Comic: Poe Dameron, Vol. 3: Legend Lost

[colls]

It's a sad day for Poe Dameron and the Resistance, as they mourn the loss of a fallen comrade. But their fight is far from over - the First Order must be stopped! And Captain Phasma knows just how to get Terex to toe the line. Follow the continuing the adventures of the galaxy's greatest pilot! (goodreads summary)



1. The journalist, Suralinda Javos, had ulterior motives for contacting Poe. Her story seems to be one that goes back and forth on the 'will she betray the resistance or not' question. What do you think is next for her?

2. Poe spoke about the Force during the memorial service for L'ulo. Was this meant to give us better insight into L'ulo or into how society at large seems to view the Force or into something else?

3. Do you have any predictions on whether or not Terex will regain control over himself again or not?

4. Anything else?

As usual, there's no need to answer all (or any) of the questions. Please bring up other aspects of the volume as well.

Next up: Star Wars: Poe Dameron, Vol. 4: Legend Found

Comments

[justanorthernlight]

So, I was right in the middle of typing up a nice long comment yesterday when my laptop decided to bluescreen. I've tried to recreate as much of it as I could, but it's been a long couple of days.

L'ulo's funeral/The Force: It must have been tough to be a non-force sensitive person in the Star Wars universe even when the Jedi were around. The Jedi feel and use the Force in a very active way, everyone else has to take its existence and importance on faith. In some of the Rogue One tie-in material there's references to a 'Church of the Force' that sprang up after Order 66, that the Emperor tried to quash. The Rebellion kept the flame to an extent, and in a way believing in and invoking the Force became an act of rebellion, but after the Empire was defeated it makes sense that, as Poe said, it fell out of fashion.

Poe's belief in it may also be a bit of a callback to the Shattered Empire comic, which stars Poe's parents after the Battle of Yavin, and his mom ends up with a sapling of the Force-sensitive tree that used to grow in the courtyard of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, which she and Poe's dad Kes planted near their home on Yavin 4.

Leia's line about being luminous was a big oof.

Speed on a Spaceship: I've never actually seen the movie Speed (1994), but I've seen a lot of homages to it over the years. It's a neat plot, I enjoyed it. I had more thoughts on it but I can't remember where they were going.

Poe vs Leadership: #14 & 15 were published in May 2017, about 6 months before TLJ came out, but I'm pretty sure TLJ's filming wrapped before then. Poe realizing that he has more to offer the Resistance than his flying abilities and the related lessons in leadership kind of seems like a rehash (or a pre-hash, if you will) of his plotline in TLJ, but I admit I haven't rewatched TLJ in a couple of years. I like this version better, and the Poe who wants to protect Black Squadron here doesn't seem very much like the one who callously got most of his squadron killed. Clearly, from a writing/production standpoint the left hand and right hand weren't aware of what the other was doing.

Jess Pava: Jess has been subtly portrayed as a bit of an obsessive engine-head throughout much of the series, and we finally get a hint as to why. I also feel so bad for her gaining the reputation amongst the droids as 'The Great Destroyer.' IIRC most the droid deaths have happened on tasks they've volunteered for, but those tasks came up mid-mission and what are the other droids back on base supposed to believe?

Oddy Muva: Oddy's situation was tragic, but it was also so frustratingly avoidable. He loved Black Squadron, but he never trusted the Resistance enough to either tell them about his wife and ask for help rescuing her or to come clean to them afterwards. His wife going along with the First Order's lies when Poe and Snap show up just make it worse.

I had some more thoughts about both Terex and the use of journalism yesterday but they've completely escaped me now.

Kare: "Well that was some..."
Jess: "Don't. Please don't."
Kare: "...hard hitting journalism."

I really like Unzueta's art style, I agree that Poe's face isn't quite right in some of the early issues but I think he gets better at it as the volume goes on, and I like how he did Leia and Suralinda. I also love Kare's hairdo.

[colls]

Ugh! I hate it when a comment or post gets eaten by the interwebs... (sorry that happened to you!)

I liked the phrasing he used of how it "fell out of fashion", it reminded me of how in the first movie Han referred to it as a "hokey religion".

I loved the SPEED bit! I also loved the movie - Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock have great on screen chemistry. It's probably very dated now though. Heh.

The whole Oddy plot line felt like a narrative crutch, to be honest. It was avoidable and his heroics really didn't make up for not coming clean about it. But I also realize that I dislike miscommunication tropes of all sorts, so some of my distaste for this plot thread is likely slightly biased.


And I agree with you about Poe's leadership skills. I get that there is a lot of creative content out there, and technically the events line up fine - but sometimes the characterization is off (like you describe) and it's a little jarring.