Jason Aaron has written a lot of cool comic books including The Punisher, Spider-Man and Wolverine, and his own book Scalped. You can check out a whole host of his stuff here, but he’s definitely a rising star of current comics.
As an first generation fan of the Star Wars films, he’s been enjoying The Clone Wars with his son. I think this is the way a lot of Star Wars fans are discovering the show and enjoying it with the second (or third) generation of Star Wars fans and highlights the differences in perspective between them.
Aaron wrote about the experience on his blog, which you can check out here.
My son loves the animated Clone Wars series. He knows way more about the characters of that world than he does about Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or any of the Star Wars characters I grew up with. And the show is actually pretty entertaining, especially when compared to those last three films. But as an old-school Star Wars fan I just find it weird that I’m now supposed to be cheering for Stormtroopers, knowing full-well that they’re eventually going to wind up as the shocktroops of a ruthless Nazi-like empire. I mean, even the name “Stormtrooper” is derived from German assault troops in World War I. Yet to my son, Stormtroopers are now cool. They’re one of the coolest parts of the Clone Wars series. So basically George Lucas has given us a show set in pre-World War II Germany where you find out Goebbels and Himmler were actually pretty cool dudes. Almost as cool as Anakin Skywalker, the other big hero of the series. Who we all know eventually turns out to be Hitler!
He then wonders if George Lucas is a genius or crazy, but I think Aaron highlights a point I find fascinating about Star Wars. No one thinks they’re the bad guy in a war or a fight or a conflict. It all depends upon a certain point of view.
It’s no secret that I’m one of those anti-war liberal hippy sorts of people and I find it refreshing that depending on the time and the telling of events that bad guys can be good and good guys can be bad. That’s what the entire prequel era is about, showing how someone can do something so horrible for the most benevolent reasons.
I just thought it was some interesting food for thought, and it’s always cool to see writers I like pondering about Star Wars.