Star Wars Vol. 5: Yoda's Secret War

by Jason Aaron

[Quirky Cat]

I read all of these issues through the Marvel Unlimited subscription service. If you’re going to do so as well, be aware that you’re going to want to read Annual #2 first, followed by issues 26 through 30.



I feel like annual stories for any series are usually pretty hit or miss, but lately I’ve been enjoying the Star Wars ones. This one introduces a new character, Pash, and I sincerely hope we see her again after this. Pash (also known as Bash for her brute strength and willingness to use that on a person’s skull) ends up saving Princess Leia, even though she wanted nothing more than to completely avoid the war between the Rebels and the Empire. Once again, I really like this perspective. It’s so easy to forget that the people on the outskirts (on stuck in the middle) that tend to get hurt the most during a war. Because of that it’s easy to understand how they might have a harder time seeing which side is the ‘right’ one, so to speak. Pash’s plot arc is a perfect example of this; she goes from hating both sides equally to saving Leia and joining the Rebellion, all because she suddenly saw them in a more humanizing light.
As for the main plot…well I’m just going to say I called it. C3PO got himself captured, and not only is he creating trouble, he totally gave up all the information he had (which luckily didn’t include locations) Furthermore, now the Rebels have to risk their necks to save him. Well, R2 doesn’t actually have a neck (I think) and he’s the one that ran off to rescue C3PO, but you get my drift.
That’s pretty much all we see of the current events, as the majority of the rest of this volume is spent with Luke reading from Obi Wan’s journals. So you can imagine my surprise when I realized it was a Yoda focused story we were getting. He must have told Obi Wan this story, likely knowing it’d end up in these journals eventually (I can totally see him doing that).
Obviously that explains the title of this volume; Yoda’s Secret War. I’ll admit I’m still feeling a bit conflicted about this one. There were parts of the story I really enjoyed, such as Yoda finding a planet full of children (reminded me of that episode in Stargate Atlantis for a moment), or the realization that the material they were minding was from a living being. Other parts felt…well…dare I say a bit cheap? The whole living mountain/giant thing and the fight that comes up from it felt like a bit of a stretch, even though I liked the idea originally – must be one of those things where it sounds better than it looks.
On the whole this was a pretty decent read. I’m not sure how much of it is going to affect the main plot. I really hope we see Pash again, but I won’t be surprised if we don’t. I’m also curious to see if Luke ends up learning anything on the planet Yoda found, and if so how it’ll all tie together. I’ll have to wait and see for that I guess.


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