clone wars vol 2: victories and sacrifices

 The New Face of War (republic issues 51-52)

The Dark Horse Clone Wars run splits into two strands: the Ostrander / Duuresma strand, which focuses on Quin, Aayla Secura and the wider supporting cast established in the 1999 - 2002 comics; and the Haden Blackman strand, which focuses on Anakin, Obi-Wan, ARC Troopers and Asajj Ventress. The Blackman strand is fun but - largely - frothy, throwaway stuff, and this arc is no exception.

Blast Radius (republic issue 53)

More passable fare featuring Obi-Wan, Ventress and Durge. Has a brilliant bit where Durge uses a group of Skakoan techs as a makeshift high-pressure explosive. Funny that Durge essentially gets Poochie-d after this.

Jedi: Shaak Ti

It's almost cruel collecting this Ostrander / Duursema gem alongside Republic 51 - 53, so marked is the difference in quality. There's so much meaty stuff crammed in here, told with incredible efficiency and tight plotting. I wasn't expecting to see Saguro Autem return so quickly, nor such a muscular focus on Quin. Shogar Tok is one of the great entries in the outstanding Ostrander / Duursema rogues gallery. 

Probably the only criticism I have of this is that it's not particularly interested in Shaak Ti herself. I didn't find her particualarly interesting going in, and I didn't find anything in here to change that.  

clone wars vol 1: the defense of kamino

Sacrifice (republic issue 49)

I always thought it was cool that the Clone Wars EU begins not with an epic battle or high-stakes Republic vs Separatist clash, but a small-stakes, character-driven piece set in an underworld space station. Sets the tone for some of the best Star Wars you'll ever see.  

The Battle of Kamino (republic issue 50)

And here's your epic battle. Sets the tone for the rest of the Republic run: John Ostrander and Jan Duursema in unreal form, and some fairly pedestrian stuff from everyone else. Smart to get the obvious "why don't the Separatists attack Kamino" out of the way early.

Jedi: Mace Windu

It's Ostrander and Duursema again. They make this stuff look so easy. Tightly plotted; character driven; rooted in wider storytelling (this works as a great companion peice to Shatterpoint; and all the time squirreling away nuggets for the future (in this case, Sora Bulq).  

114 - the old republic: annihilation

 

 

 

Why didn't I read it first time around? I'll level with you, I had no idea this existed.

Ancillary reading. I read The Old Republic: The Lost Suns, a graphic novel featuring Theron Shan, Teff'ith and Ngani Zho, all of whom cast a heavy shadow on this book. Much like Annihilation, it's mildly entertaining if ultimately pointless.    

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Why does this exist? It's a by-the-numbers romp with few surprises and even fewer interesting things to say. It's hard to see anyone beyond puberty finding the protagonist, Theron Shan, in any way interesting. He's a top ranking intelligent agent, who doesn't play by the rules and who is constantly hounded by that mean intelligence director and his lame parents. But the cool Jedi Master loves him, and in the end, he wins the day - no character growth or self-reflection required! "Lighten up Bitterman! That youngster will make a perfect addition to my cabinet." 

I mean, this is mildly enjoyable (and with weird fantasy-adjacent technology, a surfeit of quickly killed Sith lords with silly names, and an absence of any sense of stakes, it's very true to TOR) but it really just reads like someone wrote up a fairly pedestrian RPG campaign. Why?

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One of the worst trends of late-era EU is an obsession with the "seven lightsaber forms", a sort of rock-paper-scissors classification of lightsaber moves developed for a magazine article. There's a whole lightsaber battle in this book which is just a list of which form is being used, which reads like what it is: a list of made-up words. Whatever good Star Wars is, this ain't it. (I checked Wookieepedia and of course the new continuity raced to re-incorporate this shit).

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So, farewell to the Old Republic Quartet, as it's sometimes called. What a strange set of books. We learn about the existence of an impossibly ancient and powerful Sith Emperor, poised to invade the Republic. We then discover that the Empire have sacked Coruscant, and meet Malgus, who is disenchanted and plotting a coup. We then check in with some randos up to their own things on the other side of the galaxy. We then learn, offhand, that both the Emperor and Malgus are dead.  What is one to take from all of this?

 

the old republic: revan

 

 

Who is Revan for? Well, for starters, you need to have played KotOR and KotOR II - the book assumes a familiarity with the events and characters of the games, and makes no attempt to explain them for a layperson. But you also need to intend to play The Old Republic, as the plot essentially serves to set up the villain and scenario of the game. This is niche stuff.

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I like the idea of the Sith Emperor, a being so evil and powerful that he was able to corrupt Revan and Malak simply by brushing their minds. It's cool when he pulls the same trick on the Jedi strike team sent to capture and turn him in The Old Republic. How can such a being be defeated? Erm, in a fairly standard lightsaber fight while an astromech droid shoots at him. The handling of the Sith Emperor in TOR is very strange.  

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KotOR II ends with the revelation that the 'true Sith' lie in the Unknown Regions, waiting for a great war to come. The series ends with Revan and the Exile heading to confront them. For a long time this seemed like an anguishing cliffhanger, although it's evidently not a cliffhanger - we know that Revan and Exile must have been successful in whatever they were headed to do, or at least that the Sith were otherwise defeated, because the Republic is still around 4,000 years later (and we know that the Banite Sith are a splinter group of the Jedi). The Old Republic finally gives us an answer, and it turns out the truth of what happened was somewhere between moderately interesting and depressingly banal. Personally, I preferred the ambiguous version.

the clone wars: a statement

I don't like chronological rereads, I like thematic ones. But it's clear that my comic reading is taking me into the Clone Wars, and I'll probably use the opportunity to pick up some of the "missing 42" set in this time period, too. So a bit of housekeeping is in order.

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Between May 2002 and May 2005, there was a unified attempt to chronicle the events of the Clone Wars through adult novels, comics, short stories, YA books, video games and a cartoon series. These days this is referred to as the "Clone Wars Multimedia Project", although nobody called it that back in the day.

Remarkably, this project managed to tell a remarkably consistent and coherent story, largely due to each of the mediums staying well out of each other's way. We got a handful of good books (and a couple of stinkers) and some of the best Star Wars storytelling of all time in the comics. Tim Zahn wrote a short story about the Spaarti cloning cylinders. It was good times.

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In August 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released in cinemas. It was followed by six? seven? series of cartoons, ostensibly in the EU canon. It was clear from the start that The Clone Wars was not going to play nicely with the established canon, and by the end of the second series it was gleefully tearing up all sorts of established facts (most notoriously the Mandalorian continuity established by Karen Traviss). The days The Clone Wars is very highly regarded, mostly by people who were eight when it released. I watched the first series and, let's be honest with ourselves, it's not very good.  

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It's become fashionable to head-canon The Clone Wars out of the EU continuity, and while tempting, this is a) the coward's way out; b) some elements from TCW become important in the EU: the Mortis arc is important in Fate of the Jedi and there's a (suprisingly deece) book where Ahsoka meets Callista and Gilad Pellaeon. 

However, in the dying days of the EU there was no real attempt made to reconcile things, beyond the ridiculous idea that the entirety of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project took place within the first six months of the war.

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These days, my view on continuity is best captured by Chris Cerasi's famous "foggy windows" analogy:

"The analogy is that every piece of published Star Wars fiction is a window into the 'real' Star Wars universe. Some windows are a bit foggier than others. Some are decidedly abstract. But each contains a nugget of truth to them." 

This is clearly the right way to deal with a whole number of contradictions and sticky continuity corners, and prevents us from having to accept stupid retcons like "Anakin killed a clone of Count Dooku ten months after Geonosis" (thanks, erm, The New Droid Army for Gameboy Advance). 

I like to think that it's up to us, as individual readers, to decide which windows are clearer and which are foggier. I probably have what might be described as a "hipster" take on this. You can see where I'm going with this vis-a-vis TCW.

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Here's what I hold to be true: at some point towards the middle of the war, probably shortly after Jabiim, Anakin was assigned a junior padawan, Ahsoka, in the sort of way that a promising junior member of staff might manage a graduate trainee during one of their placements. Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan discharged a number of missions together. By the time the Outer Rim Sieges began, Ahsoka was long off the scene. Ryloth is a a tidal locked planet. Mandalore is as described in Karen Traviss' books. Bariss Offee serves at Drongar and later dies at Felucia, without bombing the Jedi temple. Darth Maul most certainly remains dead. Everything else takes place behind a thick, grimy, pub window.

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Here's what I'll engage with during my thematic saunter through the Clone Wars: the Mortis arc, because it's meant to be interesting and important to other EU works. The notorious Mandalorian arc, because I'm intrigued and because I hear some of the Obi-Wan character stuff gets referenced elsewhere. The Zillo Beast episodes because they sound fun and silly. POSSIBLY the Dathomir arc, out of a masochistic instinct to see how it's handled. POSSIBLY the Umbara arc, because it's meant to be great.

honour & duty / attack of the clones

Honour & Duty (Republic issues 46-48)

  

This is brilliant stuff and the best lead-in to Episode II I've read. Obi-Wan and Anakin are captured perfectly; the set-up and execution fizzes; the ending is exhilarating; and Sagoro Autem is a really unexpected trope to find in Star Wars. Possibly the only attempt in the EU canon to recreate the technicolour noir vibes Attack of the Clones.  Shame about the art.

 

Attack of the Clones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every time I watch Attack of the Clones I think less of it as a film, but I become fonder of it as a piece of texture and worldbuilding. I don't find the galaxy as presented in The Phantom Menace particularly compelling, but Episode II presents a really exciting and vibrant take on the Republic era. Seeing as my main interest in the movies is as a platform for wider storytelling (I don't think any of the films would make it into my top 10 SW works; sorry to be a hipster), I remain a big fan of this one. 

jango fett: open seasons / bounty hunter

Jango Fett: Open Seasons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open Seasons has a killer premise: four stories from Jango Fett's life, keyed to spring, summer, autumn and winter. Important for a few things: establishing Jango's significant role in leading the Mandalorians (which feels slightly at odds with the character as portrayed elsewhere), and some extremely noble attempts to reconcile old bits of Boba Fett backstory that were nuked with the release of Attack of the Clones. Weaves together with the Bounty Hunter game in an extremely satisfying way. Cross-media, shared continuity storytelling really is where it's at, folks.

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(Hey, ain't it great that Dooku's lair in this is EXACTLY the same as the one depicted in Rite of Passage? Star eye emoji).

 

Bounty Hunter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shortly after the birth of my daughter I was hit with strong urge for some PS2-era level design - ergo, I played through Bounty Hunter for the second time in my life. 

The level design is remarkably basic - one can't help but wonder what this would've been like if Metroid Prime had come first. But there's still a huge amount to like. The action is properly hairy, and the difficulty curve is perfect (there's a wicked spike three planets in - you're breaking in and out of a maximum security prison, and it genuinely feels like you're... breaking in and out of a maximum security prison). The plot is interesting and important stuff happens (including the resolution of a big hanging plot thread from Outlander, of all things). The art direction is fabulous, especially its insistence on having levels set at unusual times of day (including a rare Tatooine at teatime). And as far as a slate of planets for a Star Wars game goes, you can't do much better than: We have Nar Shaddaa at home; Coruscant; Oovo IV; Malastare; Tatooine; and Dark Souls 3. This is great Star Wars. (If you haven't clocked yet, this blog is really about what makes great Star Wars, according to me).  

republic issues 36-45

 The Stark Hyperspace War (issues 36-39)

We have Jedi Council: Ats of War at home. A rare miss from John Ostrander; sets up a range of interesting concepts and then spends most of its time trying to avoid them. 

 

The Devaronian Version (issues 40-41)

 

This is a triumph. A parody that stands, on its own terms, as a legitimate in-universe story. Has all the swagger and confidence of a series (and a writer) on top form. 

 

Rite of Passage (issues 42-45)

 

Count Dooku and Amy Allen!Aayla - we're getting close to Episode II! There is a lot one could say about Rite of Passage. I'll limit myself to two things: the villains here (Kh'aris Fenn and the Morgukai) are really cool. And, after essentially being used as a plot device in Twilight and Darkness, it's cool to have a story that treats Aayla as an interesting character in her own right. Which is good, because her appearance in Episode II means she's going to content with being typecast as the "sexy Twi'lek" for the rest of forever. It's Mara and the catsuit writ large.

jedi council: acts of war / darth maul

Jedi Council: Acts of War

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How do you do an interesting story about the Jedi Council when, as established in the pages of the Republic comics, they're a charisma-free zone? Simple - introduce some actually interesting members. Micah Giiett's card is clearly marked, by dint of him not being on the Council in The Phantom Menace, but he's great fun while it lasts. As are the other new Jedi introduced in this - Lilit Twoseas, Tsui Choi (who will go on to appear in Revenge of the Sith), K'Krukh (who will go on to be extremely important) - who stand in stark contrast to the boring Jedi Masters from the movies.

Despite the largely dull main cast, I love Acts of War. I read about a third of this in the Star Wars weekly comics when I was a kid, and while it wasn't really clear to me what was going on (or who Vilmarh Grakh was), the aesthetics and vibe has cast a long shadow on my conception of Star Wars. (The "I can't get closer without fouling us on the balloon tethers" sequence is probably my perfect Star Wars). I've read it in full many times since and it is always a treat to revisit.

 

Darth Maul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Correctly understands that there's nothing interesting to be done with Darth Maul as a character, and instead provides a 96-page showcase for some fantastic Jan Duursema art. Tremendous stuff.