“The Shadow of the Nihil: Out Of Balance, Out Of Time”
Creative Staff:
Story: Cavan Scott
Art: Georges Jeanty
Colors: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: VC’s Ariana Maher
What They Say:
KEEVE TRENNIS and bond-twin TEREC have defected to the villainous NIHIL. · With AVAR KRISS and her former master closing in, Keeve must make a terrible choice. Can she take an innocent life to secure her place within the TEMPEST? · A turning point is reached in the lives of THE JEDI OF STARLIGHT BEACON. The shadow of the Nihil has never loomed larger!
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. Georges Jeanty along with Karl Story and victor Lazaba are back for the artwork here and they’re working well with colorist Carlos Lopez, who has done a lot of work on the Star Wars properties in general to help keep to that familiar style and tone. I like the detail we get with all of the creatures with the Nihil and the layouts are pretty solid all-around so that it has a good flow to it that makes it engaging to read.
While the story is focused on a singular event at the moment, it is moving in two distinct places. The Republic ship with Kriss and the other Jedi are racing to where Terec and Keeve are thanks to the connection Ceret shares with him. It’s something to gives us a chance to keep tabs on these characters a bit and raise the tension as they’re getting closer as events for the others with the Nihil only increases. We do get a little more tension along the way when Sekeer gets a communication from the Starlight as the doctor has found out why his connection to the force is fading out, which is now fully public knowledge within this group. Not the best thing before going into battle but it’s not fleshed out as the connection between Ceret and Terec is broken and we see Ceret is basically falling into a death spiral without it. And that’s just the first thing that’s going to make this mission even harder.
For Keeve and Terec, they’re trying to make sure they don’t kill Myarga while not giving away that they’re Jedi until the rest show up. It’s almost a bit of a delicate game but Keeven is handling it fairly well while keeping to their cover and using others, and the Force, to try and help Myarga. It has some good tension to it as she manages to delay that execution, but Myarga can’t seem to understand what it is that Keeve is doing. So much so that once she’s able to speak later, she blurts out how there are two Jedi right in the Nihil’s midst. Suffice to say, this is not going to make that alliance any strong with Myarga and it shifts to the action side with Keeve and Terec just trying to stay alive. But we get a twist as Lourna Dee is apparently alive and well here and has a special item that will basically be the Kryptonite of Jedi, which I’m not exactly keen on there being such a thing. It just feels like too much of a lift and something that wouldn’t be missing in so many other important areas.
In Summary:
While this is Lourna Dee’s first formal full appearance in the series, she’s been around a bit before it in some of the books and elsewhere but I think this is my first time reading her. I don’t recall the name from what little I’ve read elsewhere of the high republic era works so it’s certainly an interesting character as she’s designed right out of the old Weapon X look from Barry Windsor-Smith. I do like this issue in general with what it does for Keeve and Terec and the subsequent events with Ceret as that’s going to further show just how problematic their bond is and the tidbit with Sskeer just makes me want to get that information straightaway. It’s a decent issue that sets up what’s to come in this arc but I again just wish for more downtime and character time rather than the constant push of events and motion that these first ten issues have been.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: October 20th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
