Star Wars: Agent of the Empire #1 Hard Targets Review: Thank You John Ostrander

“Star Wars” stories, especially comics, in recent years have suffered from “fan fiction syndrome,” stories so bad that they belong on Fanfiction.net.

“Star Wars: Agent of the Empire” by John Ostrander breaks that bad streak.

We meet Jahan Cross, a special imperial envoy sent to Alderaan to meet with the royal family and the current Count Dooku of Serenno. During this visit Bail Organa and the Count discuss rebellion. Soon enough one of the big turning points in the rebellion occurs and the story truly begins.

This is not your traditional “Star Wars” story. Usually you’d expect to see light saber duels, space battles or even some kind of story that deals with the Clone Wars or the Empire or something along those lines. Here this is more along the lines of political intrigue. It’s like “Homeland” meets Tom Clancy.

Ostrander handles this angle straight and in way that brings a different light into “Star Wars” stories that have been missing for a long while. The characters are actually likable; the story is well paced and the plot so far seems well thought out. The only bump in the road found is making one of the characters, Winter, say “we both had mad crushes on you.” Characters from a world that’s not Earth using Earth slang sounds a little off-putting.

The artwork on the other hand, is not up to par with the story. It looks like any “Star Wars” comic that has come out in recent years with little to no style differences to distinguish it from the rest of the pack. It’s all more of the same.

“Star Wars: Agent of the Empire” seems to be a step in the right direction for “Star Wars” stories if Ostrander keeps the course. If there were more “Star Wars” stories like this then maybe there would be fewer wars between fans.