Lit Dawn of the Jedi: Force War #1 (of 5)

It will be released tomorrow, so I figured it's time for a thread. With the Rakata finally arriving and Flesh Raiders, this looks to be very exciting.

 

Here's hoping that by the end of this series, the stage will be set for the Great Schism.

Oh, and also some new Force abilities.

 

Spoiler

Loved it. Currently the most epic SW series (to my knowledge at least). Epic battles, monsters, rancor dragons (as if rancors weren't awesome enough as they were, now they are even cooler with badass wings ), flesh raiders; the rakatan annihilators are awesome (they remind me like something from War of the Worlds and Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still). Great art as usual from Jan. Only (little) complain I have is that the first year of the invasion has already passed, and I'd love to see the very beginning of the Rakatan invasion. And I like the Rakata better as villains than the Sith, so a spin off with Rakatas instead of Sith/Dark Jedi, please Disney?

 

For all we know, the Rakata have been manipulating the Sith this whole time and will be the villains of the ST.

 

sorry about the double post, but I read DOTJ: Force War #1 and I have a lot to say about it. We learn some interesting things.

Spoiler

1. flesh raiders are mutated lower-caste Rakata
2. Skal'nas senses that the Rakata are loosing their connection to The Force.
3. there's an infinity gate on Tython, and Skal'nas plans to use it to become "over-predor of the infinite empire"
4. forcesabers are making it hard for the Je'daii to stay in balance

 

The art's a little rough in places for Duursema but that's a quibble. This is SW as it should be: epic, rich, colorful, imaginative, heroic, tragic, spiritual martial, mythological. It's just everything I love most about SW rolled up into a perfect package! Lok, Xesh, the Jed'aii -- these are all compelling and fun characters to follow. The Rakata are coming together as memorable adversaries. The books could use a little more humor; but there's plenty of OT style banter and character interplay to keep things lively. I also wouldn't mind a touch of the "cute", ala Yoda or the Ewoks etc. Hey, I'm a sucker for that stuff I really hope this goes to 50 issues. It's like the Iliad or Mahabharata or Silmarillion of SW! Brilliant classic material. Joe & Jan deserve a big round of applause!

 

I'd love to see the "lost year" covered in a big novel or trilogy!

 

Spicer, I agree with you completely in regards to your complaint about the first issue. I was hoping the first issue would cover just that.

The-Eternal-Hero, your idea I like. And having JJM as the author would make it a must-have in my book.

 

Interesting that Rajivari and Lok are so high-ranking. I wonder what (if anything) that's forshadowing.

 

Oh it's foreshadowing quite a bit if you've played The Old Republic, especially Rajivari. Also from playing the game it's no surprise that there is an Infinity Gate on Tython.

 

It was because of Rajivari's role in TOR that I was wondering.

 

The Rajivari in DotJ maybe doesn't quite match up with the TOR Rajivari, but then that could be due to the long historical gap or it could be a different Rajivari as well. The Force Wars and Great Schism are supposed to be sort of around this time period (well, in terms of being pre-Republic I mean) but now instead the series is focusing on the Rakatan invasion of Tython. And quite an epic issue too. Honestly, this is more of what I expected of Legacy- War then what we actually got.

Spoiler

Minor quibble but with the Forcesabers and such it doesn't quite off as... mythic as I had hoped though. Yeah, flying rancors are cool and all, but a lot of the rest is just Je'daii running around with lightsabers, er, Forcesabers fighting cannon fodder. The obligatory Red Squadron and such, and the Annihilators look cool, and as mentioned sort of evoke War of the Worlds walkers, but Clone Wars already had plenty of giant war machines too.

Too bad about the time jump, wouldn't have minded seeing the Rakatan arrival in the system. We also find out just why Skel'nas wants to find the Infinity Gate on Tython- its possibly related to an old legend that could fix the Rakatan problem, as they're already weakening slightly. Though sounds like it took a while to unite the Settled Worlds against the Rakata, so glad to skip that part (so sick of seeing stories where people turn on each other rather than invaders, or worse blame the Jedi for everything).

Daegon Lok is in command and loving it. The glory of war isn't really as glorious as Sek'nos had hoped for though, and Trill is apparently still playing spy. Still really interesting to see the Je'daii with their seers against the Rakatan war machine and holding their own so far.

 

The First Great Schism occurs over a millennium after this story. Rajivari is definitely the same guy:

 

How I feel about DOTJ in a nutshell

 

I wonder if we'll meet the "over-predor" that Skal'nas mentioned.

 

I hope so. This series has so much potential, as long as DH keeps the license and DOTJ doesn't get cancelled, there are a bunch of cool stuff to explore.

 

I've got this issue waiting for me in my box at the comic shop. Leaving work early today to pick this up From what I'm seeing in this thread, it's going to kick ass.

 

Agreed. I feel like the over-predor would be the Palpatine to Skal'nas's Tarkin or Vader, and when I see the Tarkin or Vader, I also want to see the Palpatine.

 

Had almost forgotten how much I miss the Ostrander and Duursema compi, this comic reminded we why. Though now I once again just have to wonder why we can't have Agent of the Empire instead of the "Star Wars" ongoing.

 

Love the art and story. After a few months of settling for the minimalist new Legacy stuff, having the top tier comics team back in action makes me appreciate them even more.

 

I believe the simple answer to that is that there is more going on behind the scenes than most fans realize. Whether people want to admit it or not Star Wood is setting up a new continuity for this era. Wood's contracted through issue 20 and I know for a fact that as of right now the series will run through all of 2014. Another thing to keep in mind is that Wood was personally asked to write the comic by Lucasfilm, he didn't pitch the series.

 

It's to disjointed to have any continuity.

 

I liked it.

Good battle, good character good, good villains. So everything we could ask for.

 

Loved this issue. Love this series as a whole.

Spoiler

It's interesting to me that we find out now that Flesh Raiders are offshoots of Rakata. Mainly because we know the Rakata lose their connection to the Force (and they now know that it is starting to happen). However, we also know that the Flesh Raiders, by the time of TOR, will start being able to use the Force.

 

I also enjoyed the 'moment' between Xesh and Shea Koda. I wonder if they will confess their 'love' right before Xesh....

Spoiler

turns to the Rakata due to his sleeper agent status