John Ostrander

The main miniseries is very good for its time. It doesn't shy away from Deadshot's horrific excuse for a moral code, does not end the way I expect it to when reading it, and has a pretty solid pace. It might seem a tiny bit by the numbers by current comic standards (though the main twist would still be rather surprising in a mainstream DCU book, I feel), but it's hard to hold that against it. It's a great character piece and sort-of-origin story, and probably something of a must-read if show more you're a fan of Deadshot.

The three other (older) stories included in the volume as bonus materials ironically lower the book's overall rating. These are in that odd Batman space where the stories are going for dark and gritty but character relationships are still dumb and corny (Alfred being around when Batman and Robin interact with outsiders, for instance) and fights on giant type writers are still a thing that happens. They were reasonably entertaining reads, for what they were, but should have been placed before the main miniseries in this collection -- they both take place prior, and that way the book would end on a high note. show less

The Star Wars comic crossover continues. The segment set during the Rebellion is typical of stories that are shoehorned into the existing continuity between the films: it accomplishes nothing with the large-scale plot and triggers no character development because it can’t. The segment during Legacy, on the other hand, is free to move events forward with the main plotline, and it does so quite well, with Cade Skywalker and his unlikely allies luring the Sith Emperor, Darth Krayt, into a show more confrontation, with Celeste Morne and her Sith artifact as bait.

Cade Skywalker remains an interesting reprobate: unable to decide which woman he wants to be with, and sufficiently disgusted with both Sith and Jedi that he can resist both temptations and moral exhortations. show less

Finally we're back to the main action of the story after all the backstory and political intrigues of the previous volume! Cade Skywalker is captured by Darth Krayt with the intention of turning him to the Dark Side, but Krayt's reasoning is a little more interesting than that of his Sith predecessors. Unlike Sidious and Palpatine, Krayt's motives are driven by his selfish concern with self-preservation - specifically in getting Cade to use his unique healing powers to purge the coral seeds show more that have infected his body. Krayt may be working as an agent of the Dark Side in the current story, but his backstory (which is extensively explored in this volume) gives him a role as more of an anti-hero. I quite like how his evolution into a Sith Lord isn't painted simply as "he went bad because of greed/anger/etc," but more as a survival mechanism in reaction to the catastrophic galactic events of the Clone War and his capture and torture by the Yuuzhan Vong. Krayt's past is played alongside the current events of Cade's imprisonment by the Sith, providing us with further potential comparison between two characters who don't easily fit into the neat boxes of Light and Dark sides of the Force. Cade is more successful in evading turning to the Dark Side, but he is such a conflicted character that the authors have made it clear that his story won't be wrapped up so easily. show less

The contents of this collection-- five issues published across seven years-- overlap chronologically with that of Dark Times, so I read it alongside it. It's okay, but not great, but I doubt it could be great: a series of one-shots about Darth Vader hunting down Jedi after Revenge of the Sith can pretty much only go one way again and again. In each story, some minor Jedi character challenges Vader. Usually, the character has appeared in two previous issues since 1999, or perhaps they've show more never appeared anywhere before at all. Guess what? They go down. Hard.

Obviously most of the stories are trying to give us emotional insight into Vader after his fall, but there's not a lot to give: Vader is angry, even more so than Palpatine wants. Well, sure. The best story in this regard is the third, "The Hidden Blade" by Haden Blackman and Chris Scalf, where Vader's anger actually causes some conflict, getting in the way of his mission. I also liked the final story, "The Tyrant's Fist" by Alexander Freed, Marco Castiello, and Andrea Chella, because a lot of it was told from the perspective of a young Imperial officer, using her to show how the galaxy is adapting to the lack of the Jedi, as they have to be eradicated not just physically, but from the hearts and minds of the people. So a couple decent stories, a couple okay ones. You could do worse, but most of the people involved in this have done better. show less