“Heart of the Drengir: The Root of Terror”
Creative Staff:
Story: Cavan Scott
Art: Ario Anindito, Mark Morales
Colors: Annalisa Leoni
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramgna
What They Say:
THE BATTLE AGAINST THE DRENGIR REACHES ITS THRILLING CLIMAX! AVAR KRISS has gathered a team of JEDI to take the fight to the DRENGIR deep in WILD SPACE, but KEEVE TRENNIS is nowhere to be seen. Are other forces at work on the Drengir’s deathworld? Guest-starring a host of High Republic Jedi! COHMAC VITUS! REATH SILAS! THE STAR HOPPER PADAWANS!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With so much work to do to establish this time period if the comic is your first experience with it, it took some time but I’m definitely enjoying what Cavan Scott did to get things in order and moving. With the book now in its second arc and getting a little… weirder, shall we say, it’s definitely hitting a strange sweet spot. Ario Anindito and Mark Morales are back for the artwork here and they’re working well with colorist Annalisa Leoni as there’s a distinctive feel to things while still feeling a part of the larger Star Wars universe. I like the detail we get with all of the creatures with the Drengir and the layouts are pretty solid all-around so that it has a good flow to it that makes it engaging to read.
With the High Republic material feeling like we’re getting a few interconnected stories that are blending together quickly from one to the next, I’ll lament that there isn’t some downtime to reflect and worldbuild on the comics side here a bit. But what we get has us thrown into the fight against the Drengir in full and that definitely has its fun. We do see that the folks on the Beacon are being pulled in different ways and I get the frustration over them talking about the Fair since Kriss and the rest are in a huge fight as it shows a kind of disconnect in how the Jedi Order operates in this particular time period. But it is fun to watch as they work alongside Myarga the Hutt to defeat the Drengir, though Myarga keeps viewing it more as though she’s in charge with some unruly Jedi that just aren’t listening to her.
It plays out well with some nice double-page spread material to showcase the fight between the two sides and plenty of ongoing material. The arrive of Keeve along with Orlan proves to be the game-changer, though it initially focuses on the relationship Orlan has with Sskeer, which looks like it’s something I really want to see explored more and made more real. But it wants to focus on how Kriss has been captured and Keeve knowing the way to deal with the situation thanks to her time in Sskeer’s head. It suffers in the way a lot of comics do these days in that it moves too fast to get things done, but it does it well enough that you get it and roll with the flow. Kriss is handled well enough but its focus is on how the newly knighted Keeve is able to show them the way and that she understands what makes the Jedi who they are – much to Myarga’s anger as the Drenginr core won’t be eliminated.
In Summary:
The period of the High Republic offers a lot of things to explore and understand, to showcase a very different age of the Jedi than how we saw them at the end of their power and the end of the Republic. I like the superficial characters that we get here which are just starting to be explored (and getting explored in novels in some cases) but I wish the comics would lean a touch more into the novel side to just showcase and breathe in and out more. To exist within this period instead of racing from danger to the next, fighting and yelling all the way. It’s done well for what it’s trying to do and it certainly has a lot of fun with it, but it leaves me wishing it was just a bit more.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 11th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
