Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1-2

Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1-2 
Written by Charles Soule
Art by Will Sliney 
Published by Marvel Comics

The Rise of Kylo Ren takes place years before The Force Awakens. It opens with the destruction of the new Jedi Temple erected by Luke Skywalker. Kylo has just taken out Luke after waking up to find his uncle standing over with an ignited lightsaber. The temple is on fire and its students all dead. Well except three that were returning from offworld. The three decide to take on Kylo and bring him to justice. The second issue is a flashback to Kylo's first encounter with the Knights of Ren with his master, Luke, as they try to recover some Jedi artifacts and find that the Knights have already claimed them.

I really enjoyed these two issues. Probably more than the new trilogy really. After seeing the character of Snoke get thrown away in The Last Jedi, it was nice to get more of his backstory with Kylo (Ben Solo). in these comics. It almost feels like a homoerotic relationship between the two rather than master and apprentice. We do get a throwaway reveal that Luke somehow caused Snoke's disfigurement.

It was also cool to get more Knights of Ren. They too had very little screen time in the new trilogy. I always thought they were some of Luke's students who went over to Kylo's side at the Temple massacre. But they appear to be some existentialist dark side amateur force users. They refer to the force as "the shadow". I've never really understood how the entire galaxy seems to have forgotten about the Jedi and the Force in the new trilogy. I mean it seems like Luke would have been pretty famous and it wasn't a secret that he was a Jedi. It just seems like a cheap ploy by Disney to make the Force seem ooooo, mysterious. Seems like Luke could have used some marketing skills.

The story was really good and much better written than the first issue of the new Star Wars series. The element lacking, just like in the other book, is the art. While overall, it is of higher quality, it flucuates wildly from good to AWFUL. The awfulness comes in with the portrayal of Adam Driver. Sometimes he is drawn perfectly, but others it almost becomes CARICATURE. I was like the grotesque funhouse flattening I remember from the latter stages of Carmine Infantino.  I wonder if under deadline some of the panels were rushed by Sliney. It's hard to overlook bad art with the main character but somehow I just got over it. I don't know what it is with modern comic artists but they just aren't consistent from panel to panel anymore.

Story Grade: A-
Art Grade: B