Or 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.