‘The Mandalorian’ Comic #6 Review — A Solid Adaption of Chapter Six, ‘The Prisoner’
As expected, the sixth issue of The Mandalorian comic series covers chapter six of the first season, titled The Prisoner. In case some of you don’t quite remember or didn’t read our concept art recap a few weeks ago, this is the episode where Mando teams up with some shady characters from his past to get some quick money, including Bill Burr’s character, Mayfeld.
The issue is pretty much a straight retelling of that episode. It doesn’t offer anything new bar maybe a couple of new lines, but they don’t offer any extra insight into Din Djarin or the other characters in this episode.
It does make me wonder who the audience is for Marvel’s The Mandalorian. Perhaps some fans enjoy reading comic adaptions of on-screen Star Wars stories — I certainly enjoyed the comic adaptions of the prequel trilogy when they were released at the time — but I can’t say that this is required reading really. If anything, this issue fails to capture some of the tense moments and action that made this episode so great, so if anyone reads this without watching the episode first, then I think they’ll miss out on some key beats. Not only that, the action at the end of the episode won’t make much sense.
One such scene is when Mayfeld, Xi’an, and Burg discover Grogu in the Razor Crest’s compartment. In the episode, the scene is incredibly tense as you become terrified that Mayfeld might do something to harm the Child, or that Din will lash out in an effort to protect him. That doesn’t really come across here. Instead, Mayfeld utters his dialogue from the episode and it doesn’t provide us with Mando’s tense reaction. A couple of panels later, they’ve arrived at the prison ship and it’s all over.
To the issue’s credit, it captures the Mexican standoff between Mando, Mayfeld, and Burg with the New Republic officer really well. The tension comes across immediately, and it plays out exactly as it did on-screen. Unfortunately, when it comes to Mando breaking out of the prison cell and stalking his treacherous crew across the ship, much is skipped. If I hadn’t already watched the episode, I wouldn’t have realized that Mando was the one who closed the doors and herded each character to an area of his choosing. If not for a bit of dialogue in the following panel, I wouldn’t have known that Mando had broken out of his cell either.
Of course, the main strength of this comic is that the source material is a good episode of The Mandalorian (that and the cover art is badass). The story itself holds up even if the comic cuts corners at the end and doesn’t offer anything new. But if you’ve already seen the episode, I wouldn’t recommend buying this issue. Just watch The Prisoner again on Disney Plus.
Rating: 5/10
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
