Book Review: Marvel Comics' hardcover reissue of 'Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones'

(C) 2016 by Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Limited. Cover art by Mike Mayhew

With the success of its 2015 hardcover re-mastered reissues of its classic Star Wars Trilogy comic adaptation, Marvel Comics decided to give the Prequel Trilogy a similar re-release the following year.

Starting with the May 24 publication of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Marvel collected all four issues of Dark Horse Comics’ 2002 adaptation of Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the second installment of George Lucas’s “Tragedy of Darth Vader” saga. Written by Henry Gilroy – a screenwriter who has worked on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels – and drawn by Jan Duursema (Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi), the four-issue series tells the tale of a corrupt Republic’s gradual transformation into an authoritarian dictatorship, an ambitious Jedi apprentice’s stormy relationship with his Master, and a star-crossed romance that will ultimately affect the fate of the galaxy.

 The Republic is under threat, with thousands of solar systems joining the separatist movement led by the mysterious Count Dooku. The few remaining Jedi Knights struggle to maintain peace and order in the galaxy. As the Galactic Senate considers raising a clone army, Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, comes under attack. Someone must protect her, and Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker take on the fateful mission. As old favorites like Yoda, and new ones like Jango Fett, play their parts, destiny takes hold - in a tale of forbidden love, a young Jedi finding his true path, and an old threat rising from the shadows once again.- Publisher's blurb

Gilroy and Duursema follow the plot of George Lucas and Jonathan Hales’ screenplay closely. As in the film, the story begins 10 years after the events of The Phantom Menace, with that galaxy far, far away on the brink of civil war. A separatist movement led by a former Jedi Master, Count Dooku, has swayed thousands of star systems to secede from the Republic. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is still in office, kept there by the Galactic Senate until the crisis abates. As the 10,000-strong Jedi Order tries to cope with the seemingly endless disputes throughout the vast expanses of the galaxy, Palpatine’s allies in the Senate propose the creation of an army to assist the overwhelmed Jedi.   

Padme Amidala, now a Senator from Naboo, becomes a target for assassination when she makes her way to Coruscant – capital of the Republic – to vote against the establishment of a Grand Army of the Republic. In the wake of an attack on Amidala’s ship, Palpatine proposes to the Jedi Council that she be put under the protection of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker.

But even two Jedi aren’t enough to protect the Senator from another attempt on her life. In the aftermath of an attack engineered by the ruthless bounty hunter, Jango Fett, Anakin is dispatched to Naboo as Amidala’s bodyguard, while Obi-Wan investigates the mysterious cloners of Kamino. There, Obi-Wan makes an incredible discovery: a now-dead Jedi Master commissioned the creation of an army of clone troopers created for the Republic – without the Council’s knowledge!

My Take

Published in September of 2016 by Marvel Comics, this 152-page hardcover follows the same template as the Disney-owned company’s other Star Wars Prequel Trilogy volumes. It collects all four of the issues published 15 years ago by Dark Horse Comics, which at the time had the licensing rights to create and reissue Star Wars comics.

Because Dark Horse Comics’ artistic sensibilities eschew the pop art stylings used by Marvel’s artists in the 1970s and 1980s, the original art by Jan Duursema did not get the “re-mastering” treatment given to the 2015 reissues of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The physical layout of the pages in this edition may be slightly different from Dark Horse’s trade paperback omnibus edition because it’s a hardcover book. The content, including the colors and the lettering, are unaltered; there was no need to hire SotoColor, the New York City-based outfit that remastered the Original Trilogy comics nearly two years ago.

 The book begins – like the film – with the famous “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” card and a recreation of the title crawl.

This book also has a gallery of art that includes the original covers for the individual comic book issues, the Drew Struzan movie poster that also graced the cover of the trade paperback collection, as well as the preliminary and final cover designs for this edition by artist Mike Mayhew.

Although – once again – Marvel did not include any foreword from anyone involved in the film version, I still like this reissue. Yes, I have the 2002 trade paperback, but I’m a completist at heart. Since I already owned the remastered versions of the Classic Trilogy, I might as well own the other four books in this collection. The cover art alone is worth the price of the book, and the entire set looks really nice on my study’s Ikea bookshelf.