Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

Publisher: Marvel
Released: July 3^rd 2017
Received: Marvel Unlimited
Issues: 7-13
Rating: 

The Gathering Storm, like the volume before it, occurs before the events in The Force Awakens. After reading a couple of these volumes I’m starting to feel like I should go back and watch the movie (for the hundredth time) so I can try and see what Poe’s current squadron looks like. Maybe that’ll give me an idea of which characters to avoid getting attached to? Or maybe not. Their lack of appearance in the movie could simply be a continuity or communication issue.

This volume contains issues 7 through 13, though I’d argue that 7 has a different plot from the rest of the issues. Altogether, quite a lot goes on here, and some of it I actually find myself wishing was cannon in the movies (when you read it, you’ll understand why I feel that way).

The first issue revolves around an old friend of Poe’s, Suralinda Javos. She was in the navy, but is now an investigative journalist. Nothing in this issue really affects the main plot; it’s just a fun little aside that lets us get to know Poe a bit better. It also did a wonderful job of showing us the hope that’s left in the galaxy.

The other plot has Poe (and eventually the rest of his team) trying to retrieve a droid with important data on it. Apparently…and get ready for this one…Threepio has a whole army of droids constantly gathering intel for him, and this droid scored big (supposedly, that is). I don’t know why this isn’t in the movies, but I dearly wish it was! I’m usually a huge fan of droids, but I’ll admit I don’t like Threepio that much, and I find him to be pretty useless on the whole (and thus I never really understood why he was kept around, other than sentimental reasons, that is). Something like this would go a long way to explaining Threepio’s usefulness.

It was also fun thinking of all the useful ways multiple droid classes could be used with in this manner. Like the little cleaner droid in the cantina. I’d love to see more like this, though at this point I’m assuming we’ll never see anything like it in the movies (which is a shame, really).

In case you were wondering – yes, Terex is still around and hunting the Black Squadron. I’ll admit he isn’t my favorite antagonist, so I was a little put off by the constant flashbacks for his character. I understand their purpose, of course, but they were still frustrating to have to dig through. Though I’ll grant you that it did explain his sudden change in methods (which ultimately bit him in the butt – boy was that satisfying).

I’m still not loving this series, but I am starting to like it more than I expected, which I’ll take. I’m curious to see if the series will ever catch up with the current movie timeline, or if it’ll always be placed before the events in The Force Awakens.