“The Nameless Terror”
Creative Staff:
Story: George Mann
Art: Eduardo Mello
Colors: Ornella Savarese
Letterer: Studio Ram
What They Say:
In a desperate bid to escape the Nameless, the Jedi pathfinders form an unlikely alliance with the disciples of the Path, and the two groups venture down into the depths of the ruined spaceship. As they descend down toward the engines, old tensions begin to flare, and the Jedi discover they have more than a single monster to fear in the darkness.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The stories of the High Republic era are definitely fun even if I’m still struggling with the period in some ways. With a few other projects in the mix for this period, Dark Horse has this four-issue High Republic book that moves into its back half as it leans a bit more into the younger set than one might think but delivers a solid enough experience. George Mann wrote a lot of Doctor Who previously, which feels ideal for some of this, but he wowed me with Engineward a couple of years ago, so I’m curious to see how all of this will play out. He’s joined by Eduardo Mello on the artwork with Ornella Savarese doing the color design and it has a good feeling about it with some interesting character designs and a good sense of ship flow that feels like it sets it to this age a bit since it’s supposed to be a couple of hundred years ago.
With a couple of issues behind us now, I’m still struggling with this book to a degree and it surprises me. Especially since it’s very dialogue-heavy and I tend to prefer that. But the reality is that it feels like a lot of the dialogue is just spinning us in circles and saying things that don’t actually mean much overall. There’s a lot of material conveyed here but it’s pretty basic stuff and it just feels a bit padded at times as opposed to the right thing in the moment. Some of it is good, such as how we get the Jedi trying to get the various Path members to ease their anger a bit in order to get everyone to work together, and it helps to highlight just how viscerally disliked the Jedi are among a number of beings. We’ve always had that but it feels like it’s in overdrive here and that’s not a bad thing.
The main thrust is that we now have a decent handle on who’s alive and who isn’t and that the ship is pretty much never going to fly again. So they have to work together to deal with the nameless entity that’s outside of the ship that seemingly has an insatiable hunger for them. Master Tarl is finally awake and worried about the creature, we get the nod again to the cargo of the ship that’s starting to hatch by the end, and a big plan put into motion to deal with creature that’s, at least for the moment, tossed aside because the creature got in the ship and is now getting ready to unleash its carnage there. And those that are sensitive to what it can do are still dealing with the aftereffects of its previous encounter. So it sets up for the finale well but there was just so much dialogue to get there.
In Summary:
There’s a lot going on in this book and it almost feels overstuffed yet light at the same time because of it. There are interesting moments but I’ve not managed to find too much of a connection with any of the characters because it feels like there are too many and they’re not given time to really stand out amid everything going on. Some of the Jedi get a bit more time, but when you add in what’s going on with the framing story in the “present” as well, it’s just busier than it feels like it needs to be and I’m uncertain just how that storytelling aspect is going to fit into it in a way that makes it seem worthwhile at this point.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark horse Comics
Release Date: May 3rdh, 2023
MSRP: $4.99
