IN DEADLY PURSUIT is the first of three publications collecting the "Star Wars" newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson. This artist-and-writer team worked on Marvel's "Star Wars" comic books as well, but never to the caliber of these strips. While the early Marvel "Star Wars" comics seemed aim only at an elementary school audience, this series of strips seems crafted to include readers and art appreciators of all ages.

IN DEADLY PURSUIT lives up to it's name as Luke, Leia, Han, and the others seem to be pursued by every entity in the galaxy: bounty hunters, pirates, current and former imperial officers as well as Darth Vader himself.

For the most part the story is very fast paced, with a weak moment being that Luke, jealous of Han's relationship with Leia, volunteers for a dangerous mission and spends the first half of the mission sulking. The artwork is superior to most of the previous comic-style artwork I have seen for the "Star Wars" series (this includes Marvel and Dark Horse). Somehow the artists best seem to capture Han Solo, but more often than not Leia and Luke resemble their appearance from the films; the droids and Chewbacca are consistently well done; the starships look stellar.

I have read other reviews for these graphic novels and the most common criticism is that there is little character development. I think this is in the eye of the beholder. We learn more about Han Solo's associations, Luke often reflects on his youth on Tatooine (commenting at one point that he will never get used to swimming), and Leia attempts to live balanced between steely control and tender-heartedness.

Another refreshing aspect of this collection of comic strips is that no character is a prop; everyone--including Chewbacca and the droids--gets some face time. R2-D2 winds up, as usual, being a hero in one of the dangerous missions.

The story ends on a cliffhanger that makes one wish Dark Horse could have simply issued a thicker graphic novel instead of three individual ones.

Next up in the series is THE REBEL STORM. This portion of the series, written prior to "Return of the Jedi", features the Mon Calamari. I'm looking forward to reading and then reporting.