Randy Stradley

I don't know if Dark Times was intended to end in its seventh volume, or if Dark Horse losing the Star Wars license brought it to a premature end, but this volume makes me think it was intentionally winding down. Fire Carrier picks up a thread abandoned since volume two, as we revisit the Jedi younglings hiding from the Purge with Master K'Kruhk. This seems like the kind of thing you make sure to tie off when you know you're running out of time, but maybe a side story is the kind of thing show more you do when you want Doug Wheatley to draw your main arcs but know he can only draw six issues every two years.

In any case, misleadingly Darth Vader-focused cover aside, this is one of the best Dark Times stories, and probably the one that most feels like the series was mean to be-- the last couple Jennir-focused volumes made it more Jedi-centric. But here, like in some of the early Uhumele-focused stories like Parallels and Vector, it's about decent people trying to hang on in a universe arrayed against the very concept of decency. And not just K'Kruhk and his Jedi charges, but also ordinary Imperial officers. There's a whole sideplot about Imperial officers, who were quite recently Republic officers, and how they're trying to make the new government live up to their expectations. The Empire was supposed to be something and it's not, but they want it to anyway.

I enjoyed it a lot. The kind of story that makes you think it could go anywhere (and it does go some dark places), and is all the better for it. There's even a nice tie-in to Legacy, connecting two of Dark Horse's better Star Wars ongoings together. show less

This six-issue miniseries sees Machiko’s crew recruited by some space marines to convince the Predators to help them confront a new threat: a group of Yautja called “Killers” instead of Predators because they prize not the thrill of the hunt, but the act of killing. To make matters worse, these Killers have tamed the Xenomorphs and use them as weapons.

The comic actually starts with a group of Killers unleashing the Xenomorphs on some horrified human cannon fodder with one of the Yautja show more literally holding one of the Xenomorphs on a leash. It’s incredibly badass and terrifying, and really does a great job of setting the tone.

This comic brings Machiko’s story full-circle with one of the Predators “erasing” her Xenomorph hunter brand and symbolically restoring her humanity. I wish she had fit in better with the Yautja, because obviously stories of humans transcending their species and finding somewhere they belong more is a story concept I very much enjoy, but I do like this ending for her. I’m glad she gets to be happy. show less

With this volume of Dark Times, I hit the point where I fell behind as the series was coming out, so everything from here onwards is new to me. Blue Harvest shifts the focus away from the crew of the Uhumele and Darth Vader (who both appear for just a couple pages), back to ex-Jedi Dass Jennir, who we last saw in volume one. It's okay stuff, but predictable, reminding me a little bit of a western, a little bit of noir.

Jennir is asked by a woman to help clear her town of gangs; of course it's show more a set-up (though not one I entirely understood), but also of course he manages it anyway. It doesn't have the painful darkness that made some of the earlier volumes of Dark Times work. You don't feel that Jennir is being pushed to the limit of his morality as he has been in the past. Still, I enjoyed it; it has nice touches, like Jennir inheriting the droid of a man he killed, so the droid is always grumbling at him about it, and the local fisherman named simply "Fish" who loyally aids Jennir. I'm over halfway through Dark Times now, so hopefully the series ends on a high note.

I initially didn't like the title, but a commenter on my blog helped me understand it's a double reference to Star Wars and to Dashiell Hammett, and it kind of is a Hammett novel transposed into the Star Wars universe, so I like it now. show less

A lot of the Alien and Predator comics aren't very good, but this is a great series. Perhaps understanding how hard it is to really get into the heads of two groups of aliens that don't talk, Randy Stradley wisely chooses to focus on the humans involved, making them real, fleshed out people. It's their story, particular your main character, Machiko, that pulls the reader in. The art is gorgeous, and the story exciting. It's disappointing that no one has been able to capture this magic in any show more of the movie pairings between these two franchises. show less