• Jabba the Hutt looms over Eightyem the droid on the cover of Marvel Comics' Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1 by Ryan Brown.
    Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba’s Palace #1
    WRITER:
    Marc Guggenheim
    Artist:
    Alessandro Miracolo
    Letterer:
    Vc Clayton Cowles
    Cover Artist:
    Ryan Brown
    Publisher:
    Marvel
    Price:
    $4.99
    Release Date:
    2023-03-29
    Colorist:
    Dee Cunniffe

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1 is the first of a series of one-shot comics created to celebrate Star Wars: Return of the Jedi's fortieth anniversary. Similar to the From a Certain Point of View short story collections, these comics expand upon the backstories of various characters and events from the film. These works ultimately expand fans' understanding of the classic films while also presenting new perspectives on classic characters and moments.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1 is a strong start to the series. The issue focuses on focus on Eightyem, a droid that C-3PO and R2-D2 see being tortured at Jabba's Palace. Eightyem is the definition of a background character, but writer Marc Guggenheim, artist Alessandro Miracolo, colorist Dee Cunniffe and letterer Clayton Cowles elevate Eightyem's story of political intrigue in Jabba's Palace to encompass the dangers of the criminal underworld and an examination of droid's rights.

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Eightyem contemplates his life while watching Tatooine's setting suns in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1.

In Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1, Mark Guggenheim emphasizes Eightyem's longing for fulfillment in his work and the freedom to choose his own path. Because of these twin desires, Eightyem falls prey to Silvan Kaan, an accountant who wants to manipulate and potentially overthrow Jabba. Ultimately, Guggenheim's writing is a strong character study of Eightyem himself while also tackling larger themes of personal fulfillment, personhood and betrayal.

Most of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1 focuses on Eightyem's narration of his fall, and Alessandro Miracolo's masterful illustrations capture the ebb and flow of life in Jabba's Palace by juggling the monotony of Eightyem's work with the chaos of life in the criminal underworld. Most importantly, Miracolo captures Eightyem's emotional journey throughout the issue. Their lack of facial expressions make droids' emotions harder to illustrate, but Miracolo uses body language and posing to still convey Eightyem's feelings throughout the issue.

Dee Conniffe's coloring also conveys the changing world of Jabba's palace well. Most of the scenes within the palace incorporate orange tones and neutrals that reflect Tatooine's warm desert atmosphere. However, for many scenes involving Silvan's schemes, the palette changes to cooler blue tones. During scenes when Eightyem contemplates their possible freedom, Conniffe uses a dreamier palette of pinks and purples to represent Eightyem's ultimately futile hopes for a better life.

Eightyem mistranslates Charn Roondha's words, dooming Roondha in the process in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1

Clayton Cowles lettering is particularly important to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1. Eightyem is narrating most of the tale from after his end, which clearly stands out due to the gray text bubbles. Because of Eightyem's work as a translator, the text switches between basic, translated text and text written in the original language. For example, when Silvan and Eightyem speak with Charn Roondha, an Ithorian, Roondha's speech is presented in Ithorese because Eightyem is accurately translating Roondha's words to Silvan and the audience. However, when Eightyem mistranslates Roondha's speech to Jabba, both Eightyem and Roondha's text is written in English with double angle brackets to indicate that the words are being translated from Ithorese.

Overall, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Jabba's Palace #1 is a strong start to the celebration of the film because of Guggenheim, Miracolo, Conniffe and Cowles's focus on Eightyem's character journey. Even though the audience knows from the start that Eightyem is doomed, his story still matters because he expands the lore behind of Star Wars' criminal empires and the issue of droid's rights. As the celebration of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi continues in future issues, similar focuses on character studies will help expand readers' understanding of Star Wars galaxy through more points of view.