I’m going to start this review with complete honesty: Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn was fun and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my favorite book. I liked learning more about Thrawn and loved Eli Vanto, but the plot felt convoluted at times, and like too much was being shoved in for the sake of building out Thrawn’s entire Imperial past ahead of his appearances on Star Wars Rebels. So, when Lucasfilm and Marvel announced Jody Houser’s comic adaptation of the novel, I wondered how such an intricate plot would transfer to such a different medium.

Which brings me to the point of my review: if you were excited about this adaptation, you’ll probably love it – it’s exactly what you’d expect. Seeing Thrawn in all his imposing, blue glory at the helm of the ISD Chimaera is always a treat, and his dialogue actually transfers quite well to the comic format (I couldn’t not hear Lars Mikkelsen’s voice in my head as I read it). Bonus points to Houser and artist Luke Ross for making Vanto notably not white, as we got a sense of his isolation in the novel due to his Wild Space origins that’s heightened by adding the racial component to others’ disdain here.

If, like me, however, you were confused about why LFL and Marvel chose this novel to adapt, and were worried about how it would translate, you can probably skip this one. The limits of the medium didn’t help the confusing plot of the book at all; while the book sometimes felt like it was shoving too many needless Thrawn and Eli excursions in, the comic removes nearly all of them altogether because there simply isn’t enough room to tell those stories. Arihnda Pryce’s spy adventures bringing down Moff Ghadi and the Higher Skies conspiracy are truncated to the point where I wouldn’t have understood what was happening if I hadn’t read the novel first – we go from meeting Pryce to her selling out all her friends and becoming governor of Lothal in the space of a single issue, with no buildup in between. Thrawn truly carries the comics in a way he didn’t need to carry the novel, simply because no one else gets enough page time for the reader to develop a connection to them.

The comic series also, frankly, feels like a plot without a villain. In the novel, Thrawn spends so much time chasing Nightswan that their final meeting feels packed with tension and inevitability, making the eventual twist that much more surprising. In the comic, Nightswan’s name is just… dropped in there one issue, and we’re told that Thrawn is obsessed with him. For me, the build-up didn’t do that relationship justice, and the showing of mutual respect didn’t feel like it was there in the same way it was in the novel.

So, the verdict? Read this one if you want to! If you love Thrawn and just want to see him run circles around his adversaries on a page (and enjoy Hot!Thrawn with his flowing locks in issue #1), and you’ve already read and liked the novel, then absolutely read this – it’s exactly what you expect, and you’ll enjoy it. If, though, you haven’t read Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn novel, start there instead; and if you read the novel and thought it was fine, but have no desire to revisit it, you can skip this adaptation. It’s fun, but it doesn’t add anything to the Star Wars canon that wasn’t already there.

Thrawn issues #1-6: Jody Houser/Writer, Luke Ross/Artist, Nolan Woodard/Colorist, VC’s Clayton Cowles/Letterer, Heather Antos/Assistant Editor, Jordan D. White/Supervising Editor