Henry Gilroy

Despite the assertions of the opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith that there were heroes on both sides of the Clone Wars, the Star Wars saga hasn't always been good about showing that, making a lot of the members of the Confederacy into hypocrites and cowards out for personal gain. And though Hero of the Confederacy has to depict a "good" character being manipulated into fighting for them, he does honestly believe in what he's doing, which makes a nice counterbalance to all the outright show more "evil" characters we usually get. Tofen Vane's rise and fall is nice and compelling, and his relationship with Anakin Skywalker really works here. Count Dooku even gets some nice moments where we see he experiences genuine human emotion from time to time. This was definitely my favorite of the last few Clone Wars quarterly digests, and probably my favorite of the series altogether. show less

Man, these quarterly digest comics tying into the new The Clone Wars TV show are just not rocking it for me the way the old Clone Wars Adventures ones did. I think four short stories work better than one long one does in this instance. Or maybe it's not so much the medium as the story being told with it-- Anakin going back to the podracing circuit now that he's a Jedi Knight has great dramatic potential, but instead we mostly get some "thrilling" romantic antics from Ahsoka. And podracing show more had pretty much been played out as a source of excitement within five minutes of its introduction in The Phantom Menace, so I'm not sure why we're going back to that well here. As always, the clean, kinetic, fun art of the Fillbach Brothers saves this thing, and they're the reason I keep coming back. I hope they get the opportunity to write one of these volumes; the stories that they wrote and illustrated were always my favorites of the CWA series. show less

I didn't find The Sith Hunters very interesting. This is about a recently resurrected Darth Maul and his brother (who, even by standards of Star Wars villain names, is a bit obvious: was "Savage Oppress" ever going to work in logistics?) going on the run from both Jedi and Sith while Obi-Wan leads a Jedi task force to hunt him down. It seemed to be a fairly close sequel to a Clone Wars episode I hadn't seen, which isn't really the book's fault, but negatively impacted my enjoyment show more nonetheless. As result, the story doesn't really begin... but it also doesn't really end, either, I'm assuming because things had to be left open for if Maul ever reappeared in the tv show.

A lot of these novellas will send a set of familiar Jedi characters on a mission (usually, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and someone from the movies) along with one original character. In theory, I appreciate the introduction of original characters... but the one in this story is plainly just Bruce Lee as a Jedi, and usually that's the issue with these original characters: there's so little to them it feels pointless. show less

This issue of the late, lamented Star Wars Tales contains five stories of Boba Fett, ranging from his childhood on Kamino to his time as Mandalore, and I'm here for the last one, set during the early days of the Yuuzhan Vong War (it fits seamlessly between Ruin and Hero's Trial). Han is scouting the Far Rim to see if the Yuuzhan Vong have invaded there when he's shot down on the junkyard world of Raxus Prime and has to fight Boba Fett to stay alive. Only he seems to be killing him again and show more again...

The art is decent; I like the foreboding backgrounds more than I do the cartoony foregrounds, and the colors done by the so-called "Phiz" are excellent. It was unclear to me that Han was actually killing Fett over and over (until the end, when it was stated outright), not just knocking him out and escaping.

Continuing the thread of the Mandalorians working for the Yuuzhan Vong begun in A Practical Man, "Revenants" is a nice a little tale, a good showcase for Han Solo, who is still awesome even as an old man on his own. It's narrated by a series of letters from "Scoundrel" to "Princess," and it's a strong turning point, well-depicted-- this is the moment where Han goes from moping to fighting back. Which isn't to say that his demons are gone, as we find out in Hero's Trial...

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