con gave us our first real look at what Marvel will be doing once they take back the Star Wars license in January.

First up, (and to me, the most exciting!) we’ll be getting a miniseries titled Star Wars: Princess Leia with script by Mark Waid and with art by Terry Dodson.  The first issue will be released in March.

Leia_Dodson1

 

We’re also getting two ongoings of which is the first is the expected ‘Star Wars‘.  That will have Jason Aaron on script and John Cassaday on art.  The first issue hits in January and will feature our usual suspects amongst the main cast.

StarWars_Cassaday1

And finally, there will also be a Star Wars: Darth Vader ongoing series written by Kieron Gillen with art by Salvador Larroca.  (Note that the cover below is by Adi Granov.)  The first issue will be released in February 2015.

Vader_Granov1

The two ongoing series will take place concurrently as they will back up after the Battle of Yavin.  Apparently the Vader series picks up right after Vader’s fighter goes spinning into space while Star Wars picks up two weeks later.  Jordan White will be the editor for all three books.

One of the questions at the panel did ask whether we’d be seeing Expanded Universe characters in the comics and the answer is that it is up to the Lucasfilm Story Group.  Apparently we will also see Boba Fett at some point but it’s a tricky time period.

The Official Site has interviews up with all three writers of the new books.

As for other questions from the panel, someone asked if characters from the old Marvel comics might show up.  The answer was that Jason Aaron will try but Jordan White might stop him.  The Marvel crew found Patton Oswalt’s Star Wars pitch hilarious but don’t think they have the rights to make that into a comic.  Also apparently Axel Alonso is trying to make ‘The Punisher Kills The Star Wars Universe’ a thing that happens.

SDCC 2014: Rebels and Books

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Two days down of San Diego Comic-Con and we’re already rolling in Star Wars news.  Well sort of.

Last night was the Rebels panel that featured the main cast along with Dave Filoni.  You can read StarWars.com’s liveblog of the event here.  While we didn’t get the official release date for Rebels (groan!), we did learn a few things.  The cast agrees that Vanessa Marshall is the biggest Star Wars fan out of all of them although apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. makes all the Force motions while recording.  The show will definitely be embracing the idea of this crew as a family and bringing in some comedy; both concepts they’re taking from the Original Trilogy.  Another point of note from the panel is that Filoni made mention of establishing a hierarchy of villains so if Darth Vader shows up, people should definitely be running.  Also, Rebels will be much more of a contained story than the Clone Wars as they won’t be jumping from character to character and creating new locations each week.

In addition to showing several clips from the show, they also debuted a second brand new trailer which you can watch below.

The Star Wars Books panel just wrapped up and needless to say, the highlight was the new book announcement.  Christie Golden will be penning a novel about Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos.  The book is due out in Summer 2015 and is taken from a plot line for the intended Season 7 of The Clone Wars.

asajj vos

As for the rest of the panel, it was moderated by Vanessa Marshall and there was a lot of discussion about John Jackson Miller’s forthcoming A New Dawn.  Vanessa has apparently read the book already and said it gave her a lot of insight into Hera.  Tarkin will be, as expected, akin to James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis and will take place very close to Revenge of the Sith.  Heir to the Jedi was described as a character study of Luke Skywalker and Lords of the Sith was dubbed “kind of a Vader/Palpatine road trip novel” by Jen Heddle.  You can read the rest of the live blog of the panel by the main site here.  I’d particularly suggest that readers take note of their comments about the newly minted Legends books.

If you’re looking for comic news though… well that’ll be dropping tomorrow during Marvel’s Cup of Joe Panel.  You’ve been warned.

SDCC 2014: Firefly cast reunites for Firefly Online

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Several months ago, we let you know that Firefly Online was going to be A Thing. (The fact that I can’t find that post says something about my inability to tag my posts.)

Today at SDCC, we just got the news that the entire cast will reunite for the game, Alan Tudyk will be providing several roles, and Niska, one of the most terrifying of Mal’s personal nemeses, will also be returning.  More details can be found at the Firefly Online website.