The first issue of the comic came out yesterday.
Star Wars Books Thread
- Thread starter Mr Light
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Okay, no prob. (Never got through Dune, so I had to look the term up. Pretty accurate assessment, actually.)
Fair enough; I was mostly going off what I thought it would be and I was a little surprised.
I thought the novel would be a lot about how Phasma advanced through the First Order ranks, not so much about her journey to get there in the first place. I'm not sorry that it was something else, but I was a little surprised when the trek became the main plot of the flashbacks and not a small piece of them.
I think I'll wait until they're all out. I'm not really expecting much of substance beyond "here's how she got away and managed not to get blamed for the whole thing."
I'm only a handful of chapters into the novel and I think I can already guess she's going to try and cover her tracks and/or pin it on someone else. Even this early on, the main takeaway is that she's not the patriotic zealot one might have presumed her to be just going by the movie, but a machiavellian, bordering on sociopath. Not a coward by any means but utterly selfish and only truly loyal to herself.
It certainly makes her giving in to Han and Finn so quickly make a lot more sense. A person like that is not about to get her head blown off for "the cause" if they can avoid it, no matter how many lives it costs.
Perhaps that felt a little too obvious, particularly since they just did that exact story format with 'Thrawn'.
I'm waiting for the trade myself. The previews for the first issue make it look like escaping the trash compactor is resolved within the first couple pages, so we'll have to see what the author makes of the rest of it.
You'll have to see.
That was part of the author's intent, according to an interview:
Good point; the final product was more more interesting for the unique structure than a linear "this is where they got from Point to the Point B in the movie.
I got Inferno Squad from the library and...its really unsettling, and not in a good way. The main characters are drowning in the Empire's "kool aid", to a disturbing degree. They call the Rebels terrorists for blowing up the Death Star, but consider the destruction of Alderraan justified. Most books about bad guys try to make them kind of sympathetic. heck, Timothy Zahn did two solid books about a group of Stormtroopers that I really liked, he mostly had them fight imperials who they considered corrupt so it never got really creepy.
This, though...I don't like this. I don't want to read a book about a bunch of facist assholes just spewing the empire's philosophy the first time. Its hard to explain because I like stories that focus on Darth vader/Palpatine and they aren't good people, same with Thrawn. Villain stories are usually not a problem for me. But something about these imperials is too freaky and cultish. I honestly don't know how far I'll be able to get through this, because its honestly just an unpleasant experience.
This, though...I don't like this. I don't want to read a book about a bunch of facist assholes just spewing the empire's philosophy the first time. Its hard to explain because I like stories that focus on Darth vader/Palpatine and they aren't good people, same with Thrawn. Villain stories are usually not a problem for me. But something about these imperials is too freaky and cultish. I honestly don't know how far I'll be able to get through this, because its honestly just an unpleasant experience.
I finished up the Rebel Jail arc and it was pretty good, nothing mind blowing, but still enjoyable. It was pretty cool getting to see the comics three biggest female characters, Leia, Sana, and Aphra working together. The stuff with Han and Luke also added a fun little extra layer to Leia's insult to Han in Empire Strikes Back, I guess she must have found out about Han and Luke's little smuggling job somewhere between this story and ESB.
Eneb, the hero from the annual being the villain was a great twist. It was really interesting going from the annual, and then seeing what he became in Rebel Jail.
Don't a lot of those stories also have subplots that involve more heroic characters, kind of breaking up the one perspective? In the case of Inferno Squad, we got a case where the "villains" and the "heroes" were more or less two sides of the same coin.
I didn't see any heros in the book. By the second chapter I'm just too disgusted to go on. Its just unrepentant, delusional members of a facist cult being terrible people. Somehow people like Vader, Palpatine, Thrawn, etc being more aware of their actions make their stories work for me, but I can't take this stuff. Either make the villains self aware or make them conflicted. This book is just unpleasant, and I say that as someone who is currently reading two (and a half counting Aphra, who isn't a good guy but is less evil then, say, Vader) good Star Wars comics based on villains. This just doesn't work for me, so I'm returning the book to the library. A book just can't work when the main characters are written like this, at least in my opinion.
Being diehard Imperial loyalists should be something different. These would be the people that believe the Empire is just and their brand of order is the only order that matters in the galaxy. These are the people that would form the First Order and continue the war decades later, be it in the Emperor's name or not. For them, the Republic was a corrupt state that needed to die and order restored to the galaxy. The corrupt democracy needed to be removed and a set path of rules and a force to enforce those rules needed to be absolute. No cost was too high for an orderly galaxy that was a peace through force of arms or fear of force of arms. Peace at any cost. Order for all with no deviation. That would be a diehard Imperial loyalist.
Even Tarkin wasn't as disturbing as this people. Using the old EU, no Imperials were. Not Daala, not Isard, nor Thrawn, Pellaeon, etc. In the new EU, someone like Rae Sloane would look like a Rebel compared to these people. Phasma is less nutty then these people, and her armor is literally a tribute to Palpatine. There is a lack of awareness about them, along with somehow a more extreme facist bent then even the worst old Imperials, that makes every sentence of that book disturbing and unpleasant. Its not good. Its like a religious order of facists. Give me a plain, ordinary megalomaniac like Daala, a "ends justify the means" villain like Thrawn or even an evil dictator like Palpatine over that any day.
Hell, Rae Sloane was super loyal to the Empire without becoming a cultist, so even if you think she's wrong and just generally a bad person she is still an interesting character. So, no, they aren't "imperials being imperials". The main characters of Inferno Squad worse then any other Imperials, and they're also worse then anyone we've seen from the First Order. They're one order away from drinking space rat poison so they can ascend to the heavens on a magic comet. I'll stick to the normal evil of the Empire. If I wanted to read about cultists and starring cultists (and I really don't want to), I wouldn't be looking to the Star Wars universe for a story like that.
So, another miss for the SW novels. We're at Thrawn as a success, Rebel Rising as an honorable mention (since it doesn't really fit with the normal novel line in format it doesn't really count as a hit) and Inferno Squad and the last Wendig book as complete failures. The only other book being released this year is Phasma, by an author who has never written a full length SW novel. Maybe that one will be ok, I liked the SW short stories I've read by the author.
That was kind of my point; Inferno Squad doesn't have heroes, just characters willing to do horrific things for their cause. As Star Trek: Deep Space Nine once put it, in war, both sides commit atrocities. (I did think both the Squad and the Dreamers were more darker shades of gray than anything else, but that could certainly be argued against.)
I liked the book in part because of the moral ambiguity that it presented in this specific situation of a war with these specific sides (one we consider good, the other evil), but I could understand that it's not for everyone, much less the kind of book I want to see a lot of in the franchise going forward.
We taking Legends Tarkin or canon Tarkin?
I don't know, some of those old Legends characters were very much in the "See how evil I am?" category; they were more Saturday morning cartoon characters than anything else. Even Thrawn, starting out, was always a villain, plain and simple (and the latter attempts to rebrand him as a noble extremist kind of ignored a lot of information in his original trilogy).
In the new EU, someone like Rae Sloane would look like a Rebel compared to these people.[/quote]
Maybe?
I take it you haven't read the new Phasma novel yet.
I frankly found the flatter "evil for the sake of being evil" villains got really boring really fast (and Daala was never a "good" villain, much less an interesting one). Moving away from the cartoon bad guys to ones with more complexity (or at least acted like real people to a certain extent) is one place that I think canon has improved on Legends.
I didn't think the characters were that one-dimensional (Del Meeko being a prime example, as we see by the end), but I will agree that they were meant to be "true believers," not a "good person" who didn't figure out who they really were serving until later on, e.g. Ciana Ree from Lost Stars. (Actually, the Alderaanian officer who's name I can't recall from Lost Stars came across as more the cultist to me than Inferno Squad, but that was part of the point of his character.)
Haven't had a chance to read Aftermath 3 yet. I have gathered it was more of the same, so I'm not expecting to be blown away by it. I really liked Rebel Rising, and given how much hype I had for it, that's quite lucky.
Delilah S. Dawson previously wrote the ebook novella The Perfect Weapon for the "Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens" series. I found it to be a lot more interesting than Inferno Squad for what it's worth, although the two are very different kinds of bad guy stories.
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Tarkin landed a ship on a landing pad full of protesters in the old EU.
This event is actually referenced in the new canon, though not that specific detail.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ghorman_Massacre/Legends
People often get drawn into the myth of "noble Imperials" the belief that not everyone who serves in the Imperial military are evil people. Indeed, to a certain extent there is some truth to it, the Empire is the legitimate government, the people who enlist into its military forces aren't much different from people who serve their nations' military today. Throw in the fact that ESB did give us Imperial officers who come off as okay guys like Piett and Veers, and you can easily be drawn into the fantasy that typical Imperial military personnel are perhaps decent hardworking people who help out their neighbourhoods and are upstanding citizens to some degree.
But the truth is, in order for the Imperial military to get away with brutalizing, terrorizing and even destroying planets, there have to be people serving it, both in the rank and file was well as the commanding officers who are okay with this and consider it justified or even necessary. Inferno Squad giving us some insight into such people is very interesting and refreshing. Too often when we get stories from the bad guys' perspective it focuses on someone who has doubts and wants out. And while this can work sometimes, like it does with Agent Kallus on Rebels, it is also nice to see a story of "true believers" of Imperial doctrine. Bad guys being bad, and proud of it. The strength of Inferno Squad is that it pulls this off while still making the characters look like ordinary people just doing their jobs as opposed to "Mwa-ha-ha, we're Evil Villains" is a testament to what really is an interesting, tough admittedly not perfect novel.
I in no way go in for the "noble imperial". There are a lot of nutjobs, and 99% of imperials are irredeemably evil. That said, what I need in a story starring them is some self awareness. Tarkin is not noble, but I liked his book and I find him an interesting character. Palpatine sure isn't noble, but I can read stories with him and not get all that disturbed.
Inferno Squad does not make them look like people doing their jobs. It makes them look like cultists ready to do literally anything they get ordered while believing they're the greatest thing ever. At least fucking Tarkin could admit he did bad things, even if he justified them. Palpatine and Vader wouldn't argue that, say, murdering younglings was right, but they would say its necessary and they don't give a crap about morality anyway, they're trying to accomplish their goals and they'll do whatever they have to. A good villain can justify to themselves doing horrible things without coming off like they're completely out of their mind. That used to be how it went with Imperials, they either have doubts or go "the ends justify the means". Both things work, and I'd imagine that the "ends justify the means" attitude is what drove the vast majority of imperials, not a cult mentality.
Tarkin can be a believer but not be delusional. So can Rae Sloane, and most of the imperials in the old EU. An imperial doesn't have to have doubts, but to have them so out of their damn mind that they just drink the kool aid is disturbing and just bad writing. To be fair, I got farther in Inferno Squad then I did in Lost Stars, so I guess that is literally the only good thing I can say about Inferno Squad.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. That terrible book is back at the library, and those two terrible chapters and the characters in them will soon fade into memory. Hopefully the next SW book will be better. It would be hard for it not to be better then IS, though. That said, we have no books announced for 2018 which is weird, I wonder if they're just dropping actual books from the schedule and doubling down on the young readers stuff. That may sound overly paranoid, but I wouldn't put it past Disney at this point.
I agree. Children are much smarter than they are ever given credit for, in my experience.
It's interesting the comment regarding the cult like mindset of Inferno Squad, given that that idea has been consistently explored within the Imperial Guards (see Crimson Empire for a great example). While I don't think that all Imperials have that status, but I think the more elite units, the higher up they go, the more cult like the status of the Emperor becomes more apparent. I also suspect that as Palpatine got older, the more withdrawn he became, and needed trust units that would reinforce his status.
Not sure I buy the cult analogy. Most Imperials aren't even what I'd call fanatics. Misguided patriots at best, opportunistic sociopaths at worst. Most are somewhere in the middle, typically venial and cowardly self-serving climbers. Remember that the Empire is a machine designed to encourage greed, corruption and make sure the mid-level players are too busy feuding with each other to pose a threat to the Emperor or allow anyone able to affect real change from climbing too high.
In the case of 'Inferno Squad' I think most earnestly believe in the rightness and necessity of what they do and mostly for good reason. They really wouldn't be very interesting (or all that well written!) characters if they were just unabashedly evil.
In the case of 'Inferno Squad' I think most earnestly believe in the rightness and necessity of what they do and mostly for good reason. They really wouldn't be very interesting (or all that well written!) characters if they were just unabashedly evil.
Something to keep in mind though, the specific characters you mention are all in the Empire's senior leadership, these are people who are more familiar with the bigger picture and know how things really are. The Inferno Squad characters aren't as aware about the galaxy around them, and what they do know comes primarily from Imperial propaganda.
I think it's a bit too early to jump to such a conclusion. I suspect 2018 is going to similar to 2016, and then the first adult novel wasn't released until May. Coincidentally, the first Star Trek novel of 2018 was only just announced this past week, and that's due out in May.
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