Tom Taylor (W), Colin Wilson (A), Wes Dzioba (C), and Jo Chen (Cover)

I for one am enjoying that Star Wars is seeing a bit of a resurgence in other mediums, even though the latest round of films were a bit of a critical flop. The Clone Wars cartoon is being well received, the latest round of books from Del Rey are doing well. And Dark Horse comics are succeeding to put out excellent comics set in the Star Wars universe... for the most part.

I say for the most part because Star Wars: Invasion #1, while most likely exciting to hard core fans that follow everything Star Wars related, it doesn't do a very good job of explaining what's going on to the rest of the world.

Without giving too much away, the first issue is set on a "peaceful planet" and spends a long time watching that planet get knocked around by the Yuuzhan Vong. But these creatures aren't explained. Who are they? Why are they doing this? Where are the characters we love and want to read about (Han, Luke, Leia, etc) and why are we reading about some random family who's father apparently served the Rebellion on Hoth?

Now, you might think that the book is set at the very opening of the invasion, and thus we're supposed to be as confused as the populace because no one knows what's going on. Maybe the plan is to have the reader experience the same confusion as the rest of the universe.

And that worked until a familiar character finally shows up, giving us the impression that the New Republic is not confused at all, but dealing with invasions just like this and has some idea of who these aliens are.

The art work is beautiful. The carnage leaps off the page. The coloring is spot on. But otherwise, the story falls well short of what I'd hoped for. I still intended to stick with the series through the first storyline, because, hey, it's Star Wars. I'm just not impressed yet.

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