"Tales of the Jedi, Volume III (The Sith War)" [Dark Horse Comics, 1995/1996]

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Synopsis:

"Ulic Qel-Droma has spent a lifetime learning to control the Force. He wanted to be on the side of the good, a member of the Jedi elite. But it is not the Force one must control to become a Jedi; rather, one must learn to control oneself. Ulic Qel-Droma has tasted power, and now he cannot fight the dark hunger inside him . . ."

TheForce.net Book Review for:
#1 Edge of the Whirlwind.
#2 The Battle of Coruscant.
#3 The Trial of Ulic Qel-Droma.
#4 Jedi Holocaust.
#5 Brother Against Brother.
#6 Dark Lord.

 

This series continues the partnership between the Sith Lords Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma. Kun decides to recruit some current Jedi as students to follow him and his darkside ways. Ulic, on the other hand, intends to create a large army to confront the Republic head on. He builds on his current army by defeating Mandalore (the leader of the Mandalorians) in combat and wins the loyalty of the Mandalorian warriors as a result. The Sith war with the Republic begins.

Kevin J. Anderson continues writing this series, but without Tom Veitch this time, and the story continues strong from the previous TotJ series. The illustrations, handled by Carrasco and various inkers, are well done and continue with the classic feel of the previous stories. Adding the Mandalorian warriors to the storyline gave it something extra, as we don't really know a lot about these guys. Also, I like how Ulic was handled in his confrontation with his former Jedi comrades, and especially his brother Cay. This mirrors Kun's ultimate confrontation with his former master Vodo-Siosk Baas. Plus, the double-bladed lightsaber was very cool.

I give this series a 10/10.

 

10

Excellent action, great story.

 

hooo merciful heavens, what happened? this series was doing SO well, the storylines and characters were all very detailed, charismatic, appealing, likeable, and then we get THIS?!?! Its still a good book, but everything from art, to story, to characterization, to writing took a hit in quality.

to start, the initial fight with Ulic Vs Mandalore was atrocious. Sometimes I was wondering whether there was some miscommunication between the writer, and the artist as too what was desired. KJA wrote the rules of the combat with mandalore flying a semi-sentient mechanical warcraft, (half landspeeder, half hovercraft, half war mount) and with ulic not permitted any mount should he forfeit. then KJA writes the battle with ulic struggling against mandalore's skill, yet through the art we see ulic shrugging off all of mandalores laser blasts with his lightsaber rather effortlessly, and then taking out his warmount. No problems. It then gets even more contradictory, we then see ulic leap onto a passing by warmount, kick the pilot out, and then use it to fight. What happened to the rules of the battle? Mandalore states he would rather die then surrender, deflects one lightsaber thrust using his weapon, falls to the ground, and then surrenders, asking ulic to kill him and stating he won in "Glorious combat". I was screaming by this point "You took one hit, fell down and surrendered after trash talking you wouldnt surrender, and you call THAT a Glorious Combat"? Bad enough this character was allowed to live, and enlisted by ulic, he actually became a main character throughout the series. Ick.

Although, there was alot of high points. The raid on the shipyards was grusome, violent, vicious, and showed ulic as a good tactician. The Mandalores were effective shock troops as well in this sequence. the story flowed well for most of the middle act, but some of the characterization was a bit poor compared to the preceeding graphic novel, Dark Lords of the Sith. In that novel, crado was shown as a man with backbone, and convictions, but with respect towards Exar's fighting abilities. In this novel, he is worthless and spineless all the way through. Its hard to understand how the courageous and violent tempered sylvar would have been in love with this gimp unless youve read the prior story, and even then the changes to crado's character are so inexplicable, from a strong character with a respect for the villan, to a absoloute weak and detestable character, that its hard to feel sorry crado when he is finally betrayed. Alleema was also out of character, whereas she was crafty, cunning, and lethal in DLotS, here she is petty, blatant in her planned treachery. A two dimensional characature of the character that she was under veitch's handling.

The storyline does well up to a certain point. Where Kun starts to order the asassinations of the jedi masters, the story begins to fall apart. the betrayals themselves are done decently enough, but the following scenes are less a display of shock among the surviving jedi regarding the deaths of so many prominent and powerful jedi masters, and more of a attempt at describing how kun, through the dark side, is attempting to dismantle the heart of the jedi. I personally think seeing a lack of morale, and confidance, in these jedi weve come to know and respect throughout the series would have been more profound, but maybe thats because the dialouge written to describe the attacks on the jedi masters spoken by shaonu, Dace, and Tott deneta is very cheesy and once again, more like a caricature, an imitation of what was trying to be conveyed rather then the raw emotion, pain, and devestation our characters were supposed to be experiencing. From here we sequay into the final showdowns, the attack on ossus was depicted well enough. but once again, where cay confronts ulic in an attempt to stop him from falling further to the darkside, what should have been a powerful and difficult decision on the part of cay, was written so haphazardly and drawn in a sense as to depict cay as being s

 

This is one of my favorites! The story was great and the artwork was some of the best I'd seen in a while. The fight between Ulic and Cal was really well done and one of my favorite battles in the series.

 

I loved this book. Kun's 'Waltz Into the Senate' scene remains one of the most brilliantly arrogant stunts of all time and cements his place as my favorite Sith Lord. Plus his lightsaber is the coolest lightsaber ever created.