Darca Nyl: Nomad

If you've picked up Tales lately, you'd notice that there will be a multi-part story on Jedi Darca Nyl. In Nomad: Chapter One, Darca comes to a dustball of a planet on the Outer Rim. He is looking for a dark Jedi named Lycan, but eventually gets caught up in a kidnapping plot. He helps save a man's daughter in exchange for information about Lycan, who had stopped on the planet earlier.

Throughout the story, there are various flashback panels that tell of a ship crash-landing on a planet, the home of a young Darca Nyl. Lycan finds Darca and the last we see of the flashbacks, Darca is pointing a gun at a lighsaber wielding Lycan.

That was chapter one.

Chapter Two, forthcoming in Tales 22, will continue to tell the story of Darca Nyl. I, personally, am very intrigued by this story, which is set 6 months after TPM.

I just wanted to see what everyone else thought of the story and maybe get some discussion on what could happen in Chapter Two...

[image=http://www.ofadam.com/ffa/jcpics/darcanylNOMAD.jpg][image=http://www.ofadam.com/ffa/jcpics/lycanNOMAD.jpg]
(Left: Darca, Right: Lycan)

 

I'm betting that Lycan killed Darca's family after his ship crashed (either he was trying to steal something or was just killing for the pleasure of it) and then Nyl shot Lycan in the eye (somewhat shaming Lycan because he was crippled by a "boy"). He then knocked Darca away with the darkside and staggered off to continue to do evil deeds. Darca was then recruited by the Jedi and secretly desires to get revenge.

Total spagetti western style, I love it.

 

Total spagetti western style, I love it.

Agreed!

Taken on its own terms, some of the details were a little close (the "look" of the mine-owner, and the Jedi's very revolverish blaster-pistol); but all in all, they enhanced the story, rather than detracted from it. I also really liked the spin on the Jedi cloak (STAR WARS enough that I only just noticed now that it's a homahe to the classic "Clint Eastwood duster"), and the way it was mixed in with the just-slightly-less-than-g-canon black jumpsuit (SotME, Survivor's Quest, discarded Episode I concepts)...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

The Ewok might like the following:

I'm not sure why, but I kind of got a feeling of pity for Lycan when reading Chapter One; like he's not really playing sabacc with a full deck, ya' know? And Darca Nyl gave me a glimpse of someone who isn't 100% certain of or upfront about who he is...

Nyl hasn't made any overt displays of using the Force. And we know that weilding a lightsaber doesn't automatically make you a Jedi. Nor does claiming to be a Jedi, either...

While Lycan did kill that drunk outright in cold blood, it seemed that the word "Jedi" triggered the reaction...

I'm going to go out on a qualified* limb and guess that Darca Nyl isn't really a Jedi, that he is reponsible for Lycan's wound(s), and that Nyl is hunting Lycan down to prevent Lycan from revealing Nyl's treacherous and murderous ways...

I think Darca Nyl killed one Jedi, that Lycan came to find out what happened, and Darca Nyl tried-but-failed to kill again...



*It'll probably happen that Darca Nyl is just another troubled Jedi with a sordid past walking the fine line between justice and revenge, that Lycan is truly a villain, and that once Darca Nyl has Lycan in his grasp Nyl will choose the righteous, Jedi way.

Either way, we've got a wonderful tale going here with interesting characters and great art! I hope it is allowed to deliver and is kept going through to the end of the story.

 

"I'm taking Leddar back to where it's safe and warm. You two can fight it out if you like. Live a short life of hate and revenge, ignore what's important...I don't care."

For a man looking for revenge himself, that's a strange thing to say. Maybe he really doesn't care about what happens to him anymore because he has nothing to lose?

 

i agree that Darca doesn't seem to fit the regular jedi mold -- perhaps he's not from the coruscant school of jedi... or he's been in the outer rim so long and been harboring this thing for lycan for so long that he's changed the rules he lives by.

very spaghetti western indeed:
"The Good, The Bad, and the Jedi"

what if the little boy in the flashbacks isn't Darca.. but Lycan...

 

It can't be Lycan as a boy. First off, Lycan isn't human and second, Lycan is already in the flashbacks as an adult.

 

Just because he's out for vengence doesn't mean he doesn't care about people. His empathy for Leddar and his very sad reaction to them being reunited is proof that situation was tearing him up bad. He was able to save one family from his own's fate... but that doesn't change the loss he suffered.

 

I never saw where it said the story was set six months after TPM. I only saw that it was in that era. I had read it assuming that it took place in the TOTJ era.

 

I still want to know how it can have Executor and a Lambda in it.

 

They are only seen in the prologue, and the prologue has nothing to do with the story. It's like someone from the Empire era is telling all these stories.

 

I never saw where it said the story was set six months after TPM. I only saw that it was in that era. I had read it assuming that it took place in the TOTJ era.

It's on the table of contents page at the front. Also, if it was TOTJ era, it would have had a different symbol...

 

The Lambda is seen in the same panel as the exploding ship that seems to be part of the backstory, which would set it before TPM.

 

I think that the regular panels and the blue tinted flashback panels are separate.

The regular panels in the prologue are in a sort of sequence:
first, they show a star system with battleships.
next, a far away star system showing the previous one exploding
next, a shockwave (?) from the explosion is shown in yet another system, with the planet on which the story takes place.

^ that's my interperetation...

[image=http://www.starwars.com/eu/feature/20041012/20041012_picview/img/1.jpg]
[image=http://www.starwars.com/eu/feature/20041012/20041012_picview/img/2.jpg]

 

Well, that would at least preserve the continuity. I hope your interpretation is correct.

 

Our boy Darca is back in Tales 22...

His business with Lycan doesn't get resolved, but we do get to see Lycan go badass Dark Jedi on some gamblers...

[image=http://img198.exs.cx/img198/6813/lycan3jp.jpg]

And some good not-so-good Jedi action...

"How'd you do that?"

"Uh...oh. You know. Years of training, that type of thing. Solitude. Heavy medication..."

"You mean meditation, right?"

"That too."

 

Spaghetti western? I'll do ya one better-- Nomad reminds me of the Kurosawa/Mifune samurai movies that the Leone spaghetti westerns were based on. So there!

 

bizarre aliens!

 

Now that we have two chapters of set up, I'm hoping we're going to get more "meat" of the story, i.e. the origions of Lycan and Darca and why they're trying to kill each other.

 

this is an awesome story. I really like the new tales.

 

Indeed, Nomad is the best story ever offered up in Tales. To bad Jeremy wasn't there from the beginning, we never would have been subjected to Tales 20, Dave Land's final "**** You" to the readers.

What is a "Spaghetti Western", anyhoo?

 

It's a very specific style of western, mostly filmed by Italians in Spain.

The most well known of them would be the "Man with no name" trilogy. They also "borrow" a lot of story material from Japanese Samurai movies.

Basically, think harsh landscapes, grizzled anti-heroes, filthy vilians (in more ways than one), with lots of guitar music, smoking, evil stares, brandy, gambling, bounty hunting and spectacular gunslinging (usually with Ninja like tricks involved in winning against the 'ultimate' villian).