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.
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