Yesterday saw the release of the fourth and final (???) issue in Marvel Comics’ adaptation of the Timothy Zahn novel Star Wars: Thrawn – Alliances, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
When Marvel announced it’s Thrawn – Alliances adaptation as a four-issue miniseries, I was excited to see the excellent Zahn novel condensed into sequential art form. Imagine my surprise when partway through issue #4 I realized there was too much story left for writer Jody Houser to wrap things up within its pages. So I’m guessing (as implied by the question mark after the phrase “The End?” in the final panel) that some months from now we’ll be getting a Star Wars: Thrawn – Alliances: Part II miniseries, which feels like a bit of a dodge, but before I complain about that let’s take a look at the actual contents here. Thrawn – Alliances #4 begins with a Clone Wars-era flashback to then-Senator Padmé Amidala sneaking around the planet Mokivj as she investigates a Separatist factory there. She encounters a group of workers who agree to hold her for ransom as Padmé tries to contact her “Uncle” Anakin.
In the “present,” (the period set between Episodes III and IV of the larger Star Wars timeline), Darth Vader launches a sneak attack on an alien species called the Grysk, thanks to some clever thinking on Grand Admiral Thrawn’s part. Then Vader and Thrawn continue their quest for the disturbance in the Force that was detected by Emperor Palpatine, while Thrawn himself seeks more information about the Grysk and the ongoing threat they pose to the Chiss Ascendancy. Meanwhile, Imperial agents are assisted by Thrawn’s Noghri henchman Rukh in taking out more of the aliens. And in the past, Anakin Skywalker and a younger Thrawn sneak into the facility on Mokivj in disguise, then fool the Baron Administrator in charge there that he is under attack by a separate Jedi entity. The issue ends in the present, with the moment in which Thrawn makes it known to Vader that he is aware of his well-kept secret… that the Dark Lord of the Sith and former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker are indeed one in the same, as the pair head to Mokivj themselves.
Now look, I’m never going to complain about getting more Star Wars content on the whole, but when a comic company presents a miniseries as having adapted a novel within four issues, that’s what I’m going to expect. It feels like false advertising at best (and outright deception at worst) to then give us those four installments– which will most likely be packaged together and sold as a trade paperback without any indication that this is “Part 1″– only to pull the rug out from underneath readers at the last minute and semi-promise a continuation to the story at a later date. It feels very much in line with the titling of the first parts of Stephen King’s It and Frank Herbert’s Dune movies without informing audiences that they represented merely the first half of the narrative, and to me those were similarly deceptive to those who may not be reading entertainment industry trade publications or aren’t otherwise up on behind-the-scenes Hollywood news. It’s an alarming trend in popular culture that feels beneath Marvel Comics and its parent company Disney in general, and I wish it hadn’t happened here. If you’re going to adapt Thrawn – Alliances across eight issues, that’s fine. Just tell your readers that on the way in instead of promising them that half as much commitment of their time and money would be required. Because everything else about this comic is great: the writing, the artwork, etc. I just really don’t want to leave feeling like I’ve been fooled.
Star Wars: Thrawn – Alliances #4 is available now wherever comic books are sold.