Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we look at Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron: The Phantom Affair, by Michael Stackpole, Darko Macan and the late, great Edvin Biukovic...

.

Enjoy!

The Phantom Affair is the second storyline in Dark Horse's acclaimed X-Wing Rogue Squadron series of mini-series (so it's issues #5-8 of the overall series, but #1-4 of Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron: The Phantom Affair).

While the other stories in the series were good, this one especially stood out for the work done by Macan and Biukovic, especially Biukovic (no slight to Macan, who did fine work).

The set-up of the series was that Stackpole oversaw the series, and wrote a couple of them all by himself.

This one, though, was scripted by Macan and drawn by Biukovic (for most of the series - he had assistance at the end of the story), and it was an engaging tale that was helped greatly by the awesome artwork.

Check out this scene that opened the series - note how dynamic the artwork is...













What Macan especially shined at in this series was the highlight of the character interactions. He did a really nice job developing Wedge Antilles, the head of the Rogue Squadron. Wedge is a nice, unassuming, guy, and Macan captured that beautifully. Biukovic shows his stuff by demonstrating that he can shift from hard-fought action to character-driven drama.

Check it out...











Pretty darn impressive, huh?

The plot of the comic is an intricate, political drama of the Rogue Squadron being sent to negotiate the purchase of an important new cloaking device from a neutral world (the remnants of the Empire also want the cloaking device). Stackpole and Macan come up with a strong world to base the story on - it's really a deeply intertwined story of action and intrigue.

It's too bad that the Macan/Biukovic team only did one story for the series.

And, of course, it's a terrible tragedy that Biukovic passed away more than a decade ago at a far too young age. He is deeply missed.