Star Wars: Princess Leia

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars: Princess Leia opens at the medal ceremony that closes the 1977 film Star Wars. There, Princess Leia says only a few words in remembrance of her destroyed home world, Alderaan. She is criticized for what reads as a lack of emotion.

  Alderaan is gone, and the Empire is hunting down any citizen who survived its destruction. A bounty on Leia's own head keeps her sidelined from the Rebellion she still wants to fight for. This five-issue comic series follows a different kind of mission instead: a search for scattered Alderaanian survivors hiding across the galaxy. Who does Leia turn to when the Rebellion won't let her fight? And what does she find when she goes looking for what is left of her people?

• 2. The Musical Order

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  Evaan Verlaine, a Rebel pilot and an Alderaanian royalist, agrees to join Leia and R2-D2 on a mission to track down surviving Alderaanians. X-wing pilots Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles chase after them, but the three escape to the planet Naboo.

  On Naboo, Leia seeks out an old acquaintance named Lord Junn, hoping he can point her toward a group called the Musical Order. The Order is a cloister of Alderaanian musicians who have taken a vow to interact only with other Alderaanians, to keep their music culturally pure. Their leader, Pareece, has kept the destruction of Alderaan a secret from the rest of the group.

  Junn leads Leia and Evaan into a trap, and it is Pareece who ends up saving their lives. Confronting Junn over the betrayal, Leia takes one of his ships rather than his life, then flees with the entire Musical Order in tow. One member of the Order, a woman named Tace, reaches out to her sister Tula, not realizing Tula has since joined the Empire.

  That search for more survivors is about to lead Leia, Evaan and R2 somewhere entirely different: the planet Sullust.

• 3. Sullust's Hidden Survivors

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  Sullust turns out to hide its own colony of Alderaanians, tucked into one of the planet's cave systems. There, Leia, Evaan and R2 meet Nien Nunb, a Sullustan native who helps them track the group down. These survivors, led by Jora Astane, have forsworn Alderaanian culture entirely and are wary of Leia's arrival.

  R2-D2 turns the local wildlife loose on invading Imperial troops once their ship arrives in orbit, tracking Leia's trail. Jora agrees to fall in with Leia after the immediate threat passes. She and Evaan still need to work out who inside the group leaked their location to the Empire.

  Jora initially points to Tace as the traitor, but Leia realizes Tace had no idea her sister Tula was working with the Empire. Leia has Tace question Tula directly, and the Imperials take Tula into custody once they realize she has been found out. Reunification talks with Alderaanians living on Espirion collapse when Jora reacts with disgust at their interbreeding with the local aliens. Leia strikes a deal with the Imperial commander: herself, in exchange for Tula's release.

  Whether that exchange actually happens is about to be decided in orbit.

• 4. A Decoy And A Broadcast

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  Evaan and Nien Nunb arrive to rescue Leia themselves, springing a double-cross before her trade for Tula can go through. Alderaanian ships flood in to back Leia up, but they remain outnumbered by the assembled Imperial forces. The Imperials intend to destroy every Alderaan ship in the battle, and a full space battle breaks out.

  Without help from the Alder-Espirions, Leia knows the Imperials will win this fight outright. Nien Nunb launches a decoy, tricking the Imperial fleet into chasing a false sensor signal, so Leia's ship slips past unnoticed. The crew of the main Star Destroyer becomes convinced that Leia has been killed in the battle.

  In reality, at that exact moment, Leia is broadcasting a message to every Alderaanian ally across the galaxy. R2-D2 relays her message to the Alder-Espirions, and seeing Leia alive turns the tide, since they join the fight. With the battle won, Leia leaves to rejoin the Rebellion, telling Evaan to arrange an election for a new Alderaanian princess. She endorses Evaan herself as a candidate for that role.

  That handoff, from a princess without a throne to a pilot she trusts to find one, ends the story on Leia's terms, not the Empire's.

• 5. Behind The Panels

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  Editor Jordan D. White went looking for a writer for this new Leia-focused book, and settled on Mark Waid, whose favorite character was Leia herself. Marvel announced Princess Leia in July 2014, alongside two other new titles, Star Wars and Darth Vader. Though a self-contained miniseries, it was set in the same rough time period as those other two books. That decision let readers who followed more than one series get a "broader picture and a richer story," in White's own words.

  Terry Dodson served as artist and Jordie Bellaire as colorist for the entire run. Marvel published the series from March to July 2015. The collected trade paperback followed later that year, released on the 3rd of November 2015.

  That decision to share a timeframe meant Princess Leia would inevitably be judged next to Marvel's other new Star Wars launches.

• 6. Critical Reception

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  IGN's Joshua Yehl ranked the then-eight Marvel Star Wars comics and placed Princess Leia sixth. Even so, he felt every one of them was "good, if not great," and praised both the story and the art.

  Alice Castle, writing for Multiversity Comics, rated the first issue 6.8 out of 10. She called it the "weakest" of the Marvel Star Wars comics released so far. Castle praised the premise behind the story, but criticized dialogue she felt was "stilted and forced." She felt the issue did little to connect readers with Leia as a character. Still, she loved the art, calling its colors "vibrant" and calling it "the best looking of Marvel's Star Wars comics so far."

  IGN's Jesse Schedeen gave that same first issue a 7 out of 10. He praised the characterization, but was critical of the scene where Leia and Luke interact. Schedeen also felt Terry Dodson's art failed to distinguish the two leads and lacked "clarity" in its faces. Comic Book Resources' Doug Zawisza praised the issue as well.

  Schedeen rated the third issue higher, a 7.9 out of 10, continuing to praise the characterization and Evaan's growing endearingness. He called the issue more action-oriented, which he felt offset the book's ongoing visual problems. Schedeen did feel the refugees' shift from distrust to support of Leia happened too suddenly. Maltby rated the same issue 7 out of 10 and felt it, while still good, fell short of earlier issues. He praised Leia and Evaan as "well-realized" characters, but criticized the refugees' leader, whom he called the Preserver, as too easily won over.

  Schedeen gave the fourth issue a 7.1, noting that Princess Leia had the "strongest start" among the Star Wars comics. He felt the series had lost appeal over time, partly due to Terry Dodson's "declining quality" of art. Schedeen also criticized the fourth issue for switching between two plotlines "at random," leaving it feeling disjointed.

  Whatever critics made of the art or the dialogue, that first issue was already moving briskly off comic shop shelves.

• 7. Sales Figures

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  Princess Leia #1 was the best-selling comic of March 2015. It went on to become the tenth best-selling issue of the entire year for Diamond Comic Distributors. The collected trade paperback sold an estimated 6,782 copies to comic specialty stores in November 2015. That made it the third highest-selling graphic novel that month, trailing only Star Wars: Shattered Empire.

  Even finishing third that November, the series had already claimed a rarer distinction that March: the best-selling comic of the month.