Action, adventure and more!

Great artwork, combined with interesting legendary SW stories - very enjoyable. With digital version, this becomes cinematic in a very real way! ( )

Part of the problem I think the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic book series suffers from is that it's hard to cram a squadron's worth of characters into four-issue story arcs, making it hard for the reader to glom on to anyone-- even the series's ostensible lead in Wedge Antilles is thinly characterized most of the time, a far cry from Stackpole's strong work in the X-Wing novels. But Volume 3 is better in this regard, because it has a strong central character: Baron Soontir Fel. An Imperial pilot who trained with Han Solo and trained several of Rogue Squadron's best, Fel spends this volume questioning his long-time allegiance to the Empire and beginning to admire the political ideals of the burgeoning New Republic. Volume 3 is his story more than it is that of any other Rogue, and it is all the stronger for it. This is a character who is much referenced in the Star Wars novels of Stackpole, Allston, and Zahn, but little seen, so I was happy to finally get to see him in action during his prime.

That said, the other Rogues come out pretty okay. Perhaps best done by throughout the book is the trio of Ibitsam, Nrin Vakil, and Xarcce Huwla. As a Calamari and a Quarren, Ibitsam and Nrin should have a racial antagonism... but despite their species gap, they soon realize they have something else entirely. And Xarcce starts out wanting to leave the Rogues thanks to the squadron's high death ratio, but eventually integrates in quite nicely, making friend with the other two. The best stories here (other than the Fel-centric ones, "In the Empire's Service" and "The Making of Baron Fel") are "Family Ties," which sees Wes, Hobbie, and Plourr on a mission to Corellia where they meet future Rogue Squadron member Corran Horn, and "Masquerade," a madcap story of switching identities which spotlights Tycho Celchu and cameos Han and Leia.

On the other hand, the difficulty of portraying exciting dogfights in comic book format means that, as usual, there's a lot of pilots undertaking commando/intelligence missions for no readily apparent reasons. No one other than Wedge can be found to accompany Leia to her negotiations with Emperor Pestage? And the machinations of Ysanne Isard often drive the story more often than is healthy for it, even if she is the villain; the political maneuvering is usually drawn with too broad a brush to be worth all the time Stackpole devotes to it. Someone as dumb as Pestage is shown to be here would not have lasted over twenty years at Palpatine's side.

The art looks nice, a cartoony style well-suited to the book, but perhaps the reason I felt that Fel, Ibitsam, Nrin, and Xarcce were characterized best is because I could always recognize them; there were times when I could not tell any of the Rebel male characters (Wedge, Wes, Tycho, and Hobbie) apart, as they are shown to have similar faces-- and there's not much else to go on when someone's in a flight suit! Less generic art might have led to less generic personalities. But aside from that, this was definitely the sharpest, most focused of all the volumes of X-Wing Rogue Squadron. It's a shame the series was canceled after this, as I would have liked to have seen where it went next, with a whole 'nother year of story time before it had to dovetail into the beginning of the novel series.