clone wars vol 6: on the fields of battle

 Right, sojourn into The Clone Wars (2008) over, we're back on the CWMMP track. Note that - and I'm sorry, as I quite like her as a character - we must assume Ahsoka has bitten the dust at some point prior to Dreadnaughts of Rendili. C'mon, it totally tracks with Anakin's character arc.

Show of Force (republic issues 65-66)

  

A spiritual sequel to Darth Maul in many ways, not least the fantastic Jan art. Great to see my boy Kh'aris Fenn back, and while the second issue is just pure popcorn, the way Mace and his Jedi crew dismantle the bounty hunter base in the first issue is properly great. What I love about this arc is that you know they've got the Episode III script at this point.

Forever Young(republic issue 67)  

 

Pretty obviously filler, to give John and particularly Jan a breather before their epic run over the next ten issues. The main thing of note here is that Dark Horse bet big on Anakin's "I will even learn to stop people from dying" line in Episode II, and boy did that bet pay off.

Armor (republic issue 68)

 

Yeah, let's just slip in the devastation of Honoghr in an issue that's already stacked with high character drama and intent on pushing forward character arcs. Jan and John were cooking; what could have easily been a filler issue has no right to be this good.

Dreadnaughts of Rendili (republic issues 69-71)

 

One of the pillars of the prequel EU for me; arranging about six different story arcs for their denouement over the next six issues, while doing brilliant character work (there is no sense of pieces being moved into place; rather the pieces are moving themselves), and giving us a rip-roarer of a story at the same time. How cool is it to see a fleet of dreadnaughts? There's a shot from the command bridge of a dreadnaught where you really get a feel for how large and intimidating these ships are.

Also, you just know a John/Jan arc is going to cook when it wraps up with 10 pages to go (cf. Show of Force); the twist here is that it's Anakin, not Quin, who gets the shocker ending to set up Obsession. Quin plays it dead straight - until the double-twist at the end. Come on, this is some of the best Star Wars that ever was.  

 

 

 

the clone wars (the dave filoni one)

 

I watched some carefully selected arcs of The Clone Wars! (Prior to this I've seen the film and the first series, but never ventured beyond). In general, I found them very meh, with one notable exception.

 

The Mandalore Plot / Voyage of Temptation / Duchess of Mandalore 

Oh boy, no wonder Karen Traviss quit Star Wars over this! In about 30 seconds it absolutely shreds years of her careful world-building and lore-crafting. (It is hard to feel too bad given what Traviss did to Jaina in LotF). I was excited to find out what the darksaber is about but it's just... there. Fun to see a Sidious / Dooku plot where Dooku does everything right, and it's Sidious who can't seal the deal.

 

The Zillo Beast / The Zillo Beast Strikes Back

This is great stuff. And what a stinger at the end. Pure Star Wars, no notes. 

Overlords / Altar of Mortis / Ghosts of Mortis 

This was the arc I was most excited to watch, but boy, what a disappointment. I like my Star Wars weird, but this takes a potentially all-timer weird concept and just... plays it entirely straight? Also makes the insane creative choice of having Anakin straight up learn what he will become and what he will do, which is clearly a misstep, and his reaction is... to immediately turn to the dark side and start attacking Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. It's resolved when his memory is wiped. No. No. No. Kinda fun to think about the Ones hanging out with Abeloth, tho, which is one of the more entertaining attempts to incorporate TCW into the EU canon.

 

Nightsisters / Monster / Witches of the Mist

No, you can't make me watch this. Whatever happens in this, I will never know. Viva Dave Wolverton! Viva Haden Blackman!

 

Darkness on Umbara / The General / Plan of Dissent / Carnage of Krell 

Even Karen Traviss would feel that Pong Krell is a bit too lacking in nuance. Some great visuals; I'm told this is one of the few times that TCW really captures a sweeping battle story (versus Obi-Wan / Anakin / Ahsoka antics).

116 - clone wars gambit: siege

 

 

Why didn't I read it first time around? Well, I didn't read Stealth, so it'd be odd to read part two, wouldn't it?

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Bizarrely, Siege delivers on the promise of Stealth: Obi-Wan and Anakin spend most of the book embedded in a Lanteeban village, . Except... the Lanteeban culture is deeply uninteresting; a sort of rootsy space hick; the book does nothing with the one interesting element (their xenophobia); and boy oh boy do the Lanteebans speak in the most irritating way. 

The titular siege is like, two hundred battle droids attacking the village; the book keeps teasing us with a big battle which never occurs. The two interesting threads from the first book - Bant'ena Fhernan and not Siri Tachi aka Taria Damsin - fizzle out; Bant'ena is barely in this book and the book spends the entire time dangling a tragic death for Taria but she just... survives. 

 Bail Organa and Padme spend most of the book trying to raise an independent fleet that is entirely peripheral. There's a bizarre subplot with a scientist looking for a cure to the bioweapon. Ahsoka and Taria spend the first act of the book... hosting a youngling training competition at the Jedi Temple. The pacing - and editing - here seems to have gone very wrong. Sorry, but Clone Wars Gambit gets a thumbs down from me.

 

115 - clone wars gambit: stealth

 

 

 

 

Why didn't I read it first time around? I'm not sure. I really enjoyed the first three 'The Clone Wars' tie-in novels, including Miller's Wild Space, so you'd think I'd check this out. I tapped out of the second series of TCW pretty early, so I guess I was just burnt out on TCW at this point.

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Wow, does Karen Miller love to write dialogue. Lots, and lots, of dialogue; with people circling and rehashing the same points; in a way that's sort of naturalistic but feels jarring because we're used to books... films... all cultural media editing this type of conversation much more sharply. I remember this from Wild Space but boy, there is so much talking in this book. In fact, the first 200 pages are just... people sitting around talking, about all sorts of things; some relevant to the rest of the book, some less so. It takes literally half the book for the plot to actually begin.

The plot involves Obi-Wan and Anakin going undercover on the planet Lanteeb, where the Separatists are researching a new bioweapon. We get quite a lot of exposition on Lanteeb, it's history, and it's culture, and there's a moment where it seems like we're going to get a novel in the great sci-fi (and EU) tradition of "the main characters land on an interesting world with a unique culture, which we spend the book exploring". But no - they arrive on Lanteeb, head straight to the Separatist labs, and make a few trips between there and the city.

If you're wondering how this might fill 200 pages, well, you guessed it - it's more talking; lots of conversations between Anakin, Obi-Wan and Bant'ena Fhernan, the scientist who has been coerced into developing the bioweapon. Bant'ena reminds Anakin of his mother and is in an incredibly morally compromised position, which provides fertile hay for lots of talking. As roundabout as this can be - where is the editor?! - it's where the book is strongest, and there are some really fizzing debates, particularly between Obi-Wan and Anakin. 

The book doesn't so much end on a cliffhanger as just... end, halfway through the story. There's a bit of a twist with Bant'ena betraying the Jedi (under severe distress), but even this feels like there is more to come. I found this enjoyable enough - and the Obi-Wan / Anakin relationship is compellingly drawn - but the jury's out until we see what Siege brings.

 

the clone wars (the karen traviss book of the film one)

  

Stuck at my parent's place during the June heatwaves, and with Clone Wars Gambit next on the list, I decided to reread Karen Traviss' adaptation of The Clone Wars (2008). When it was released, I felt it was a muscular, urgent telling of a piece of Star Wars media that was neither of those things. I've long felt that this, and No Prisoners, are two unrecognised gems of the EU.

Second time around? Well it is muscular - at 250 pages, this rockets through, and I really like how Traviss uses her signature epigraphs to propel through the parts of the story she's uninterested in exploring (the whole third act Padmé subplot gets condensed into two epigraphs, in a way that works). Traviss also does some good work trying to root TCW into the wider EU (ironic knowing what is to come) and, rather than trying to rescue the paper-thin plot and absurd premise of TCW, instead imbues a handful of the main players with some much-welcomed interiority. 

Except cos it's Karen Traviss, we get some off-beam characterisation of existing characters, and some wild takes. Why is Anakin swearing all the time? Why does his internal monologue consistently refer to Obi-Wan as 'Kenobi', and what on earth is the editor doing here? Does Ventress genuinely believe her parents were 'innocent bystanders'? Does Dooku genuinely believe that Jango Fett was motivated by a sense that the Jedi Order was corrupt, and this was his primary motivation in providing his DNA for the clone army?! You can sense the desperation to commit a major act of character assassination on Obi-Wan here - perhaps the editor was up to something after all. 

clone wars vol 5: the best blades

This is a weird collection and, when I first read it, a real let down after the blistering volumes 3 and 4. For the first quarter of 2004, Republic jumps around a series of slightly thin one-shots. There isn't really a throughline, beyond repeated appearances of Anakin as Ki-Adi-Mundi's Padawan, and beyond Republic 63 (collected in vol 4), nothing serves to progress the overarching plot. My theory is that the Episode III script was about to drop in the writer's inbox (look at the end of Republic 62, and volume 6, where the writers definitely have definitely seen the Episode III script) and they're being cagey.

In my headcanon timeline, Anakin is knighted and The Clone Wars animated series (seen through a foggy window) begins shortly after this collection. I was pleased to read the end of Republic 62, in which Alpha returns to Kamino to train the next generation of clone officers, and Anakin makes the suggestion that they're given names - which neatly explains why Alpha's not around for the next year of the war, and Rex is. Anakin is also much more mature at this point in the comics and much closer to his depiction in The Clone Wars. Bail Organa's arc in Republic 61 also sets up why he's less outwardly hostile to Palpatine in the Karen Miller Clone Wars books.

The only Clone Wars collection without any Jan Duursema, but fear not, she draws all but four issues between now and the end of the run.  

Dead Ends (republic issue 61)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any piece of Star Wars media where a film character is killed off is a red letter day, no? Here it's Finis Valorum who is offed in some. This is interesting, but thin. 

Bloodlines (republic issue 64)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Palpatine maneuvering and manipulation, forming a cute thematic pair with Dead Ends. Does. Good stuff as ever from John Ostrander, but you can't get the sense he's taking a breather before he hits the insane run that is Republic 65 - 77. 

Hate & Fear (republic issue 60)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asajj Ventress' backstory (rote; uninteresting). Love love love the concept of muscle maggots.

  

No Man's Land (republic issue 62)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Y'see the issue is, having gone all in on the "Obi-Wan is presumed dead for quite a long time", the run does kinda have to follow through on his reunion with Anakin... but it's clearly over the plotline at this point, and keen to just wrap things up and move on. So we get this, the most pedestrian and handle-turny way of telling this story. Treading water in comic form; this would've been better as a single page at the end of Hate & Fear ("Obi-Wan and Alpha fly their stolen ship back to Coruscant!"). 

 

Jedi: Yoda 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really didn't like this when I was 16; on a reread, I can appreciate better what its trying to do, but it all feels rather thin and divorced from a wider sense of stakes. I enjoyed how willing to be downbeat it was - it engages with the wider theme of the Jedi colon sub-series, which is what it means to be a Jedi in a time of war, and finds that even Yoda is unable to provide with a coherent or compelling answer to this existential question. I was going to say something mean about the artist's inability to draw Yoda, but I'm really impressed by how visually fleshed out the Sephi are - usually we just get vehicles and tech cribbed from Essential Guides, but here we get unusual and evocative designs for all elements of the Sephi. Chapeau.    

 

clone wars vol 4: light and dark

Double Blind (republic issue 54)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The payoff to Quin's shady activities under his Korto Vos alias. This is a bridge story, moving things between Quin's early Clone Wars appearances and Jedi: Count Dooku (see below!), but it doesn't scrimp on being interesting in itself: we get an issue full of jaw-droppers, including a brilliant misdirection twist at the end. Jan Duursema's art has somehow hit another level, and John Ostrander is at the top of the game.  

Jedi: Aayla Secura

 

To wit: midway through his phenomenal Clone Wars run, Ostrander decides to wrap up Tim Truman's early work on Republic. We last saw Aurra Sing, the Dark Woman (and Tim Truman) back in "The Hunt for Aurra Sing"; I'd assumed they'd all been sent to Mandyville but no, we get a hugely satisfying conclusion which also manages to progress what Ostrander is doing with Quin, Aayla and Tholme. The bit where Tholme asks "What's up with this whole Dark Woman thing?" is a hoot.

Jedi: Count Dooku

 

Makes a nominal attempt to justify the title Jedi: Dooku, but this should really be Jedi: Quinlan Vos. But that's a quibble; I've read this countless times and each time Quin's choices feel both agonizingly in the balance and inevitable. There's little more to say here other than this is truly a creative team firing on all cylinders; sit back and enjoy. Dooku's inner circle is straight from the Ostrander / Duursema rogues gallery hall of fame; file with Kh'aris Fenn and Shogar Tok.

Striking from the Shadows (republic issue 63)

  

Great cover that manages not to be a rug pull, and a plot that isn't afraid to follow through on nastier moments. Subverts the end of Jedi: Dooku and leaves us guessing where Quin's loyalties - up in the air in this one - will land. It's fun seeing Dooku's inner circle vying for primacy, with their stock constantly going up and down.