Lit "In the Shadows of Our Fathers." - The Star Wars: Legacy Re-Read Project

I may actually be returning to this in a month, FYI.

A break is coming up in my schedule.

 

I'm sorry I never got to complete this due to my becoming a professional writer full-time and blog commitments but I thought people would appreciate I did a review of the three Omnibuses of the series.

Star Wars Legacy vol. 1
Star Wars Legacy vol. 2
Star Wars Legacy vol. 3

Hope you enjoy, folks!

 

You know, it's really weird that this of all things got bumped now, because I've been considering doing my own reread of Legacy over the last week or so.

 

Charlemagne19 Excellent review of the Legacy series. It's too bad you never got around to finishing this thread. I really enjoyed the insightful issue by issue commentary. I found myself agreeing with your assessment of Legacy's characters in your review. Gar Stazi and Azlyn Rae were my two favorite characters in Legacy precisely because they were always unambiguously heroic. I never really liked Cade too much or the One Sith but when ever a Gar Stazi issue was released I would run to my local comic store to buy it right away.

 

Yeah, in the end it was just bad timing and I would have loved to have continued this but it was just too big of a time commitment. Even so, I was constantly tempted to go back and try to handle every little individual issue anyway.

In general, I think Legacy was a successful experiment and had a lot going for it. However, the problem was Cade Skywalker was the wrong sort of superhero to be involved in it. There's nothing wrong with a morally ambiguous anti-hero. I have a great affection for the archetype but as Casablanca says, "the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this world." I can't take Cade Skywalker's personal angst and degeneration into an existential funk seriously when the Sith are portrayed as genocidal space Nazis.

"My father is dead!"- Cade.
"My planet is dead, jerkface!" - Mon Calamari.

It doesn't help that I felt like the entire galaxy was waiting on Cade to resolve things with the exception of Gar Stazi. Darth Krayt can't beat Cade Skywalker, we learn in the second arc of the book so, really, there's no stakes in the comic book other than convincing Cade he needs to just go kill Sauron.

I find something deeply wrong with the fact that Cade's logic, "Okay, let me go kill Darth Krayt so this entire Sith Empire problem goes away" turns out to be remarkably sound. I guess part of my problem is my natural populist tendencies that look askance at any "Chosen One" issues.

I can't help but think I'd have liked Cade Skywalker better if the galaxy was at peace and he didn't have the galaxy riding on him.

 

The idea of Cade as a Hero in a galaxy that doesn't particularly want or need saving anymore is very appealing. Let him battle his personal issues and grapple with what it means to be a Jedi, almost wishing the Sith were still around to distract him from all that.

 

Yeah, part of the problem I had with War was the idea of Cade having to become a Jedi hell or high water. I think I'd be more interested if Cade Skywalker was just a Skywalker who, like Bantha, decided he didn't want to be a hero.

But has to deal with the "great power and great responsibility" thing.

 

To me all that angst made Cade more real. The galaxy had dealt him a bad hand and he couldn't really see past it.

Cade accepting the mantle of Jedi, was a little forced but I don't know if the comparison with Bantha works all that well. To me Bantha never stopped being a Jedi, certainly not the same way Cade did at the very least.

I'd also question if Cade's definition of what being a Jedi is fits the traditional mold. I mean he didn't suddenly become Obi-Wan Kenobi and start hanging out on Ossus so far as I'm concerned. I mean he doesn't say "To Ossus, Syn, with all due haste!" at the end of War. I personally would like to believe that Cade was going to redefine what being a Jedi was, at least to an extent.

When we last catch up to him briefly some two years later he still isn't hanging out on Ossus wearing Jedi robes. He is in a bar, hanging with Syn and Blue, part of ripping off Sauk on a stabilizing coil.

 

So two years later he is more or less at the same spot that he begun at, hopefully now without the drug problem but he could have invested in some new clothes, or at least a hat and a paint job for his armour.

 

I am a first-time reader, am I welcome here, should I start a new thread or find one for the first-time readers? Thank you.

 

Of course you're welcome.

Though you may want to walk with care on which posts you read if you're midway through a read of the Legacy comics!

 

What Ben said.

 

An interesting idea might have been what if say, Marasiah Fel turns to be the one who'll defeat Krayt instead of Cade?

 

Why? Did Luke change his look? Did K'Kruhk change his look? Kinda like complaining about Han & Chewie looking the same in the episode 7 trailer isn't it?

He also really isn't in the same spot he started in all things considered, he laid all his demons to rest and had a part in saving the galaxy. Short of maybe hunting down Nihl his story was basically wrapped up with a bow.

 

I complain about that also.

Possibly, but that don't mean that he have to look exactly the same.

 

It's a one-panel easter egg cameo. Giving him a big redesign would just undercut the point.

 

I say that a hat or a new paint job on his armour is not to much to ask for.

 

But then you just know some clown would be arguing "That wasn't Cade, Cade's clothes are a different color then that". Recognizability is key to a cameo.

 

We will have to disagree on that.

 

I don't mind the cameo of Cade later on. Krayt's dead, so he's back to his fringe life, good for him, hope he never has to bother to save the galaxy again and we don't have to waste page space on him again instead of more interesting characters.

I don't hate Cade, but he wasn't... interesting. A lot of his arc was one step forward, two steps back. He was definitely a different kind of Skywalker, I don't just mean the drug or pirate thing, but rather that he had no interest in control so he probably wouldn't end up like Anakin Skywalker, but he wasin denial a lot of the time. Although having a particularly pushy destiny either arranging fateful meetings or giving him ominous visions (and that's not counting his dad and ancestor nagging him often) was a bit... not contrived, that's how the Star Wars universe works, just that Cade was very, very resistant, especially when compared to the rest of the protagonists.

Cade's apathy towards the galaxy was good, I liked that aspect, but considering how static the galaxy is, or how the Force might or might not actually be all that nice, its best not to touch on that kind of subject too much (one reason I don't care much for KotOR II's deconstruction of the normal lightside vs. darkside dynamic).

Too bad Marasiah didn't get more appearances. Volume II slightly makes up for that, but it has its own problems (hard to tell how much was due to its own story and how much due to the rushed ending). Roan Fel was also good, with his sliding morals. He's aware of it, but he decides he has other priorities. Though that still doesn't excuse his own stupidity in accepting Maladi's "help".

Bantha I loved, he talked the most sense out of almost anyone. One of my favorite parts was when he told Cade to actually use a different name than Cade and change his hairstyle rather than complaining about being on the run. Bantha changed his look entirely, Cade didn't bother to. Although Cade had less choice in his life than even most Skywalkers since only he had the magic lightning that could defeat Krayt or something like that. Though War overdid it with killing off protagonists but was really lazy with actually killing off important Sith (Nihl I can maybe understand, Talon, ugh).

Bantha is probably the closest to being a Skywalker who simply walked away from the Jedi lifestyle and lived a good life on his own. Yet he still rejoined the fight when it mattered.

 

I, honestly, have no idea why she wasn't the one.

Thinking better of Dark Horse than to say, "It's because she's a girl" I think they decided Cade was the hero and never thought it would deviate from that.

Which is a shame.

Because I don't think it's really his bag.

 

Well, I suspect that if Cade didn't do it, then people would have been even more likely to say that all the time we spent with him and not some of the other characters was a waste.