By Dan Brown

Although it’s well-made, Star Wars: A New Legacy No. 1 will likely appeal mostly to diehard fans of the interstellar epic.

If you’re a devotee of characters like Valance, Black Krrsantan and Doctor Aphra, this is the comic for you.

The presence of heroes from the movies – Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo – is felt here, but those old favourites aren’t actually part of the action.

Instead, this comic contains a trio of tales which were created as vehicles for minor players in Marvel’s Star Wars universe. As Marvel begins a new phase of its Star Wars offerings, they’ve been promoted.

Some members of this introductory issue’s cast have a long history. 

Valance, for instance, originated way back in 1978 in Star Wars No. 16. He was introduced as a self-loathing cyborg, which seemed to be a Marvel specialty back then – the publisher also had Deathlok on its roster in those days. This was years before Star Wars fans got a peek under Darth Vader’s helmet in The Empire Strikes Back.

However, there’s no sign of Jaxxon, the giant green alien rabbit, who has gone from being a bad joke to beloved by fans. Hey, if people today can openly express their love for Jar-Jar Binks, then anything’s possible.

Marvel got the rights to print Star Wars comics when the original movie debuted in 1977. It was an astute move, as some observers credit that title alone for keeping the company solvent in a financially precarious era.

It’s hard to believe now, but over the decades the space fantasy’s appeal faded, so Dark Horse Comics eventually became the official headquarters for Star Wars comics. When Disney brought Marvel under its corporate umbrella, the licence soon reverted back to the House of Ideas.

In the first section of A New Legacy, Valance appears on the trail of Doctor Aphra.
For years, I wanted to see a Disney+ series featuring Aphra, but my prediction that the gonk droid would get a show before the rogue archeologist seems less and less like hyperbole as Aphra continues to go unloved by the Star Wars brain trust.

Even one of her sidekicks, the wookiee called Black Krrsantan, made the leap to the small screen in the Book of Boba Fett without Aphra.

She also appears in the back-of-the-book section in a story that inverts the old saying about letting the wookiee win at holographic chess. It turns out that advice doesn’t apply when one of the big, shaggy aliens is playing against a murder robot: “Let the droid win.”

Sandwiched between those two stories is a narrative about the Empire’s Scar Squadron, who are also known as Task Force 99.

This tale has a slight flavour of the Wild Bunch in that these stormtroopers are men out of time – they embody everything Imperial at a moment when the Rebellion is on the rise. They can’t understand why the crowds that used to cheer them want to rise up at the urging of rebel scum they consider terrorists.

“We bring order, while all they have to offer this galaxy is chaos,” their sergeant laments in his inner monologue.

This means the white-armoured soldiers – who operate on the outer rim of the outer rim – are on their way to becoming like the U.S. commander in Vietnam who famously said, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

These grunts are on their way to setting fire to the universe so they can preserve it.
Every Star Wars buff has their own favourite obscure characters from the vast universe created by George Lucas. If the one’s I’ve mentioned here are among yours, then you’ll enjoy A New Legacy. If not, you’ll want to give it a miss.

Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.