Comic Review - Poe Dameron Is Sent On a Secret Mission in "Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories - Codebreaker" #1
Last week saw the release of the first issue in Dark Horse Comics’ new Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories - Codebreaker miniseries, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this initial installment of the comic.
Hyperspace Stories - Codebreaker #1 kicks off with a New Republic transport ship carrying government officials under attack by pilots, and Poe Dameron’s black X-wing starfighter screaming into action out of hyperspace with his trusty droid BB-8 along for the ride as usual. Right off the bat I can tell that writer Ethan Sacks (Star Wars: Bounty Hunters) has a near-perfect grasp on the voice of Poe’s character and the tone of the Star Wars sequel trilogy in general, as the character trades pointed barbs with the pirates while disabling their ships one-by-one. I also found myself immediately impressed with the art by penciller Marc Yarza (Werewolf Frankenstein), inker Jose Marzan Jr. (The Uncanny X-Men), and colorist Nicola Righi (Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren). The likenesses are great but never resort to carbon-copies of poses we saw in the movies, and the action is engaging and exciting throughout.
Anyway, after returning from this somewhat-unsanctioned rescue, Poe is approached by General Leia Organa (Wookieepedia informs me that this comic is set between issue #25 of Marvel’s Star Wars: Poe Dameron comic and The Force Awakens) about another secret mission: apparently the ever-expanding First Order has figured out a way to decrypt encoded Resistance messages and that method is housed on the Hutt-controlled planet of Nar Kaaga. So it’s up to Dameron, accompanied by his old pal and fellow Resistance pilot Temmin “Snap" Wexley– along with BB-8 and a few other X-wing pilots– to track down and destroy what they assume to be a codebreaking machine of some type. But because Poe’s usual starfighter is damaged from that previous task, he’s forced to take a different X-wing, which turns out to be good luck later on.
Arriving in orbit around Nar Kaaga, the squadron receives a message from a New Republic governor who warns them about endangering a treaty with the Hutts, but before they can take that advice into account they are attacked by an ace First Order pilot known as the Banshee of Bestine. Several of the “red shirt" X-wings are destroyed and Poe sends Snap back for reinforcements before faking a crash-landing on the planet’s surface to evade the Banshee. He and BB-8 hike into Nar Kaaga City and meet up with their contact, an old friend from his smuggling days named Groshank Survell (newly introduced here). From there Dameron must don a First Order officer’s uniform as a disguise and sneak into a nearby base, where he soon discovers that the codebreaking target of his mission is not a machine at all, but rather an alien child.
I’ll be honest– I was half-expecting the codebreaker to turn out to be actor Justin Theroux’s character from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but I guess it was Maz Kanata who knew him before the events of that movie, not Poe… so it wouldn’t have made too much sense. Either way, I thought this issue was a really fun start to this four-issue arc, and that Sacks and his collaborators have done a great job so far in capturing my interest, though the narrative path of this story does remind me a bit of the first episode of The Mandalorian. Regardless, I’ll be curious to see where things go from here next month!
Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories - Codebreaker #1 is available now wherever comic books are sold.