“Students of the Force: The Greatest Teacher”
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Luke Ross
Colors: Nolan Woodward
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
DARK VISIONS! A fearful vision has infected the students at the Jedi Temple, leading to a violent confrontation that could spell doom for the would-be Jedi. Will Yoda sense the danger in time, or will he lose one of his students forever?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With some Yoda-focused storytelling in the past from Marvel that was interesting, the first storyline worked well. With the second storyline, the creative team changed, which is something that has me more excited about the book so that we get more variety to it. Here, Jody Houser stepped in and they’ve done some really good work with Star Wars before so I’m glad to see them back on it again. Similarly, Luke Ross comes on for the artwork for it with Nolan Woodward on the color design. Ross has done a lot of Star Wars work over the years and they’ve got a good look here for it. It still feels very much Star Wars overall for the Marvel brand of it but there are some neat moments and layouts for how events unfold and the color design breathes some really good life into it as a whole.
This storyline wraps up quickly with this issue, which is good and bad, because varied-length stories are more appealing than writing for trades. A lot of this issue is given over to a fight sequence which works well enough but has only so much resonance and delivers some fun moments. The fight Krrsish initiates against Gheyr is pretty intense as they believe they’re doing the right thing. They’ve had the visions of what she can become in falling to the dark side and he’s doing what’s needed to stop that. Gheyr has no idea why this is playing out and we see Jaz’nick stepping in for a bit before getting hurt, which leaves it to Gheyr to win in the end, though it’s more of a stalemate overall as it comes down to physical force. It’s decently mapped out but it’s the emotional aspect of it that works well as these three friends see their bond snap completely at this point with long-term effects.
While this dominates, the more interesting time is in the back half after Yoda has settled things between them and they’ve all returned to Coruscant. Yoda’s time in talking with Dooku, learning more about conversations had in the past about visions, and the complicated nature of both visions and the infectious nature it creates is certainly handled well. Dooku’s not aloof – it’s interesting to see him teaching younglings alone – but he’s still of the belief that the Jedi Council doesn’t see what’s really happening and cites Sifo Dyas in this as well when it comes to how they handle anything related to visions. It’s a good sequence and helps to highlight more of how Dooku ended up away from all of this eventually and the framing that we get for the story with Yoda on Dagobah reflecting on these events works well. It’s easy to understand him working through all of this in the years he’s there and to have it impact him in all sorts of ways.
In Summary:
Jody Houser continues to deliver strong Star Wars stories and I wish they had the opportunity to dig into Dooku with some long-form storytelling in order to explore the character more. Or just focus on something from the Separatist point of view for a while and get into what’s going on there. This story works well to hit the right notes about the way visions are problematic and the way that during this time that the Jedi Council wasn’t taking it all that seriously. The story works well, the action is fun even as it’s serious, and it captures the kind of quiet strength of Dook’s convictions – right or wrong – that is hard for a lot of other characters to do. Definitely an enjoyable if short story but one that feels like it hit the right sweet spot.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 19th, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
