Comics Star Wars: Age of Republic

"Preceding canon" was a single sentence in Ultimate Star Wars that was already of dubious continuity given that "The Lost One" already seemed to contradict it. This "change" is more a confirmation of what "The Lost One" suggests, which is appropriate since they are both stories, primary texts, not supplemental material.

 

I too got Dark Rendezvous vibes from this story.
Dooku is one of my favorite characters in Star Wars because of that book.
I love Sean Stewart's idea of Dooku as a man who believes deep down that life is just ****, and that anything else is deluding yourself (I'm paraphrasing here since I can't remember the exact quote).

 

Obviously Maul couldn't defeat Jedi Dooku + Qui-Gon, but separating them one-on-one, I think Maul would still defeat them.

 

In legends it was said Maul knew he couldn't beat Quigon and Obi-Wan together, which is why he spends the entire fight trying to separate them. Probably true in canon too.
Still think it would be cool to see, Maul's acrobatics vs Dooku's fencing would be an interesting combination.

 

OK, I'm a huge fan of the Dark Horse Comics, and I'll admit not many of the new Marvel Star Wars comics have really grabbed my attention in quite the same way. But the nostalgia goggles on display here are ridiculous.

"Back in the days of Dark Horse, there were never, ever, any continuity errors. No siree. Also the comics only cost a nickle, and the paper smelled like cinnamon!"

 

Which never really worked with AOTC's timeline of the clone army being created a decade before. There's too much to fit into the timeframe if Dooku leaves after Qui-Gon's death and has to fall to the dark side and set up everything with the clone army, Vosa, and Jango in the space of a few months. Him leaving prior is much cleaner.

 

Also the whole idea of
"Ahhh, the Sith killed favorite apprentice, I quit the Jedi! Hi Sidious, I join the Sith!"
...within a few months at most, and then helping to kill a Jedi himself, never sat right with me.

His "if only I was with Qui-gon" line of thought makes more sense if it was more like
Dooku: the Jedi serve corruption, and are in decay, they're terrible! These Sith that seem to be out there, they have the right idea. I should tell Qui-gon about this, convince him to come over too. I'm busy this weekend. Maybe on Monday?
Qui-gon on Monday: new assignment, Naboo!
Dooku: Qui-gon is dead! If only I had told him sooner, then he'd see the Sith have the right idea, and he would never have come across Maul as an enemy... or we would overthrow Sidious and Maul together, and become the new Sith! Such a terrible loss to have my own Sith apprentice ready-to-go, gone.

 

It's rather amusing that Dooku thinks this.

 

If someone like a Dark Side Vos was able to defeat Dooku, Maul certainly would've as well in an actual duel.

Dooku as yet, never expressed any Jinn related animosity towards Sith Lord Maul either on TCW or even SOD, in fact Dooku becomes a Sith Lord himself and there was a high level of respect for Maul's warrior calibre back in Season III of TCW - when Talzin offered Savage to him and Dooku was only too excited at that prospect especially after being ordered by Sidious to kill his Ventress. Certain thoughts were focused on overthrowing Sidious with such a warrior. Maul outplayed and defeated Dooku and Grievous on Ord Mantell and Maul resisted Tyranus' Force lightning torture while he was held captive on Stygeon in SOD. This comic is no different as to regards to Jinn.

In fact his commenting on Jinn was just disingenuous, since he's trying to dupe that Jedi Knight Jak'zin . Very similarly how he attempted with Kenobi in AOTC.

In reality Dooku seems even in his comic to be more open to having some sorta Dark Jedi type allies in his service while Sidious clearly does not, unless Dooku wished to replace himself,lol. Which to me shows that Sidious has a certain bitterness towards Dooku, so early on too, he views him as an expendable and unworthy Apprentice and often treated him like crap on TCW. We know Dooku was never mean to be a Sith, was supposed to be only Maul and Sidious. Although for whatever reason Sidious allows Dooku to train Grievous in the Jedi arts and of course someone as powerful as Ventress (in the TCW movie both Sidous and Dooku order her around like she was a shared Sith agent asset- type which obviously she was of course). And Sidious himself wants his own army of dark side warrior agents during TCW and many of his agents are indeed ex-Jedi well into Rebels. Yet somehow Dooku and Sidious were both in on Vos' transformation into their servant. So there is a kinda strange storyline.

In fact with many failures and fiascos of Dooku from Ventress to Talzin to Maul and having direct attepted Apprentice types like Ventress, Opress and Vos run amok against him and Sidious, not sure why Sidious kept Dooku alive for as long as he did, was always a stretch to far for ROTS. Only one that really remained loyal to the cause and to Sidious as a stable Sith ally was Grievous well cause he's in the movie- and Sidious ends up directly flushing him down the toilet in gratitude..

We learn that post war Imperial propaganda and rumors were encouraged to have people believe that Dooku was a Jedi agent and working with them to overthrow the Republic by creating the Separatist crisis. Dooku always just ended up to be used as a stand in, while Papatine waiting around to convert Anakin. However the idea that other than Anakin, Sidious still wanted other Dark Jedi types serving him and did not like that fact that Vader himself had attempted to eliminate them nor really liked Vader killing off military men just for the sake of it.

Maul in the movies was much the thinker and devastating warrior when unleashed. He was also still being trained my Sidious who reminded Maul to be mindful during Naboo and in the comics reminds Maul of the importance of having allies guarding your back against armies of Jedi. So Maul played it smart in separating the Jedi from their soldiers and later the Jedi themselves, it was a tactical move. Maul's level of skill and training already made him superior to the Jedi, "you have been well trained my apprentice, they will be no match for you".

Plus Maul had killed one Jedi padawan called Eldra Kaitis who was something of a Rey/Ahoska type prodigy type, she was quite well trained and capable with he sword and Force. So Maul knew what it was like fighting a worthy Jedi warrior even before he almost killed Jinn on Tatooine.

Maul dominated them both when he fought them together and fought them solo and got them exactly where he wanted .

I think we already knew that Dooku left the Jedi Order prior to TPM events, that was established a long time back with the TCW's G canon scheme in Season 6. He was was in league with Palpatine/Sidious' secretive plans (similarly Maul would keep his underworld scheming seeds hidden from him) in some capacity during and prior to TPM.

 

I imagine that is how he feels, just after he comes around to the Sith's way of thinking.

I also think his line to Obi-Wan in AotC is to try and get Obi-Wan to trust him.

 

I know I'm a week behind release date wise, but I just read the Anakin issue "The Sacrifice".

Spoiler

I thought this story was pretty shallow. I haven't watched The Clone Wars cartoon in a while, but I felt there was always some sort of reconnaissance before the Republic would act so that felt weird. What also felt weird was that moment of self reflection for Anakin. I never got the impression that he didn't want to get involved. If anything he wanted to be more involved, he wanted to be a Master, he wanted more power, he wanted more. So for him to be like, "I just want to fly." didn't feel in character for me. I also didn't like the portrayal of Yularen. He seemed out of character as well.

 

Spoiler

Agreed. I predicted it on the previous page, but I still liked his character and was saddened by his death.
It particularly hits home because he looked up to Dooku, making the betrayal all the more harsh.

 

Finally read the Anakin issue and have to say, I was little disappointed. So far, this is my least favourite issue of the series. It wasn't bad or anything, but the art didn't really work for me and the story was very simple and predictable. The whole thing felt like it could have been a stand-alone episode of TCW series. Off to read Dooku now...

 

I just noticed the Padme issue is coming out the day after Queen's Shadow releases. I'm going to have to read that book hella fast to catch whatever Easter Eggs they throw in the comic.

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Or, you could wait a little longer to read the comic?

 

The Count is waiting....

 

You overestimate my impulse control.

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I read Dooku. It was decent. It definitely felt like Dooku and not out of character like Anakin did. I don't recall that the story added anything to the lore, so it won't be a memorable story. It was your typical, semi vanilla story - "I'm here to do one thing but I'm actually here to do a second secret thing type of story" with bland to zero opposition.

 

If you read the comic first, then the book will be filled with Easter Egg references to it.

 

Padmé preview is up.

Spoiler: comment

Handmaidens! With lots of dialogue! Oh, and Queen's Shadow is coming out in just a few days!

 

Oh, the shades are glorious in this one.

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

 

Spoiler

At least we get to spend more time with Dorme and get a better understanding of Motee.