Reaching out to the dark and lonely corners of the outer rim.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Marco Castiello
Colors: Jim Charalampidis
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
Hundreds of years before the Skywalker Saga, witness the rise of a legend – the mighty Jedi PORTER ENGLE, perhaps the most skilled lightsaber wielder in the High Republic. With his fellow Jedi Knight Barash, he travels the galaxy, serving as a guardian of peace and justice. But even Porter Engle has enemies he cannot defeat.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
My inability to keep up with or connect with the novel side of the High Republic era frustrates me but what’s helped is that I’m thoroughly enjoying all of the comics coming out for it. This series has one of the architects of it telling a new four-issue tale with Charles Soule, who has been my favorite of the Star Wars comic writers for several years now. This issue feels like a continued maturation of storytelling within the universe and I’m definitely glad for it. Soule works with artist Marco Castiello here and I’ve enjoyed a lot of their work over the years but this also has a look that’s a lot more distinctive than the usual Star Wars book to very good effect. It delivers an engaging look and style with the characters and technology and the color design from Jim Charalampidis lets it show through really well and highlights some of Castiello’s strengths well.
The main thrust of this is that we’re following events about 150 years before the fall of the Starlight Beacon that kicked off the High Republic universe in the novels. Here, we get introduced to two Jedi’s that are like siblings almost. The pair are in their mid-30s with Porter being quite an affable fellow overall from what we see at the start in how he manages interacting with others on the Boneyard. He’s got some real skill to him but also works to defuse situations well first. He’s largely paired up it seems with Barash, someone he was at the Temple with that’s about the same age and we see through a flashback twenty-five years prior where they bonded. That has lasted through to now though we get the nod that because of his species, Porter will live for a couple hundred years or more and she has a more traditional lifespan, which makes things a bit awkward at times in how they view events and their working relationship together. Regardless, both are true to the Order and serve it well in the Outer Rim taking on assignments as guided to help others.
The book starts well in introducing them and how they operate together and as they move from that world to their new assignment on a far-flung world with no real communication to it. The dialogue about the nature of the Republic and the Jedi Order working together is intriguing and I hope it gets touched upon more as well. While no transports are regularly scheduled there, benign so far off the list, they luck on a group of Pathfinders that are going near Gansevor and can drop them off there. This lets us see how the foundations of communication in the Outer Rim were being established and the need to make it as strong as the core systems. We get some fun in seeing how the Pathfinders operate in this period as well and the kind of working dynamic that can exist there. It’s the kind of thing where there’s some layer of working together to progress together in this difficult area and that definitely intrigues as we get closer to the meat of the story with the mission to stop two rival factions from fighting on Gansevor.
In Summary:
Just as a first issue, this is the best of The High Republic comics that I’ve read so far. It’s strong in establishing the two leads, it provides for some really great artwork that doesn’t feel like every other Star Wars book but is still connected enough, and it engages in some good layering of the complexities of the period. The stage setting is great and something that’s either done as an info dump or just plain poorly in a lot of other comics in general. Soule nails it in making all of this engaging quickly and wanting more of everyone involved, including following the Pathfinders to see how they operate here. Castiello over-delivers with a great-looking book and works from a strong script from Soule that gives him plenty to work with. I’m excited at what this can introduce to the larger storytelling world beyond being what could be a strong standalone tale.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: December 28th, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
