ORBzine - Book Reviews January 2000
Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand[reviewed 8th Sept 1998]It's good to see that Stackpole and KJA are not the only novelists to have made the transition to comics - Zahn's still the best [IMHO!] and it's good to see him working on Star Wars again. The most noticeable thing about this story is not that it is told from the Imperial point of view - Zahn has written a Mara Jade tale before, in Tales of Jabba's Palace; no, the unique thing about this story is the presence of an intelligent Imperial officer! Finally, an Imperial other than Jade or Thrawn who can get dressed in the morning without getting his bootlaces tied together! Too often we assume that the Imperials are all buffoons, epitomised by the movie Stormtroopers who couldn't hit a dead bantha at point blank range. Hell, they got beaten by the Ewoks' stone-age tactics! Zahn changed all that when he introduced us to Thrawn, but until now we haven't seen a low-level, on-the-ground Imperial with more brains than a Wookiee flea. Now he goes the whole hog, and makes the workings of the Imperium that much more believable. Art (Carlos Ezquerra) UK talent has long been a staple of US comics. Former Judge Dredd writers such as Garth Ennis [Preacher, Hitman] and Alan Grant [Lobo] brought UK artists into the American market, and now Ezquerra has followed suit. With the possible exception of a Dredd series he did a few years ago when he experimented with computerized colouring, Ezquerra's work has always been top-notch and second to none. With his US debut, Ezquerra does not fail to satisfy - and finally Americans can recognise why Judge Dredd has always been popular in the UK. Ezquerra does not limit himself to pretty pictures - he can convey everything from nail-biting tension to complete ultra-violence. His 20 years experience has proven a great boon to this new Dark Horse series; my only question is, why did it take them so long to sign him up? One of Ezquerra's flaws is that his female characters are ample-bosomed (DD), and only two (female leads, of course!) - Psi-Judge Anderson [Dredd's psychic cohort] and Mara Jade - are demure (B). This is possibly due to the complaints of excessive babe factor in Crimson Empire, more likely due to the artist's decision to give Mara the Anderson treatment. Whatever the reason, it's a nice change from the top-heavy females so prevalent in US comics.
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