Destiny is a fickle thing. One little change can have a rippling effect throughout the course of history, changing dozens of details little by little. This is the premise behind the Star Wars: Infinities comics, which take a little change in each of the three original trilogy movies and show the repercussions that extend from it.
These stories are a decade old but are still a joy to read for dedicated Star Wars fans. As a whole, the ideas behind these tales are fantastic. There are very few scenes ripped straight from the films, instead having even minor changes in interactions and events over the course of the stories. While Infinities manages to stay fresh compared to the original trilogy, it doesn’t do as good of a job making each of its stories fresh from one another. Despite taking dramatically different concepts, the stories focus on some of the same changes, which grew rather tiresome by the third go around. One reoccurring element I was really pleased to see in all three Infinities was the prominent role Leia had. Our spunky princess kicks some serious a– throughout this tale, and she feels way more important when she’s given some space away from the fellas.
A New Hope as the original Infinities tale is still, in my mind, the best. It has the most room to work with since it carries through the events of Empire and Jedi, as well. The series is filled with some great action scenes and a ton of majorly cool Han Solo moments. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the art style which has an old school feel. It’s effective, just bland, though it works well enough to present some truly amazing visuals.
The Empire Strikes Back has a great art style. It’s a bit cartoony, but is plenty detailed and never took me out of the story. This Infinities tale as a whole felt rather silly compared to the dark tones of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi and has some great laugh-out-loud moments to the entire scenario. This might at first seem like an odd fit compared to the original Empire‘s tone, but it makes for a fun and very enjoyable ride.
The Return of the Jedi Infinities takes the smallest change and shows how even a secondary character’s absence is felt throughout the tale. This Infinity felt the most chaotic of any of them, introducing more brand new scenes and leaving out many old ones in order to tell its tale. The art in this issue is easily the best, with crisp and detailed models, but when it cuts away to space scenes, it uses what looks like stock footage and CGI models for the spaceships. I did not care for this artistic choice at all, which felt disjointed compared to the rest of the art, especially when ships are present in the background of some of the regularly drawn scenes.
If you missed this series of alternate reality, original trilogy stories, it’s well worth picking up and experiencing a new take on Star Wars that’s guaranteed to be better than any of the monkeying Lucas has done over the years.
