How are we already to the third Annual of the Star Wars comic? Time has just been flying by! In this latest Annual, Jason Latour tells a Han/Leia story in which they try to find a new Rebel base but something shady that Han did in the past rears its ugly head to cause trouble.

On the surface there’s nothing particularly wrong with this story. It has all the right elements to be an amusing Star Wars tale. As a part of a larger whole, it’s a little less exciting. The pre-ESB Han and Leia dynamic is one that has to be carefully handled or else their bickering can fly into parody territory. Latour doesn’t do it badly but it doesn’t have quite the spark of some of their other interactions that we’ve seen in the not so distant past.

What makes the issue memorable is when Leia sets someone on fire which is really not a sentence I expected to be writing in a Star Wars review but here we are. I’m not even mad.

Bottom line is that the Star Wars Annual #3 is a perfectly fine issue if you’re looking for a one-off story or you just really need your Han and Leia fix but it’s nothing to write home about. This is, however, said with the caveat that if this story ends up tying in to the next story arc more that it’ll be far more of an essential read but I don’t think it will.

Star Wars Annual #3: Jason Latour/Writer, Michael Walsh/Artist, Clayton Cowles/Letterer, Heather Antos/Assistant Editor, Jordan D. White/Editor