A.K.A. Marvel/Lucasfilm take the piss.
What we have here is Marvel and Lucasfilm exploiting their readership. Whilst the body of work that Marvel has put out since regaining the Star Wars licence from Dark Horse in 2015 has continued to remain high and they have avoided saturating the marketplace, by limiting themselves to at most 4 titles being released in any given month, there is however something amiss with this release.

In keeping the quality high they have ensured that an always devoted fanbase will buy everything, putting out 95 variant issues of Star Wars issue 1 and although that is a novelty factor that will attract only the most hardened collector with the deepest pockets, Marvel have seen fit to release this ‘gem’.

With Unplugged, the loyal fanbase get three droid-centric stories packaged together that have been previously found as back-up/bonus content in the back pages of other titles. There is nothing wrong with the stories, they are cutesy and perfect for a younger audience. In fact I hope that with titles like this or something like My Little Pony they are able to draw in a new generation of readers whether in print or digital. My issue is that this is a cynical repackaging of previously released material with no mention of this anywhere within the issue showing a deep lack of respect for the readers.

Chris Eliopoulos’ artwork is lovely, whimsical and whilst simplistic is a perfect fit for the stories, would I read an entire issue or run in this style probably not but would I give this to a younger reader certainly. However repackaging and charging about £4.00 ($4.99) for stories I’ve already got in other issues* just leaves a bad taste in the mouth as the novelty quality wears off.

* Poe Dameron #1 (BB-8 story), Star Wars #25 (R2-D2 story), Star Wars: Darth Maul #1 (Probe Droid story).