To hear me read this review and its two next parts, check out episode 525 of the Spiritblade Underground Podcast, go to timestamp 25:38.
Well, by now I’ve dived deep into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, after a first few tentative steps with Darth Plagueis and the Darth Bane trilogy. In fact, I’ve gone full Obsessive Mode, which means I have now taken it upon myself to read all novels (a/o audiobooks) and all comics in chronological order, story-wise, as much as I can manage. Which does not mean I’ll review every single thing I read I don’t think, there is simply too much content to accompish that, but I’ll at least let you know about the things I liked, the hidden gems and also the things I found awful or simply incredibly dull. I’m planning to avoid reviewing the stuff I found simply okay, say the 3 out of 5 stars works.
For this undertaking I am using the Wookieepedia Legends timeline (the Expanded Universe has been declared non-canon by Disney and is now called Legends) that includes all novels and all comics at the same time. And for all of you who are into all that, they have also included movies, video games, tv series and even RPG scenarios – all in one big chronological timeline 🎉.
Although their entire timeline starts with a novel, I’ll review that one next time, since – spoiler alert – I didn’t like it very much and I really want to kick off this new blog series with a hit straight out of the ball park. My excuse is that both the novel and the comics are situated in the year 25,793 BBY – which means the actual order between the two doesn’t really matter.
On to Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm, the first of a TPB trilogy set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
Publisher’s Summary
(W ) John Ostrander (A) Jan Duursema, Dan Parsons (CA) Wes Dziboa, Gonzalo Flores.
Here begins the tale of the dawn of the Jedi, the Star Wars of 25,000 years ago-before lightsabers, before hyperspace travel, before the Jedi spread throughout the galaxy, when connections to the Force were new.
On the planet Tython, a group of beings – scientists, philosophers, and warriors – strive to maintain peace and to balance the mystifying power known as the Force. But a stranger is coming, one who will disrupt the balance with his arrival and his own connection to the Force. Everything in their system is about to change . . . The doors to the galaxy have been opened! Collects Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi-Force Storm #1-#5.
My thoughts
To start with the ending: I LOVED this entire trilogy of trade paper backs (TPB)! Or, 15 comics issues if you manage to still find these. These stories have a lot of so-called Star Wars tropes, and I mean that in a positive way, while being completely new and original at the same time, since the story takes place so long before the Skywalker era that the Jedi and Sith didn’t even exist. Let me start with the five tropes I recognized in Force Storm, the first part of our trilogy: First, there’s a truly badass villain in the Darth Vader tradition, long before there even were any darths. He even shares some similarities with Anakin Skywalker: he grew up to be a slave, his personality oozes the possibility of redemption, and there are even hints of a great love in his future (see pic below).
And as for the darth part, he dresses all-black complete with a face-covering mask, he’s a powerful master of the dark side of the force and kills without hesitation.
As for the heroes, in this first TPB there are several protagonists, none of which stand out – yet. The focus seems to be on three adolescent apprentices though, continuing the SW tradition of picking fairly young heroes on a quest that will also make them grow in strength and wisdom. Nice little detail is that one of these three is an actual Sith, that is to say the Sith as a species, one of the myriad of alien races in the Star Wars universe. They are red-skinned and originated on the world of Korriban.
There’s also an easter egg for SW fans: the symbol on the ancient pyramid spacecraft Tho Yor is the same as the symbol for the Rebellion – an unimportant detail but very nice if you happen to notice it – see pictures above and below.
Fourthly, in what I would call an eye-wink to fans, one of the Je’daii masters resembles Mace Windu, both in looks as in strength and wisdom ;-)
And the last but not the least of the tropes I found, was the cover of the first TPB, which is designed to look like a SW movie poster – and I love it! Too bad they didn’t do it for all three covers.
As for the Story, Force Storm takes its time to introduce us to these ancient times of the SW lore, but manages to keep it well-paced. We learn why force wielders are from different races all over the galaxy, how they all came to live on a world called Tython in the core of the galaxy and that they came to be known as je’daii – which is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. In those days, the Force was known to be both dark & light, in an eternal balance. The je’daii trained many years to keep this balance within themselves – which is of course a huge difference with the SW of the Skywalker era: in the ancient days there were no Light Side wielders and Dark Side wielders – every je’daii wielded both, and trained not to lose the balance. Interesting! In later EU stories like Revan we also see this phenomenon of force users wielding both sides of the force.
After the introductory pages, not so subtly disguised as a history lesson to our young journeyers (which we might call Padawan), the actual story starts. We meet our three young heroes, their masters and their force-sensitive planet Tython. We follow them on their adventure which leads them to meet Xesh, our villain – or in fact the representative of an entire realm of bad guys called the Infinite Empire. (Oh yeah, another SW trope! :-) ). Xesh is stronger in the Force and wields a forcesaber, which is a weapon the Tythons are unacquainted with. There are some fight scenes, both between the force wielders and with some of the planet’s monsters (“Hello, this is the Dune Saga calling, can we have our sand worms back?!”), and in the end we are left with Xesh leaving for Bogan, one of Tython’s two moons, the one representing the Dark Side of the Force. Which is where part 2 of the trilogy will pick up.
I loved the pacing of this story, the action scenes and the character moments. The villains are great. There’s Xesh of course, but we also meet his so-called ‘brood mate’ Trill, who like him is also a powerful Force Hound. And then there are their masters, the powerful and very evil Rakatan.
I did have some trouble sympathizing with our young heroes, I liked Xesh a lot better. Perhaps because he was better fleshed out, but I also think writers somehow find it easier to make bad guys interesting. The good guys often seem dull or two-dimensional or even hard to relate to.
Their masters on the other hand seemed to have more promise on the badassery scale, but they weren’t the main characters.
I did have some issue with the very on-the-nose references to buddhism, yin & yang, and the whole ‘good and evil are two sides of the same coin’ way of thinking. I know these elements are always somewhat present in SW, they are part of the concept, but in this TPB it was annoyingly so. Perhaps because in the Skywalker era, there was also some serious criticism of this philosophy weaved into the storylines, which created a good balance (see what I did there), whereas in this story it felt almost like an agenda.
All that being said, I still loved this first story arc very much, and would easily give it 4 out of 5 stars overall.
Next time, I’ll review part 2: Dawn of the Jedi: Prisoner of Bogan. Stay tuned!
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