STAR WARS: LEGACY – FIGHT ANOTHER DAY (ISSUES 32 & 33)
June 2nd 2009 02:44
Category: Graphic Novels/Comics
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Production Team: John Ostrander – script, Omar Francia – art/cover art, Brad Anderson – colours & Michael Heisler – letters
Cost: AU$7.95/US$2.99
You know for many many years I had always thought that Mon Calamari was both the name of the planet and one of the two intelligent species that lived on said planet. Seems that I was very much mistaken in that regard, Mon Calamari is the name of the species, the actual planet is known simply as Dac. This world as well as being home to the Mon Calamari is also home to the Quarren, and it is now the site of a sweeping pogrom that has been initiated by the Sith at the behest of their dark master, Darth Krayt. The Dark Lord has decreed that the Mon Calamari are to be wiped from the face of the galaxy for the complicity in the theft of the prototype star destroyer, Imperious. It is an extreme penalty to inflict, but then again overreaction has been the way of dark lords down through the millennia, considered thought in contrast has not.
It’s a potentially fatal move for the Sith, the Empire of Darth Sidious learnt to its cost how stubborn, dogged and determined the Mon Cals can be when faced with impending doom. And as the opening moments of this particular two part story show that is still very much the case. The Mon Cals may have become used to the peace of the Galactic Alliance and even been resigned to the re-emergence of the Sith yet they have not been complacent by a long shot. Caches of secret weapons and secret installations have all been utilised by the Mon Cal rangers, the resistance that has swiftly been organised. Someone in the Mon Cal leadership obviously had the foresight to realise that dark times were likely to come again and the people had be best prepared for it as best they could.
In a way the struggle that is taking place on Dac harkens back to when the Separatists under Count Dooku backed the Quarren Isolation League in their struggle against the Mon Cals during the Clone Wars. At that particular point in the history of this watery world the Jedi and Clone troopers came to the aid of the beleaguered Mon Cals. This time another wielder of the force has agreed to aid them, although Master Treis Sinde, is a somewhat different kettle of fish from the Jedi of the current and Clone Wars era. At least that is how it seems, but what shows on the surface is not always indicative of the deeper currents swirling within a person’s inner being.
With their communities being destroyed and refugees attempting to flee to safe havens where they cannot be found by Imperial and Sith forces the Mon Cals are like an animal being chased by a rapacious pack of predators, and that is a fairly accurate summation of the Imperial genocide campaign. The mobile fortresses that the Imperials use for controlling the campaign and deploying forces are called Acklays, named after the rapacious predator that is native to the world of Felucia. The fighters they employ for more surgical operations are called sharks. It is as if the world of Dac has become the corpse of a wildebeest that has fallen to a pride of lions and is now being slowly devoured by said pride.
Still Acklays and Sharks, these are all mundane means to achieve the ends of the Sith and being the kind of people they are the Sith are not ones to sit on their laurels and rely solely upon mundane methods. Especially when their enemies the Rangers are masters at guerrilla warfare and possessed of an almost fanatical devotion to their people and their culture. No the Sith Lords are also delving into more arcane means of achieving their ends, as is their want and methodology, somewhere in the undersea wilderness at one of the many death camps established to ‘process’ the Mon Cals for extermination a sinister plot of horrific proportions is about to be unleashed on the as yet unsuspecting Rangers and their kin.
Years ago, long before their was a prequel trilogy Kevin J Anderson did a story with Dark Horse comics called Star Wars Jedi Academy: Leviathan. It was a four part extravaganza where young Jedi knights from the recently established Jedi Academy of Luke Skywalker investigated the mysterious calamity that had befallen an isolated mining colony. It seems that it was no ordinary thing that had caused the calamity at the colony; it was a creation of the dark side known as Leviathan, a gargantuan monstrosity that is capable of using the dark side to consume the life force of any poor sod who gets to close to this creature. Why do I mention this past epic, well I am glad you asked as it seems that the Leviathan, even though it ended up being defeated by Luke Skywalker’s Jedi, has not been buried for good. The Sith in their misguided malevolence have recreated this beast and programmed it to be used for their sinister purposes on Dac.
Naturally they have made some genetic changes in order that their new improved Leviathan can cope with its aquatic environment, thus it is a water Leviathan, a juggernaut of dark side energy tasked with killing all Mon Cals in its wake. Unleashed from the chasm near the death camp in which it had been slumbering since its dark ‘birth’ it moves off towards where the Rangers and a flight of refugees were last believed to have been sighted by Imperial forces loyal to the Sith.
Reading these two particular issues I felt that the artwork and colouring of Misters Francia and Anderson were very much like an animated feature. It was almost as if what I was reading had been taken directly from a film and put onto the printed page. It left me wondering if both men were animation artists as well as comic book artists as there work had a similar style to my mind as any current anime such as Naruto or Bleach or even Samurai Champloo. As with all the other Star Wars features put out by Dark Horse their always is that cinematic feel, that vibe that makes you hear in your head the theme song and attendant music playing away in the background.
It would be interesting to see an animate Legacy series, if anyone from Lucasfilm is reading this give it some consideration reckon it could be a winner especially considering the talent of those who are involved in producing this line of comics from the writers, to the artists, letterers and other associated staff. As usual these issues were well worth getting a hold of, although I do have to question the price – almost eight dollars Australian is just a tad over the top for something only thirty eight pages long, an at least ten of them are adds for various items or products. Can someone explain what’s going on here? Anyhow regardless of pricing issues Star Wars: Legacy Issues 32 -33 is a good well crafted story.
Production Team: John Ostrander – script, Omar Francia – art/cover art, Brad Anderson – colours & Michael Heisler – letters
Cost: AU$7.95/US$2.99
You know for many many years I had always thought that Mon Calamari was both the name of the planet and one of the two intelligent species that lived on said planet. Seems that I was very much mistaken in that regard, Mon Calamari is the name of the species, the actual planet is known simply as Dac. This world as well as being home to the Mon Calamari is also home to the Quarren, and it is now the site of a sweeping pogrom that has been initiated by the Sith at the behest of their dark master, Darth Krayt. The Dark Lord has decreed that the Mon Calamari are to be wiped from the face of the galaxy for the complicity in the theft of the prototype star destroyer, Imperious. It is an extreme penalty to inflict, but then again overreaction has been the way of dark lords down through the millennia, considered thought in contrast has not.
With their communities being destroyed and refugees attempting to flee to safe havens where they cannot be found by Imperial and Sith forces the Mon Cals are like an animal being chased by a rapacious pack of predators, and that is a fairly accurate summation of the Imperial genocide campaign. The mobile fortresses that the Imperials use for controlling the campaign and deploying forces are called Acklays, named after the rapacious predator that is native to the world of Felucia. The fighters they employ for more surgical operations are called sharks. It is as if the world of Dac has become the corpse of a wildebeest that has fallen to a pride of lions and is now being slowly devoured by said pride.
Still Acklays and Sharks, these are all mundane means to achieve the ends of the Sith and being the kind of people they are the Sith are not ones to sit on their laurels and rely solely upon mundane methods. Especially when their enemies the Rangers are masters at guerrilla warfare and possessed of an almost fanatical devotion to their people and their culture. No the Sith Lords are also delving into more arcane means of achieving their ends, as is their want and methodology, somewhere in the undersea wilderness at one of the many death camps established to ‘process’ the Mon Cals for extermination a sinister plot of horrific proportions is about to be unleashed on the as yet unsuspecting Rangers and their kin.
Years ago, long before their was a prequel trilogy Kevin J Anderson did a story with Dark Horse comics called Star Wars Jedi Academy: Leviathan. It was a four part extravaganza where young Jedi knights from the recently established Jedi Academy of Luke Skywalker investigated the mysterious calamity that had befallen an isolated mining colony. It seems that it was no ordinary thing that had caused the calamity at the colony; it was a creation of the dark side known as Leviathan, a gargantuan monstrosity that is capable of using the dark side to consume the life force of any poor sod who gets to close to this creature. Why do I mention this past epic, well I am glad you asked as it seems that the Leviathan, even though it ended up being defeated by Luke Skywalker’s Jedi, has not been buried for good. The Sith in their misguided malevolence have recreated this beast and programmed it to be used for their sinister purposes on Dac.
Naturally they have made some genetic changes in order that their new improved Leviathan can cope with its aquatic environment, thus it is a water Leviathan, a juggernaut of dark side energy tasked with killing all Mon Cals in its wake. Unleashed from the chasm near the death camp in which it had been slumbering since its dark ‘birth’ it moves off towards where the Rangers and a flight of refugees were last believed to have been sighted by Imperial forces loyal to the Sith.
Reading these two particular issues I felt that the artwork and colouring of Misters Francia and Anderson were very much like an animated feature. It was almost as if what I was reading had been taken directly from a film and put onto the printed page. It left me wondering if both men were animation artists as well as comic book artists as there work had a similar style to my mind as any current anime such as Naruto or Bleach or even Samurai Champloo. As with all the other Star Wars features put out by Dark Horse their always is that cinematic feel, that vibe that makes you hear in your head the theme song and attendant music playing away in the background.
It would be interesting to see an animate Legacy series, if anyone from Lucasfilm is reading this give it some consideration reckon it could be a winner especially considering the talent of those who are involved in producing this line of comics from the writers, to the artists, letterers and other associated staff. As usual these issues were well worth getting a hold of, although I do have to question the price – almost eight dollars Australian is just a tad over the top for something only thirty eight pages long, an at least ten of them are adds for various items or products. Can someone explain what’s going on here? Anyhow regardless of pricing issues Star Wars: Legacy Issues 32 -33 is a good well crafted story.
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