Summary: In “Path of Light”: HORRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES FOR LEIA AND THE REBEL ALLIANCE! The last remnants of ALDERAAN are threatened by an ancient enemy! LUKE SKYWALKER and LEIA ORGANA could save these few survivors of the destroyed planet, but the Princess of Alderaan must choose between her people… and the REBEL ALLIANCE itself!
The story
It picks up where the last issue left off. Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and another Rebel pilot learned that the remaining fleet of the dead planet Alderaan had disappeared. When they reached the fleet’s final coordinates, they discovered it was a trap set by Commander Zahra of the Imperial Empire, who they thought had died the last time they saw her. Now they believed Zahra had destroyed the entire Alderaan fleet. Leia and Luke must fight to prevent Zahra from taking them to the Emperor as prisoners.
The artwork
Jethro Morales does a fantastic job with the illustrations in this issue. I loved the image sequence where we learn how Zahra survived her last encounter with the rebels. In this sequence we see Zahra fighting a pretty nasty beast that spits poisonous acid at her. At the end of this fight we see Zahra trying to escape after losing a leg and an arm in the fight. This image is a little reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker’s wound at the end of “Revenge of the Sith”. Admittedly, Zahra is not as badly injured as Anakin, but the trauma of her injuries makes her just as bitter and malicious as Anakin became.
In total
“The Path of Light,” the penultimate issue of this Star Wars series, sets things up nicely for the final issue we’ll see next month. I liked some of the parallels between Zahra’s journey and Anakin’s. And how her severe injuries caused her to reaffirm her faith in the Empires and her determination to hurt Leia. Hopefully we’ll get a third series of Star Wars comics from Marvel that fills in the 30-year or so gap between the events of Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens that happened to Luke, Han, and Leia. I believe issue 50 of this series will feature a young Ben Solo, so it will be interesting to see what backstory this issue offers about how he turned away from Luke’s leadership.
Overall, this was a solid release.
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