Written by Greg Pak
Art by Phil Noto
Letters by VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover by Phil Noto
Edited by Mark Paniccia
Assistant Editor Tom Groneman

This issue gives us Part III of what has, to date, been a great start to Pak and Noto’s time on the main Star Wars title. A light-hearted fun story, combined with fantastic art has made this a real delight of a book, but the critical third issue is where we usually expect story strands to start to tighten up. Will this happen in issue 70 of Star Wars? Let’s find out. Spoilers ahead.

Well, again this is a strong issue. We start with Luke’s storyline which finds him stranded with a con woman on Sergia in the Inner Rim. He helped this apparent damsel out of trouble last issue but that was before he realized that she was cheating at cards. She now claims to have an inside track on the Force, which we as readers should be skeptical about but which Luke seems to be accepting of at the minute. Meanwhile Luke is trying to plead the Rebel case and enlist her in his mission. Only time will tell if he’s as successful with his earnest farm boy routine on Warba Calip as he was with Han and Chewie.

Meanwhile, Han and Leia are checking into the Honeymoon Suite in the Carpo Grand Regent Hotel undercover. The fun continues with these two, and the chemistry lives on in comic book form here, which is something I love about this series. Noto’s realistic depictions of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher at their peak is stellar here and it helps sell the story. The costume change gives the readers a laugh, and the final twist leaves us with just the right amount of intrigue left in the story for the closing installments.

The final part of the tale is of Chewie and Threepio’s jaunt to Planet K43 in Wild Space. This plot has seen some surprisingly friendly repartee between the two to date, and a keen friendship emerging. That friendship heads south quickly in this issue which was probably to be expected. The biggest revelation though is saved for the end of this section, as we see an even greater threat emerge for their mission.

Final Thoughts

This issue continues the strong start and deploys a neat three-section model for the further story progression we get here. Coupled with the great Noto art, the Pak story is now set up well for the thrust forward in the closing installments. So far this arc has been one of the strongest within the 70 issues to date, and I look forward to watching its progress over the remaining installments.