Ethan Sacks

I read this in honor of May the 4th and man was I disappointed.

Surface level impressions based on the cover: "fun phew-phew laser guns and badass bounty hunters fighting each other! But I wonder if the story is any good?"

I really wanted to like this. But this is one of the worst star wars stories I have read. Boba Fett, Valance, Bossk and T’onga (the employer of Valance) are after a woman named Nakano Lash. The reason all the bounty hunters track Nakano Lash is retribution for the murder show more of the syndicate heir. However, T’onga learns it wasn’t Lash who killed her brother…it was Boba Fett. Then, Boba Fett shows up and kills her. T’onga, shot in the back and brutally depicted. Killing the single queer person of color, who also happens to be the most interesting character in the series, for the sake of a cliffhanger and Boba Fett’s dramatic entrance says a lot about our author Ethan Sacks. It also says a lot about many Star Wars fans.

Look, I love Star Wars and I dig Boba Fett and Bossk. I like it when Star Wars goes dark. I love Revenge of the Sith and I love the Evil Vader scene in Rogue One. But at the end of the day, Star Wars is about hope - even if its overall story being told is bleak, there is still a sliver of hope.

But sadly, this was a chaotic, disjointed, and offensive mess. And I really didn't understand Fett's motivation. Maybe that will be cleared up in Vol. 2? But I don't think I'll be reading that one. show less

Target Valance is a big improvement on the previous volume, Galaxy's Deadliest. This series is still a 90s throwback of fighting and space fights. However, Valance gets a personality. Or at least, a little bit of a personality and a lot more backstory, that makes him a fascinating bounty hunter. This series is sheer Star Wars fun - don't expect deep lore. Expect space battles and fights. Be surprised by some tender storytelling.

I actually think next to Greg Pak's run on Darth Vader, this show more might become one of the best series Marvel is producing. I'd totally watch a show with Valance (or movie) BTW. His storyline is like a mixture of The Terminator meets The Mandalorian meets Claudia Gray's Lost Stars and I'm friggin' HERE FOR IT.

So, yay, better backstory for Valance, makes this a way more interesting run. And the next volume promises a run-in with fan-favorite: Boba Fett. So, I think this series is only gonna get better. show less

Originally posted on Just Geeking by as a part of repDISND 2024!

Content warnings:
This comic contains scenes of death, violence, gore, blood, bullying, hospitals (including a psychiatric ward), ableism, and therapy appointments.

Mental health is a core theme of this comic and includes discussions of anxiety, depression, hallucinations, suicide ideation, and harmful thoughts. There is also a scene with dialogue and an image of a pill bottle that suggests a suicide attempt using pills.

Please show more note:

This comic review for A Haunted Girl by Ethan and Naomi Sacks discusses mental health conditions and suicide ideation from the beginning. I know from experience how triggering it can be to read about these topics. If you are not in a place to read about these, please be kind to yourself 🙂 For content warnings for the comic itself, please see above.

As a teenager, I struggled a lot with my mental health and had no clue how bad it was until much later. At the time, I just thought it was normal teenage angst, and that how bad I was feeling was what everyone else was feeling. That was what the magazines said, after all. While some things have got better since I was a teenager, there is still, so little mental health representation out there, especially for teenagers. They skirt around the topics of medication, hospitalisation, and suicide ideation.

A Haunted Girl by Ethan and Naomi Sacks was created by a father and daughter who lived through all that together. The idea came to Sacks when he was waiting to visit his daughter Naomi at a paediatric psychological ward where she had been hospitalised for severe depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. These experiences are reflected in the pages of the comic as we follow the journey of 16-year-old Cleo, an adopted Japanese-American, from her stay in hospital to her reintegration back into her old life.

Rather than the starting point being Cleo’s first day outside the hospital, we first meet Cleo in the hospital. It’s her birthday and her dad brings her a cake, and although it wasn’t the sixteenth birthday either of them imagined for her, they make the most of it. Fast-forward two months, and Cleo is meeting with her psychologist for the first time before returning to school on Monday. Again, this was good to see because so often in the media it feels as though the teenage protagonist is just thrown straight back into mainstream society without any support.

When Cleo’s first day comes about it’s as awkward as expected, with awkwardness from the teachers who don’t know what to say to her, and nasty comments from the mean girls. What I particularly liked was how the Sacks showed the way Cleo didn’t know how to deal with her friends. What to say to them, how to react to their enthusiasm that she’s back, how to explain that she’s still struggling. The visual impact of the comic makes these scenes feel so much more powerful.

With a father and daughter team behind the wheel of this comic, we get to see both sides of the relationship, and while Cleo is the focus of A Haunted Girl some wonderful scenes show the struggles of a parent in this situation. Both creators truly put their heart and soul into this and it shows.

As well as being about mental health, this is a supernatural comic and as Cleo tries to return to her old life she finds out that the odds are against her. While she’s been trying to act like everything is normal, she’s been having terrifying visions. It’s almost a relief when she finds out that they’re not hallucinations… almost. Something else much more serious is going on, and it’s something Cleo can’t run from.

While A Haunted Girl does use the ‘chosen one’ trope, this is not a story where the main character is suddenly cured. It’s a story about understanding mental health, recognising that life is in a state of flux and that means there will be problems. Sometimes those problems are mental health conditions, but with the right support, we can work through them.

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Pretty good! For a mini-story, it was oddly compelling. Using the basic building blocks that we're familiar with in the Thor story, the team constructs a new tale with frost giants.

Seeing a blue thor with a giant spiky ice hammer was awesome, and this gentler version of Loki was very sweet. It was an extremely economical use of frames, each one quickly establishing character relations and dynamics. It leaves on kind of a somber note, not so much a cliffhanger but as the sort of quiet, show more emotive ending that gets your mind whirring on what could happen in another edition. show less