Comics Star Wars: Age of Republic

Grievous as Indiana Jones is quite something. Loved to see more Force shenanigans, especially the ending.

 

Grievous: "Jedi. I hate these guys."

 

Do we know what species he is?

 

Grievous? He's Kaleesh.

 

I'm sad we won't get any prequel comics now.

 

Look on the bright side.
We still have a prequel book (Master and Apprentice) on the way.
Hopefully more material is revealed soon though,

 

I'm really loving all of the Republic Era stories in "Age of the Republic". In fact I'd say that this series is the closest to the Dark Horse "Republic" series which I totally adored. It was "Republic", "Knights of the Old Republic" and "Dark Times" which brought me back to Star Wars as an adult.

For me "Age of the Republic" is the first time Marvel have reached the levels of pure fan enjoyment which I got from the Dark Horse comics. I really really wish they'd do a long running Prequel Era series. There are so many brilliant characters and planets to use in stories; a comic like that could run for ever. I think Marvel are really missing a trick if never tap this huge market. I think there are a huge number of fans who would love a Republic Era / Prequel Era series.


[Edit: Slight change for clarification]

 

Looking back at the Obi-Wan issue I find it interesting how in both canon and legends Anakin's first mission involved Fosh.
(Granted in legends it was searching for a long-gone Vergere, the point still stands).

 

Having just re-read SW Age of Republic Darth Maul, I noticed a discrepancy in the Greenburg piece at the back of the comic. He talks about George talking to Filoni about having the idea to bring back Maul. This was in 2010/11 as they were making TCW season 4. But Aaron McBride had already done this in the Dark Horse comic "Old Wounds" from the Star Wars: Visionaries series. That was published in 2004. I guess George brought the idea into canon (at the time) but I think McBride came up with the idea.[/i]

(Edit: corrected an html mark-up error)

 

Those pieces tend to focus on canon and gloss over Legends, so it's not really a discrepancy; Lucas did have the idea to bring Maul back as far as canon's concerned, regardless of whether it had been done in what-if stories beforehand.

 

Fair enough. So was Lucas unaware of what was being published in what is now the Legends designation?

 

Yup, Obi-Wan also refers to Maul as a ''Old Wound'' in the Rebels episode Twin Suns, which is a reference to the ''Old Wounds''.

 

The distinction as I see it is that Old Wounds was just a fun "What if?" scenario. It wasn't considered part of "canon" even when it came out.
Lucas is the one who decided to bring Maul back, and integrate him into the larger story in a serious way.

 

That's cool - I love it when comic creators get a nod from people like Lucas and Filoni!

Yup - that makes perfect sense.

I must admit when I first saw McBride's Maul with those demon mechanical legs I thought I would faint with the coolness of the whole thing.

https://cdna.artstation.com/p/asset...ron-mcbride-sw-visionaries-014.jpg?1489907106

 

Yes, but then he said to Filoni ''get it done'' and he didn't interfere with the story. So probably Filoni used it Old Wounds as a reference. Filoni could've used a very different method as well.

 

read the Grevious one as the finale, it had another vision quest like the Maul and Qui-Gon issues but I dig the twist that Grevious deep down is terrified that the Jedi mystiscm could end him. I liked all of these issues, some more than others. The bad guy issues seemed to be more tight and had Luke Ross art which really helped. but it was fun to see in the Republic era because the post-reboot PT era content has been kind of sparse. The fun writing really helped too.

 

My overdue comic book marathon continues! I have a lot to say about this volume. The PT era can be so weird.

I didn’t know anything about this arc except the Grievous one (more on that below), namely that it didn’t feature San Hill, so I had pretty much written this entire volume off as a complete waste of time. As I have the entire Disney era.

Well no, but if we remove Sanny from the picture, actually this entire volume is pretty great, as is the Disneyverse. I guess the stories were written by Jody Houser, with some different artists. I don’t know who Jody Houser is, but I thought she did an excellent job telling mostly original stories. Which is hard to do with some of these characters, in a single-issue format (that is, each character’s tale has to be wrapped up in one go).

So… random comments and images ahoy:

Qui-Gon’s tale:

-This one was one of the best.
-Amazingly original art.
-Qui-Gon’s persona is perfect, and the story seems longer than just one issue for some reason. A lot happens. The tension with Yoda and the council is excellent (but especially that they used Yoda – he’s really a major part of the Jedi problem… he reminds me of my boss, you can tell he wants to do the morally right thing behind the scenes but he caves to the masses under public pressure from those with $).


I also love the tree lady. She looks so awesome. Kinda like a WoW Draenei. Too bad she’s only in this one comic… I’d like to see this species again.


Maul’s tale:
-Cool connection with the Twi’lek padawan in the earlier Maul series.
-This comic has interesting parallels with the Qui-Gon one. The two go on an imaginary killing spree at the end. Except Qui-Gon learns something from it, and Maul just proves he’s… really, really messed up in the head. Like totally. I think even Palps is looking at him sideways by the end.

Obi-Wan’s and Jango’s tales:
-These are also parallels. Both are father figures with “sons” around the same age. Both end with the kids getting a knife to the neck:
-Except Anakin freezes (bizarrely!), and Obi-Wan has to save him. Boba just straight up kills his attacker. Then blows another guy away. And Jango’s like “THERE’S MA’BOY!!!”

-I gotta say that’s… I don’t know what I take away from that. Obi-Wan really screwed up somewhere? I still feel like we haven't gotten a good Anakin/Obi-Wan story that gets at that question.
-Also, are these Vergeres? They look like Vergeres. I mean Fosh.


Anakin’s and Padme’s tales:
-I don’t really have any comments about these two. The Padme one was sort of like In Triplicate, but without Passel Argente’s creepy uncle, so it’s just not as good.

Dooku’s tale:
-Another story with excellent art.
-I gotta say the Disney authors really know how to get the most out of the character. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a “bad” or even mediocre Dooku tale in the new canon. They’ve all been stellar.



Grievous’s tale:
-I heard when this one came out that it was trippy, and people were weirded out by it.
-My expectations were too high. Much too high. Like. High.
-Not enough San Hill.
-The art was, again, outstanding.

Mace’s tale:
-Decent Mace story. But why, oh why, whenever there’s a problem in the pre-TCW times, like a mild problem where a couple of kids are kidnapped like this one, the ENTIRE Jedi Council gets called on site? No wonder the Republic was confused by the Jedi’s purpose by the end. (this was an issue in the old EU too)


Asajj’s tale:
-Cute.

Rex’s tale:
-It’s really a Jar Jar tale in disguise. It seems every time he shows up in a TCW story, the lead character he happens to be paired with breaks the fourth wall for a minute, stares point-blank at the audience, and you just know they know they’ve got to get through with it. Their time has come to baby-sit Jar Jar through a tale. Sorry, Rex.