Dissent in the ranks.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Owens
Art: Denys Cowan, Roberto Poggi
Colors: Guru-eFX
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
Mace and his squad’s first mission of the newly begun Clone Wars continues! What do the Separatists want with the planet of Hissrich? Can Mace overcome mercenary droid AD-W4 to stop them?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I’ve grown to be real fan of the prequel era of Star Wars stories and what can be told there thanks to the Clone Wars series and expanded works in the novels, the Mace Windu series has left me a little cool in genera. Matt Owens has had some decent pieces in place and characters to work with but it’s felt a bit ill-fitting in a way as it hasn’t come together in an engaging way. And I hate saying that because I’m a huge fan of Denys Cowan’s artwork but it’s just not clicking for me here and is proving to be a mild drag on the book as a whole. It’s all solid and works well in terms of structure, layouts, and designs, but it’s lacking a certain something that has come together much better in other books in this franchise.
With this issue taking us through the middle segment of the five-issue series, we’ve got the four Jedi spread out in two teams dealing with different events before coming together. Mace and Rissa are dealing with what they’re finding and have figured out where the stronghold is after handling one of the harvesters and getting a handle on events as a whole. More interesting but also more problematic is what Prosset and Fisto are up to as they’re underground facing off against a sizable creature that leads them to discover many, many, dead locals. This ups the ante on Prosset’s discomfort with this entire mission as there are a number of Jedi that are very disturbed by their involvement in this war and the toll it’s taking on innocents throughout the galaxy. Seeing what happened down there just pushes him past what little limit he had.
That cycles back to the surface when the two teams reconnect and he throws a lot of it in Mace’s face about what the council knew and how they’re using Jedi like him and Rissa as pawns. It’s a nicely tense moment as I like Proesset’s design and what he brings to the page in terms of intensity of belief and it sets us up for a fun confrontation even if it feels very un-Jedi-like. It also plays well against another pairing in the series as we get a brief flashback showing Grievous hiring AD-W4 for this overseer mission and the kind of banter that goes on between the two, especially as AD-W4 outlines some of his past brutalities. Though he takes it for the money, and a chance to kill Jedi, he’s spent most of it taking pot shots at his own Separatist supplied droids. That’s changing now that he has to go after the Jedi himself to have proof with their lightsabers since the Separatist droids claim to have killed Mace. Suffice to say, there’s a surprise and a new fight on the horizon.
In Summary:
The Mace Windu series is looking to provide some context with some Jedi that haven’t aligned to what needs to be done to protect the Republic in a war and it’s an angle that makes sense. I suspect it was covered in the Clone Wars series but it’s been a while since I saw it and I can’t remember if they did. But that’s what I get from this miniseries is that it feels a lot like a two-part story from that TV show rather than staking out some new ground within this period. The various creative elements are all strong and the execution is right but it hasn’t come together in a way that feels compelling to me and it hasn’t clicked like other books have. The aloofness of Mace is one of the issues but it’s also that we’re dealing with as many Jedi as we are with distinctive personalities and positions and none are getting enough time to really be fleshed out, which in a miniseries is problematic. There are some good kernels here and it’s satisfying my Star Wars craving enough but I was hoping for something a little meatier.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 27th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
