Comic Review – The Gorax Attacks as More Surprises Await On Endor’s Forest Moon in “Star Wars: Ewoks” #4

Fans of the 1980s "Ewoks" content should appreciate this miniseries most of all.

Yesterday saw the release of the fourth and final issue of Marvel Comics’ Star Wars: Ewoks (2024) miniseries, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this climactic installment.

Ewoks #4 begins with the invading Imperial mercenary party having awoken the Gorax from its cave– this creature first appeared in Lucasfilm’s 1984 made-for-TV movie Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, but has since been brought over into the current canon. The mercenaries fight back, while Meedro and Asha launch their own sneak attack against the interlopers. In the ensuing chaos, General Koyatta and Khu Fornot sneak into the cave to retrieve armaments from the Imperial stash hidden inside. Now an AT-ST (piloted by Koyatta) and a speeder bike (driven by Fornot) enter the fray, though Asha manages to knock the latter from his perch fairly quickly. The Dowutin Orvenk tries his best to fell the Gorax without killing it, but Koyatta shows no such hesitation, executing the beast with an EPS-6 superheavy blaster cannon shot through the heart.

But after Orvenk further refuses to kill Wicket, the Dowutin abandons Koyatta’s quest to make amends with the forest and its creatures. The fight continues with bounty hunters Zuckuss and 4-LOM blasting away at our Ewok heroes, but Wicket has the idea to use this area’s other residents against his enemies. He returns with a contingent of Yuzzum– a creature created for Return of the Jedi. This effectively ends the battle, though Koyatta is not yet prepared to give up his prize. Fortunately Wicket’s reveal that the general had stolen his rank from a dead officer causes the other mercenaries to desert him as well, but Koyatta does get one final shot off at Fornot before it’s all over, killing the former scout trooper instantly. The Ewoks decide to spare Koyatta’s life, sending him back to Grand Moff Adelhard as captives of 4-LOM and Zuckuss, and burning the Imperial stash in the cave for good measure.

The final pages see Adelhard stripping Koyatta of his unearned rank and demoting him to janitorial staff on his star destroyer, while back on Endor’s forest moon the Ewoks celebrate along with the Yuzzum, a Teek (from Ewoks: The Battle for Endor), and all manner of other species, many of which I’m certain are deep-cut references to the Ewoks cartoon and comic books from the mid-1980s. And that ultimately will be remembered as the great thing about this Star Wars: Ewoks miniseries– it brought together a ton of previously existing creations (some of which had only ever been utilized in the Legends timeline) and united them as a group of Endorian denizens, both literally in Bright Tree Village and for further storytelling use in the ongoing canon. I’d say writer Steve Orlando and artists Álvaro López and Laura Braga deserve congratulations for that, and I hope to see more adventures set on Endor in the future.

Star Wars: Ewoks #4 is available now wherever comic books are sold.

Mike Celestino
Mike serves as Laughing Place's lead Southern California reporter, Editorial Director for Star Wars content, and host of the weekly "Who's the Bossk?" Star Wars podcast. He's been fascinated by Disney theme parks and storytelling in general all his life and resides in Burbank, California with his beloved wife and cats.