Comics Star Wars #9: Showdown on the Smugglers' Moon, part 2 (of 5)

That's a Marvel tendency I really hope doesn't get transferred to SW.

 

At least neither SW or DV are needlessly setting up characters and plot points for Vader Down. It looks like each of their respective arcs will just end then coincidentally both series will come together.

 

I have to get the issue, but can someone summarize what the holocron said to Luke?

 

So General Dodonna managed to get through the evacuation of Yavin unscathed, unlike his Legends counterpart. I have to admit, I always liked that mission in 'Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds' where you captured him during the evacuation of Yavin playing as Vader.

 

Maybe Dodonna will get captured in the issues of Darth Vader at some point?

 

That would be interesting if Disney decided to recanonize this.



The evacuation of Yavin from the Legends timeline, chronicled in the newspaper comic strip, was actually one of the more exciting storylines, with the plotting by Admiral Griff botching the whole Imperial operation, Luke using the Force to lead the Rebel fleet past solar flares (and playing into Vader's plan of locating him), and Dodonna pulling off a last stand against the Imperials. The only problem was that the 6 months post-Battle of Yavin timeframe was too unbelievable--the Empire wouldn't wait that long to attack the Rebels at Yavin.

If Disney had kept this storyline, more or less intact, but just changed the timeframe from 6 months post ANH to 1 day post ANH (when the evacuation is listed as happening in the new canon novel "Smuggler's Run"), this would have made an amazing first arc for the Darth Vader comic (even if it was an adaptation of a Legends storyline). Vader could have used the hyperdrive on his TIE fighter immediately after ANH to come back to Yavin with an Imperial fleet.

Instead, we get (spoilers for 'Darth Vader' comic)

Spoiler

the adventures of Darth Vader and his new best buddy Aphra, fighting the nasty Dr. Cylo and his clone bodies (didn't they wipe out the EU to get away from this sort of thing?)

 

Several usual Jedi sayings from various Jedi Masters, with key ones being a Master stating "Once we were brothers in the Force. But from the Hundred-Year Darkness were born the Sith." and Shaak Ti saying "Whoever is seeing this... It's up to you now... Don't let this be the end of the Jedi."

 

Thanks sidv88

 

Except I'm fairly certain they didn't - they imposed a blockade on Vader's orders. The blockade keeps the Rebels cooped up and stops another hunt for a new base. The reason for the wait? Vader wants to play with his new toy, the Executor.

 

That was interesting, it seems to imply that the first jedi schism is canon. Atleast in name, whether it follows the same backstory (Dark jedi get defeated, are exiled, travel to Korriban/Moraband and become lords by enslaving it's native race) is another thing. But i'm very glad to see it mentioned. It's almost as if they're largely willing to stick with the Legends/EU version of how the Sith came to be.

 

1. The idea of a Jedi Schism birthing the Sith comes directly from Lucas, although Lucas intended Darth Ruin to be the one who started the schism.
2. The schism that birthed the Sith was intended to be the first schism, but was ultimately retconned into being the second for some reason. Ruin's schism was retconned into being the fourth schism because the TPM novelization said that it occured 2000 years ago, too late to be the birth of the Sith.

Personally, I think that there should only be one schism.

 

And it should take place at least 5000 years ago. They have the opportunity to untangle the mess the EU made, and they can do that by moving the Darth Ruin schism from the Episode I script notes a few thousand years back, and merging it with the Hundred-Year-Darkness. Which I presume already is the status quo as it stands.

 

Well, there's the recent addition of a Sith shrine on Coruscant to the canon, and we atleast know they at one point ruled the galaxy 6000 years before the clone wars (Tarkin), that and Palpatine's line "Once more", everything seems to point they did win once by military force. Maybe the hundred year darkness event directly leads to their rule, or they stick with how it's been and they get defeated and exiled, the great hyperspace wars happens (revenge) but instead of being defeated again, they win, they break apart sometime after and the scattered remnants of the Jedi order take back control and build their temple ontop of the shrine.

I wildly guess the hundred year darkness is the first of three major wars involving the Sith openly in greater numbers. Then there's Ki Adi Mundi's line about them being extinct for a millennium, which i assume what they believed to be the destruction of the Sith at the end of the third war (initiated by Ruin and lasting a long time). Then Bane remained as the sole survivor and created the rule of two, which eventually became common knowledge among the Jedi, then they kill (at some point) who they truly believe to be the last of them? ... Lot of pieces to this particular puzzle.

 

This is exactly what I was trying to say. I like the idea of Darth Ruin being among those who discovered The Force. At first they use the light side and dark side in balance but then Ruin falls and the others swear off the dark side in response.

 

Naw, I don't think the Jedi discovered the force. Being that the Force is the GFFA's defining characteristic, I think that the force was this thing that all the different societies of the galaxy knew about since pre-space exploration, and that before the Jedi there was just endless war in which the force users were used as wizards or sorcerers are generally used in fantasy. The Hundred Year Darkness was just the bleakest era of that period, and toward the end the Jedi were formed by some of these force users who were feed up with the endless war. Maybe Ruin was one of these original Jedi, but had a disagreement on how the Jedi would go about bringing peace.

 

Oh, I guess there was a blockade. With the gang hopping around in the old Marvel and newspaper comics, it was hard to notice.

 

I hope the new canon hundred year darkness is explored more if Disney decided to enter the old republic era. We did not see very much of it in the old canon. Instead of jumping right into a war between the Sith of many, and the Old Republic/Jedi, I want to see the conflict which created the roots of the Sith.

 

We'll probably get a spin-off movie.

 

Ah, don't know about the comics - I'm just going by the Goodwin-Williamson newspaper strip story.

Would suspect the two would probably clash though, as Marvel would have been spinning post-ANH stories 1977-1980 and the Goodwin-Williamson story was much later, 1982-84! Reason the latter was so good, in part, is they knew all the pieces to link to.

 

The 70's Marvel adventures shouldn't have been treated as canon at the time let alone 30 years later

Luke: I can't let you fall Leia because I love you!

 

Good issue overall. I had a few grips with the writing in the last pages though.

+ Luke was well written. I specially loved the part where he opened all the holocrons.
+ The new gigantic Hutt and his creepy robotic legs. I want to know more about his Jedi collection. I also kinda wish Luke would discover something of his father in there.
+ Leia being a badass.
- Another pit fight arena? It’s getting clichéd.
- Miss “many bothans died” and her contrived justification to not try to save the only Jedi they have in their team and their best weapon against the Empire, just so we can have Chewbacca going alone. Also her needlessly melodramatic line “I don’t know anyone that brave and insane!”. Please. If there is one thing that she should know about her own rebellion, from the Rebels TV show to the Death Star kamikaze attack in ANH, is that they are brave and insane people.

 

I thought Mon Mothma was very well written there. She's often written as someone who keeps it together, but in RotJ she came off as slightly... crazy. That has to be why Dodonna and Ackbar are in charge of the serious stuff. Mothma is just this slightly disturbed lady they keep around because she pays the bills.

 

Yeah, but she is the “Chancellor” for reason. If it had been any other rebel kidnapped, I would’ve understood her position. But this is Luke. This is about ensuring future success for the Rebellion.
What is this, a Rebel Alliance that can go against the Empire, that sacrifices people for information, but gives up so easily when a nameless Hutt steals their best weapon? She is not being portrayed as a leader, but more as a passive background advisor in an alliance without a strategy, and that’s what is bothering me.

 

Mothma's not a true leader; she's useful. I don't think anyone goes running to get Mon Mothma's opinion when TIE fighters appear in the sky. That's what Ackbar, Dodonna and Rieekan are for. Ackbar didn't start babbling some melodramatic bull$#@! when he heard Skywalker was captured, he cut to the chase: how do we get him back? He's a military leader, and he knows how much a Jedi is worth in the battlefield. Mon Mothma is the leader of the Rebellion only because a.) Bail is dead and b.) she is obscenely rich and has the political status and know-how they need to pass off as the "true successors of the Republic".

 

Are we sure, though, that Mon Mothma is (still) wealthy?