If you’ve devoured Michael Stackpole’s 35-issue “X-Wing Rogue Squadron” comics series but are a completest who wants to gather up all the ancillary stories, you’ll want to check out “X-Wing Rogue Squadron” No. 1/2 (1997), “X-Wing Rogue Squadron Special” (1995) and the three-issue “X-Wing Rogue Leader” (2005).
The Wizard No. ½ issue will seem familiar if you’ve just read the 2003 “Darklighter” arc of “Star Wars: Empire.” For the sequence where Red Squadron (wrongly called Rogue Squadron in the introductory panel) gets into a fistfight with local thugs on Commenor, “Darklighter” scribe Paul Chadwick repurposed the events of the Wizard issue, which was plotted by Stackpole and scripted by Mike W. Barr. While the Wizard issue introduces Rebel supply runner Nera Dantels, there’s no hint of a spark between her and Biggs. It also ends oddly when the Commenor mission leads directly into the Battle of Yavin, as Red Squadron mourns the death of Doc (Red Four) even as new pilot Luke Skywalker arrives. “Darklighter” added more breathing room between the two missions.
Ryder Windham’s “X-Wing Rogue Squadron Special,” which could be obtained with purchases of Apple Jacks cereal, is written for kids, as the citizens of Tandankin hate Wedge for destroying a monument in order to save them from the Empire, then change their mind after hearing Luke’s retelling of Wedge’s exploits in the battles of Yavin, Hoth and Endor. The point is to shift a young reader from the idea of Luke as the main character to Wedge as the main character. At the same time, it’s a teaser for Stackpole’s “X-Wing Rogue Squadron” comics, which were not written for kids. (In fact, to this day, many adults don’t know what the heck was going on in the first arc, “The Rebel Opposition.”)
The Apple Jacks Special features the earliest example of what would be become an ongoing problem in the comics, as it doesn’t know when to use “Rogue” and “Red.” This story is set after “Return of the Jedi,” but it wrongly uses the Red designations.
Because Stackpole essentially jumped right into the middle of the action with the first issue of the main “Rogue Squadron” series in 1995, Dark Horse called upon Haden Blackman to write the three-issue “Rogue Leader” in 2005 that would serve as a lead-in story for the “Rogue Squadron” omnibus series. And it does just that, as Rogue Squadron’s mission to Corellia demonstrates that the Empire is still a serious threat even after the Rebels’ victory at Endor. At this point, Luke still leads the squadron and Tycho still flies an A-wing.
The final pages segue smoothly into “The Rebel Opposition” as Luke turns his focus to rebuilding the Jedi Order, Wedge takes the helm of Rogue Squadron and a panel shows us all the new Rogues ready to sign up.
While “Rogue Leader” serves the same lead-in purpose as the Apple Jacks Special, it is not for kids, as B-wing pilot Ten Nunb is horribly tortured by a sadistic Imperial commander. A nice continuity touch comes in Issue 1, when Janson and Tycho search for an Imperial encampment on Endor only to find it’s been wiped out by a Gorax (a giant monster introduced in the first Ewok movie). Artist Tomas Giorello portrays the Gorax with a necklace of dead scout troopers. And in Issue 3, we see Selonians, first introduced in the “Corellian Trilogy” novels.
None of these stories match the heights of Stackpole’s “Rogue Squadron” work, and when it came out, I found “Rogue Leader” especially frustrating. Dark Horse returned to the Rogues, but without Stackpole and without continuing the many dangling plot and character threads from when the series was canceled in 1998. However, these three titles serve their intended purpose of rounding out the bigger picture of Rogue Squadron’s history.