Clone Wars Adventures Revisited

Hello. I've long been a fan of the Clone Wars Adventures digest series by Dark Horse. The stories are sometimes silly, sometimes fun and sometimes pretty solid entertainment. So for my own amusement I've decided to re-read them, making little continuity/timeline notes and coming to grips with the few stories that irk the heck outta me.

And I'm going to share my thoughts with you (feel free to feel special).

Clone Wars Adventures Volume 1

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"Blind Force"
story by Haden Blackman, art and colours by Ben Caldwell

It's dark. It is very dark, stygian, almost. Obi-Wan and Anakin are on Nivek, the "Night Planet." Anakin gets their handheld lamp working only to find it doesn't light up very much, because it's dark.

This would be a practical tool for the situation, but the Jedi are fiddling around with a little handheld disk. Then again, I only use my headlamp for things where I might need two hands free, like going to the bathroom while camping, not for something simple like finding an enemy base in total darkness.

Anyway, Anakin holds up the stupid little disk lamp while the Nivek Shadowmen try to ambush them with a net, when that fails they just punch Obi-Wan. Anakin's lamp gets shot. It's dark, they can't see anything. Anakin gets mad, throws some rocks with the Force and takes out a Cactus. My hero.

The Shadowmen grab Obi-Wan and Anakin rescues him by swinging his lightaber around in the dark. He's lucky he doesn't chop up Obi-Wan. After this close call Obi-Wan has the brilliant idea to try blindfolds, since their eyes don't work and Anakin almost decapitated him. It's a poor man's version of the blast shield lesson from Episode IV! Except that involved a training remote and this involved pages of chopping and Force-pushing Shadowmen.

Anakin hears the sounds of machines and they rush off to find the factory. Obi-Wan didn't hear it. Anakin says they're "just wired differently." Get it, because he becomes half machine? They take out the battledroids and the facility goes boom.

Mission: Successful.

Timeline: The opening pages of the volume says that the stories take place approximately five months after the Battle of Geonosis, but the only hard timeline information is that Anakin is still Obi-Wan's padawan, braid and all.

Tune in next time for Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin discussing the merits of the broadsword versus the rapier. It's not sexual, I swear.

 

"I can't see anything."

Bumble bumble bumble. Fifteen minutes later:

"Well, we could use the Force."

"Holy crap, I never thought of that. Crazy thing about being a Jedi, you never think to use the Force."

"But if we're going to rely on the Force instead of our eyes, we'll need to not be able to see anything. Here, put this blindfold on so you're not looking at the dark between your eyes and the cave wall, just the dark between your eyes and the blindfold."

Haden Blackman has truly created a masterwork of subtlety, wit, and deft plotting.

 

The Jedi should've invested in brass lanterns. Or grue repellent.

 

Fixed.

 

I know, but since the the whole pre-TCW Clone Wars timeline is currently in flux, I'm just looking in story for timeline clues. At this point I don't have high hopes of any post-TCW timeline to give this series serious consideration, so I'm making my notes so I can fit them in. Ideally the volumes/stories that say "five months after the Battle of Geonosis" would be tied to where ever Volume 1 of the Micro-Series falls in the new timeline, and many of CWA's later stories are tied into Episode III, so they're locked-in, timeline-wise. However, a lot of the stories exist in vacuum void of any real timeline clues or continuity links. If the timeline's gonna get revised, some of these stories could fall pretty much anywhere with no real consequences.

 

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"Heavy Metal Jedi"
story by Haden Blackman, art by the Fillbach Brothers

For a story called "Heavy Metal Jedi" there's not one reference to Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden

It's the Battle of Iktotch, and you can tell we're on Iktotch because we don't see a a single Iktotchi besides Saesee Tiin. A batle droid comes flying through the air and crashes on an advancing unit of droids. Saesee Tiin and Windu debate how far they've thrown droids and whether simple distance/brute force/broadsword is better than precision/rapier.

They're advanced upon, which leads to a neat seen as we see the approach through the visual unit of a battle droid, 29 metres, 4 metres, and then 35 metres and out as the two Jedi masters push it five klicks until it lands on a Hailfire Droid and goes "BOOM!"

More broadsword/rapier small talk until this big honkin' battle droid shows up. They fight it, it takes a while because it can shoot missiles. Each Jedi Master has to do some fancy aerobatics to dodge the missiles and turn them on the droid. It explodes a little and still keeps firing lasers. The Jedi drop a Hailfire Droid on it.

Saeesee and Mace settle their debate because "Weapons didn't win this battle...The Jedi did."

Continuity: You know that big honkin' battle droid that it took two Jedi Masters to defeat? Yeah, we never see it again. I guess the Seppies decided it would be unsportsmanlike to use effective battle droids. Two missiles caused problems for the Jedi, imagine if it had fired three, it could've won. We can't have that.

Timeline: The opening pages of the volume says that the stories take place approximately five months after the Battle of Geonosis. Saesee Tiin has part of a horn missing. Mace Windu is dressed like he is in the Micro-Series, until he strips a little.

Next time: Kit Fisto in a sequel to his Micro-Series episode.

 

But . . . that wasn't . . . the point was . . . the argument . . . oh, I give up.

 

Hurts a little, doesn't it?

 

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"Fierce Currents"
story by Haden Blackman, art by the Fillbach Brothers

We begin with Kit Fisto taking orders from Yoda. It's all just happening out in the ocean, not in some sort of protected command centre or anything. Kit Fisto's complaining that even after he took out the Quarren command centre in the Micro-Series episode they're still organized. Because he lives in a universe where a planetary war can be stopped by taking out one outpost. If only real wars were this easy.

A few days later Kit Fisto smashes through the window of a Quarren command centre (because yes, they have more than one, they're not stupid).

"I'm getting tired of these assaults. I keep smashing through your windows..and smashing your skulls...and still you won't take me to your leader" Kit Fisto says as he drags a Quarren under the water by his tentacles. Somewhere along the line Kit Fisto and Hulk got mixed up. FISTO SMASH.

If Anakin had done something like this Obi-Wan would've chewed him out for hours, but Kit Fisto's a Jedi Master so he can get away with wanton violence.

He finds out that the Quarren are getting telepathic instructions.

Swimming along Kit gets ambushed by the glowing pink jellyfish that have been swimming around in the background of the comic. They're not so bright when they're alone but when they group up they're telepathic geniuses. They try to kill him, he breaks them apart.

Hulk swims up to the surface and tells the Mon Cals that it's the jellyfish. The Mon Cals are concerned that they can't defeat them, and Kit tells them to negotiate, because "You're diplomats, not warriors" and he struts out of the panel.

I'd like to point out that Kit's a Jedi Master and he seems unconcerned about working on a diplomatic solution. It gets in the way of smashing things.

Continuity: The Moappa become the fourth sentient species we know about on Mon Calamari. And the only one that doesn't look like it would be served at a cocktail party.

Timeline: This is a follow-up to the Micro-Series episode featuring Kit on Mon Calamari.

General thoughts on Volume One: Three rather forgettable stories that don't do any service to the Jedi. Is this really the same guy who wrote the Jabiim arc? On the plus side this volume introduced the Fillbach brothers who become a staple of this line, and the subsequent TCW tie-ins.

Next time: Volume Two kicks off with a story featuring Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

 

Jabiim's nothing special either, kids.

 

It's a clumsy but moderately entertaining Vietnam analogy weighed down by Blackman's usual quirks, the most egregious of which are stupid Jedi deaths.

 

Oops.

 

Ugh, Volume One irritates me to no end because of reasons previously mentioned in the thread. Even the prescence of Kit Fisto couldn't improve the moronic writing.

Luckily Volume Two is a huge improvement, but I'll wait until Darth_Duck gets there to discuss that.

 

Clone Wars Adventures Volume Two

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"Skywalkers"
Script by Haden Blackman, with additional dialogue by George Lucas, from A New Hope, art by the Fillbach Brothers

Tatooine: 19 years after the Battle of Coruscant. Luke, C-3P0 and R2 are chilling at Ben Kenobi's place as he's explaining "That I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father." He was a good pilot, a good friend and all that stuff we already know because we watched that movie. It was a great movie. Remember when you could say that about a Star Wars movie?

Flashback to the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan is, predictably, snappy with Anakin as they're piloting their starfighters over the planet of Terra Sool. Anakin is piloting like an ace and that's bugging Obi-Wan.

Oh, and there is something in the atmosphere that interferes with sensors, so they're flying blind. Didn't they learn their lesson about blindness in the last volume? Alas, no blindfolds this time.

There's a big armoured aerial platform that the CIS has in the atmosphere. Obi-Wan goes in and Anakin, of all people, is concerned that that plan might be "a little reckless."

Good o'l Obi-Wan crashes his ship on the platform's surface, jumps out and starts slashing at droids. Anakin's still flying around and goes to check out some droid chatter.

Turns out there are dozen's of these armoured platforms. Anakin tries to tell him they might have a problem, but Obi-Wan is certain his apprentice can handle it. Anakin crashes his ship on one of the platforms. How can the Jedi afford this many ships?

Obi-Wan hijacks the platform and steers it to where Anakin is facing down an aerial horde. Obi-Wan starts firing at the other platforms, Anakin leaps through the air to destroy missiles. He probably would've fared better if he hadn't crashed his ship.

Anakin then uses the Force to push two of the platforms together to make them go "KRA-KOOM!"

Obi-Wan gives Anakin a patronizing little talk about what a great pilot he's become and how the "learner has finally become the master."

Because, you know, Anakin wasn't a champion podracer before this, he didn't single handedly take down the droid control ship over Naboo. Welcome to ten years ago Obi-Wan, Anakin has always been a great pilot. Let's add to it, that half the battle didn't even involve Anakin piloting a starship, he was just making fancy flips and force pushing stuff, this is just a jerk move by Obi-Wan. Is he trying to push Anakin to the Dark Side? Is it just a bit of terrible writing to justify the two pages of Darth Vader standing over Obi-Wan's robe on the Death Star that end this story?

It was totally bad writing to justify a cutesy Darth Vader.

Timeline: Early in the war (five months according to the volume 2 intro).

Next up: Barriss plays dead.