Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

This focus on Leia and another Alderaanian woman named Evaan.   Since Alderaan is no more, and their people and culture are at risk of being snuffed out, they work together to protect the few Alderaanian survivors, although Evaan originally shows contempt for Leia.

Leia is portrayed as an ice princess, and called such often, by those who believe she does' show the proper amount of grief over the loss of her subjects, or her father.   Evaan is quite vocal about this, and she has good reason to be upset, a fairly quickly told origin story which makes her disdain for the Princess clear at first. 

But she is also a royalist.   Whatever the Princess asks, she will give, with the exception of the blunt truth.   It's only when Leia pries this out of her, and learns that the Empire is attempting to track down and eliminate all Alderaanian's that she asks for Evaan's help. 

Waid isn't given much time, but he quickly puts these two women into an uncomfortable situation in which they are responsible for the survivors, whom Leia still sees as her subjects.   Not a bad thing, since she is a benevolent tyrant, as was her father before her, and they feel, and bear, all the responsibilities of rulership without exerting power over the people.   

She buries her grief.   She buries it under a need to help the Rebellion, and when they refuse to give her work to occupy her mind and spirit, she buries it under the need to keep her people safe. 

It's a nice start to a character study.   The only thing I have a minor complaint about is the art.   It's sleeker, possibly even lovelier, than the art in Aaron's Star Wars.   However, Cassady gave a gritty, realistic air to the setting: it felt grimy, and it gave the whole thing a sense of pressure, of desperation.   This looks like sanitized that it put me at ease rather than adding to the tension of the story.   Even showing Leia's hair in disarray before coiffing it perfectly for the action scenes didn't help, mostly because of the sudden coiffing.   If she has time to do her hair, it's not all that urgent, right?

Like I said, a minor complaint, but it kept it from being absolutely perfect for me.   Had it been anything other than an improvised rebellion where things really should have been grimy, this art would have been perfect.