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Post by Duragizer on Jul 23, 2024 22:30:06 GMT -5
This is a very strange ending point for a mini series... I wonder why they decided to make them continuing minis instead of just an ongoing 'Tales of the Jedi' series (which is essentially what it was). I guess for breaks/lead time? It does take 6 months for the Freedon Nadd Uprising to come out, but once it does the next one 'Dark Lords of the Sith' follows immediately. It's a bit odd. I'm wondering if that's just how Dark Horse rolled back then. All the Dark Horse tie-in material I've read from the '90s consists of miniseries, SW and otherwise. I do feel this ends up hurting the TOTJ storylines further down the line. The Great Hyperspace and Sith Wars end up very truncated, making them feel smaller and less impactful than they should've been. An ongoing series with room to breathe would've suited the storytelling so much better. Part of me would relish a TOTJ remake, but I just know it wouldn't end up appealing to my tastes. It'd turn out more like KOTOR, with abounding prequelisms, along with Disney's typically terrible writing to boot. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 24, 2024 7:18:41 GMT -5
The thing that really boggles my mind it that Dark Horse got what one would think was a pretty valuable license in 1991. We're now up to 1994, in three years they've produced 11 issues of new content, and a bunch of newstrip reprints. Not exactly a blitz.
Even as things start to ramp up its all minis or even series of One shots, unless the ongoing starts in a couple years.
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Post by Duragizer on Jul 25, 2024 18:41:59 GMT -5
The thing that really boggles my mind it that Dark Horse got what one would think was a pretty valuable license in 1991. We're now up to 1994, in three years they've produced 11 issues of new content, and a bunch of newstrip reprints. Not exactly a blitz. Even as things start to ramp up its all minis or even series of One shots, unless the ongoing starts in a couple years. I'm fairly sure Dark Horse didn't start publishing an ongoing SW series until the end of 1998, originally titled Star Wars until being rebranded Star Wars: Republic in 2002. So quite late in the game. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 25, 2024 20:06:09 GMT -5
that sounds about right... I could look it up I suppose  . IIRC, the book starts as 'Star Wars' and is the clone wars era to start (Kai Ai Mundi is the main character for the first arc I think) then it starts moving forward until we get to Quilan Vos. Then at some point it splits into 'Republic (where it pretty much continues) and 'Empire' which moves forward. It is odd.. I wonder if they were worried about flooding the market? Or if they were just not sure what to do until the movies came out? |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 27, 2024 22:58:25 GMT -5
Tales of the Jedi 2 #1  script:: Tom Veitch Art: : Tony Akins and Denis Rodier Letters: Willie Schubert Colors: Suzanne Bourdages Cover Art : Dave Dorman Title: The Freedon Nadd Uprising, Part I Date: August 1994 Rating: 5 of 10 Plot: As Oss Willum arrives on Onderon. Dark side cultists for Freedon Nadd attack Iziz...after a short battle they claim the body of the Queen and Nadd's remains.  Master Arca is in rough shape due to the dark side energy, and the Queen suggests perhaps her father (who is on death's door) might be able to offer some insight. Turns out he's not so old and infirm, but instead possessed by the Force Ghost of Freedon Nadd, and after another confrontation the bad guys end up kidnapping Master Arca, too. Ulic is very sad he failed. Meanwhile, Master Thon takes Nomi to Ossus for training, which she seems to embrace with her whole heart. We also get to meet Master Vodo (the host of the Holocron).  After 'a few weeks' the Jedi school picks 5 Jedi to go to Onderon to help, and Nomi is of course one of them. Finally, some rich dark side hobbyists that have started a group called the Krath (they become important at some point I think) steal some Sith artifacts. It seems at least some of these things will come together next issue! My Thoughts: Could that not get a decent artist to work on Star Wars? I know that was a low ebb in the popularity of the franchise and all (though I think the special editions of the original might have been around? Or was that later), but these guys are pretty terrible. Ulic is gray for some reason... it's not clear if they just decided to make him gray or he's sick with the Dark Side... if he is, why him an not the others? The Naddist ship and their big scary warrior are all black and pointy, to make sure we know they are the bad guys. (its a little better on the cover, but honestly not all that much). I'm starting to remember why I dropped these not too long from now. Continuity Notes : It's not clear about what is happening when here.... it doesn't seem like it should have taken 'weeks' to get from one world to the other... yeah Oss Willum is just arriving when everything goes down. It feels like it should be more like six months to a year. Nomi... what a mess. Her hair is red again, and she seems to have acquired the outfit she was in on the Dave Dorman covers in the previous issues. Here's the thing though... all of a sudden she's one of the five best Jedi? AND she's willing to leave her daughter with people she's only know for weeks? That really just doesn't make sense. In my head some time definitely passed. Maybe Tott and Oss has a bit of a time getting back to Onderon. No text piece or letters, but there is a massive ad for Topps' Star Wars Galaxy Magazine (Which I vaguely remember) and the Star Wars Galaxy trading cards (Which I have the first few series of and I like a lot). Looks like the the Magazine had an 8 page comic story in each of it's 14 issues, but it seems like most are put in a Dark Horse comic eventually. Some of the articles do look pretty interesting... some seem like fan dreck. Anyone have it? One thing I definitely didn't remember, they talk about how the Sith place particular value on talismans and other objects they have embued with the Dark Side... It will be interesting if that's just a one off to introduce the Krath or if that continues to be a thing. I found it funny that they show a meeting of Republic leadership on whether or not they should send the Jedi help on Onderon, and its like a cafeteria table with 20 people around it... quite a far cry from the Galactic Senate from the movies.
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Post by Duragizer on Jul 27, 2024 23:20:56 GMT -5
I don't have a problem with the art. I'd never call it impressive, but it's perfectly serviceable. Different strokes and all that, I suppose. Though Ulic's colouring definitely is off.
I should point out that Vodo isn't the gatekeeper of the Jedi Holocron. That's Bodo Baas, Vodo's descendant.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 27, 2024 23:25:31 GMT -5
I don't have a problem with the art. I'd never call it impressive, but it's perfectly serviceable. Different strokes and all that, I suppose. Though Ulic's colouring definitely is off. I should point out that Vodo isn't the gatekeeper of the Jedi Holocron. That's Bodo Baas, Vodo's descendant. Hmmm you might be right....feels like its supposed to be the same person, but maybe not |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 29, 2024 16:41:34 GMT -5
Sorry for being absent from this excellent thread for a while, wildfire2099 . I've been crazy busy for a couple of weeks with work and a family wedding. Trying to play catch up now though... Nomi Sunrider is a great character name. That is all. Pretty basic plot, but a perfectly good set up for Nomi's story. The arts goes the Star Trek alien route with Nomi and she's very human but with a weird hairline, while the Jedi she finds is the standard Trek 'humanoid with bumps on their head'. I agree that the design of Nomi and the unnamed Jedi who the reader assumes is Master Thon is a bit "Star Trek", but I do actually really like the design of the yellow-skinned Jedi with his coiled head tails or lumps or whatever they are! On the other hand, Master Thon is AWESOME. I love that dicotomy between him raging like a ferocious beast against his enemies, but then you have him in repose at the end of the story:  Yeah, that's a great twist at the end with Master Thon being revealed to be a quadrupedal beast, rather than a humanoid. This is not something that was even hinted at as being possible with Jedi in the original trilogy, which really serves to reinforce that this is a completely different time period than the original trilogy and that we will see things that seem very exotic or strange. the art is pretty uninspired... decent I guess, but nothing to write home about. I completely agree. David Roach's artwork is scribbly as all hell and really not to my tastes. It's also kinda hard at certain points to figure out what's going on in the panels. Chris Gossett's artwork in issues #1 and #2 was much better. We get quite a bit that's different back in this era than we see later. I basically agree, but something that really jumped out at me as highly unlikely is the fact that the Hutt gangster's sail barge looks almost identical to Jabba's one in Return of the Jedi. Like, this is supposed to be many thousands of years before the original trilogy, but sail barge design has not advanced at all in that time? Hmmmm…seems unlikely. I mentioned in my comments about issues #1 and #2 that Gossett's art was suitably unlike the aesthetic of the original trilogy, which I liked because it reinforced the idea that this was a totally different time. Roach's use of a near identical sail barge to the one from the OT just kinda spoiled that and took me out of the story. Vima, of course, is allegedly the same Jedi that Leia interacts with in Dark Empire... the letters page specifically says so and refers to her as 'Vima Sunrider'.. so I guess she is a pretty good jedi to live like 4000 years. Of course, we know nothing about how long-lived Nomi and Vima's race is, but in my head cannon, it was her immense strength with the Force that has given her such incredible longevity. Overall, this wasn't a bad issue by any means, but nothing to write home about either. I do vaguely remember this story, although, as with the other TotJ issues, it's likely been a good 25 years or so since I last read it. Re-reading it this week, I definitely preferred the previous two issues, but I'm hoping that this story will grab me more as it progresses. |
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 29, 2024 17:02:14 GMT -5
The thing that really boggles my mind it that Dark Horse got what one would think was a pretty valuable license in 1991. We're now up to 1994, in three years they've produced 11 issues of new content, and a bunch of newstrip reprints. Not exactly a blitz. Even as things start to ramp up its all minis or even series of One shots, unless the ongoing starts in a couple years. Quality over quantity, a lesson lost in 21st century SW comic book publishing. In the early 90s, I recall the SW newspaper strip reprints were quite popular among longtime SW fans, who were there to read the strips when new. However, if you missed out on the newspaper strip, or never managed to collect the issues of Amazing Heroes featuring reprints of the strips, Dark Horse offered fans a chance to experience one of the few great SW illustrated runs produced while the Original Trilogy was still in production (and beyond, ending in 1984). |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 29, 2024 20:54:12 GMT -5
that's a fair point... and I did enjoy those at the time quite a bit.
That's a great point about the Sail Barge, Confessor. Not JUST the sail barge, either, but the whole set up the Hutt has is absolutely intended to make you think of Jabba. I guess Hutt have long traditions?
Also, 100% agree Nomi Sunrider is an awesome Star Wars name... probably the best part of the story to be honest!
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Post by Confessor on Jul 30, 2024 10:45:24 GMT -5
More catching up... I kinds preferred this issue to the last one. There's some good story advancement here and it's great towards the end when events start to tie into the first two issues with the arrival of Ulic Qel-Droma and Tott Doneeta. I absolutely HATE that our Jedi hero is scared of the beastly Jedi Master (I guess because she's just a gentle girl) Yeah, Nomi's fear and hesitation about Master Thon seems kinda weird – especially as she's been living on the planet Ambria with him for a few months now, presumably without any incident. I like David Roach a lot better than the previous artist, but he gets a little carried away with the visual shout outs. There's a guard in what is very similar to Leia's slave girl outfit. Which is fun, if a little silly. Vima playing with a stuffed Ewok is a bit much, though. I'll admit it made me chuckle though, and I guess from a continuity stand point, they do find an old Jedi Temple on Endor at some point if I recall, so I'll allow it. It IS a bit jarring, though. Roach's artwork looks a whole lot better in this issue than it did in the last. It's still not necessarily wholly to my tastes, but it's a big improvement. Or maybe I'm just getting used to it? Certainly, the double splash page of the insectoid starship we get in this issue is really gorgeous – way beyond anything we got last issue. Vima is playing with some lizards that remind me a lot of the ones in another Dark Horse comic about a Jaxxon-rip off character What was the comic with the Jaxxon rip-off character that you are thinking of? |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 30, 2024 20:06:16 GMT -5
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 31, 2024 9:25:29 GMT -5
More catching up... This might've been the most enjoyable issue so far of the ones concerning the story of Nomi Sunrider. Roach's artwork continues to be much better than it was in the first part of this story. In particular, there are some great looking panels during the Holochron flashback sequence. This is a very strange ending point for a mini series... I wonder why they decided to make them continuing minis instead of just an ongoing 'Tales of the Jedi' series (which is essentially what it was). I guess for breaks/lead time? It does take 6 months for the Freedon Nadd Uprising to come out, but once it does the next one 'Dark Lords of the Sith' follows immediately. I think this (the bolded) is exactly why Dark Horse favoured mini-series on occasion, rather than long on-going runs – not just with Tales of the Jedi, but with a number of their series. Dark Times would be a good example of another continuing Dark Horse series that was broken up into multiple mini-series…again, because of lead times and their wanting to avoid delays. I really like Master Thon... Star Wars needs more characters like him...I wish Disney went to some of this source material instead of their 'no one is REALLY good' High Republic nonsense, but I digress. I like Master Thon too. As I mentioned earlier, I also like the fact that he is a quadrupedal beast, rather than the usual humanoid shape we see for lead characters in Star Wars. That's a refreshing change from the usual depictions of Jedi Knights. As an aside, Master Thon says in this issue that Jedi use their lightsabers as a tool to assist their connection to the Force. I don't think I've ever heard this suggested before, but maybe I'm wrong about that. While a don't mind a good reluctant hero, Veitch overdoes it with Nomi to the point of it gives off 'I'm just a girl I can't...' with is not good. Especially since we all know (they've been beating it into us the whole series) that she becomes a great Jedi eventually. I agree that Nomi Sunrider's reluctance to take up a lightsaber again and fight the pirates and Hutt enforcers who are attacking her is frustrating. But I didn't get an "I'm just a girl I can't..." vibe from this; I interpreted it as her simply being reluctant to become a Jedi (a reluctance that was established within a few panels of her first appearance in issue #3) and the trauma of having seen her husband murdered and then being forced to become a murder herself I order to protect her daughter Vima. Plus, from a storytelling perspective, her reluctance to get involved or even defend herself makes the moment when she finally does use the Force to rescue Master Thon that much more satisfying. By the way, am I right in thinking that when Nomi mentions Master Thon aiding her through the Force during their battle against the pirates, and he denies having helped her, the implication is that little Vima joined her mother via the Force during the heat of battle? That's certainly how I interpreted it. In a very odd throwaway line, the pirates mention Master Thon was bound by 'Mandalorian Manacles', so even this far back in the EU it was (sort of) planned that they would be the armorers of the galaxy. It's funny, I never really thought that was the thing for Boba Fett back in the day... I though the armor was more like an Iron Man suit... it had missiles and a jetpack and grappling hooks and probably 20 other gadgets... the actual armor was never the part I thought about. Mention of Mandalorian armour goes back as far as the Empire Strikes Back novelization from 1980, where Boba Fett's armour is described as having been worn by a group of evil warriors who fought the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. Mandalorian armour was again mentioned in the Empire Strikes Back Sketchbook from 1980 and in issues #68 and #69 of the original Marvel series in late 1982. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that West End Games added to the history of the Mandalorians being armourers and Veitch is probably taking something from the Star Wars: The Role-playing Game back material too. I think I'm going to stick with Tales of the Jedi for that and the Dark Lords of the Sith that follows right after before going back to Dark Empire II and Empire's End (Dark Empire II is pubished at about the same time). There's also a couple Droids series that we'll do after all that... then Dark Horse gets serious about glutting the market and I'll have to do some evaluating and or shopping  I bought and read the Freedon Nadd Uprising two-issue story, but I dropped TotJ after that: it just never really grabbed me. Likewise, I don't think I ever bought any of the Droids one shots or mini-series either. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 31, 2024 20:45:08 GMT -5
I agree that Nomi Sunrider's reluctance to take up a lightsaber again and fight the pirates and Hutt enforcers who are attacking her is frustrating. But I didn't get an "I'm just a girl I can't..." vibe from this; I interpreted it as her simply being reluctant to become a Jedi (a reluctance that was established within a few panels of her first appearance in issue #3) and the trauma of having seen her husband murdered and then being forced to become a murder herself I order to protect her daughter Vima. Plus, from a storytelling perspective, her reluctance to get involved or even defend herself makes the moment when she finally does use the Force to rescue Master Thon that much more satisfying. By the way, am I right in thinking that when Nomi mentions Master Thon aiding her through the Force during their battle against the pirates, and he denies having helped her, the implication is that little Vima joined her mother via the Force during the heat of battle? That's certainly how I interpreted it. I definitely like your interpretation better... maybe that's me being overly conscious of that stuff (having 3 daughters will do that ) I was thinking that it just that Nomi found her own power, I hadn't considered it could be Vima, but that makes total sense. Zahn does a similar think with the infant twins helping Leia in Last Command. I didn't feel like the lightsaber sentiment was particularly unique... I do like it alot, but I feel like I've heard it before. It could be this is the first time though for sure. |
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Post by Confessor on Aug 1, 2024 9:41:07 GMT -5
...and I've finally caught up.... Overall, I didn't think this was a bad issue. It advanced the story well enough and it's satisfying seeing the seperate story threads Tom Veitch has built coming together as the Ulic Qel-Droma camp and the Nomi Sunrider camp move closer together to join forces. Also, there's an interesting introduction of two bratty, young aristocrat cousins, Satal Keto and Aleema, who have a very unhealthy fascination with the Dark Side. I'm sure we'll see more of these two. Maybe even beyond this series? Could that not get a decent artist to work on Star Wars? I know that was a low ebb in the popularity of the franchise and all (though I think the special editions of the original might have been around? Or was that later), but these guys are pretty terrible. Nope, we're still three years away from the Special Edition re-releases of the original trilogy and the publication of Dark Horse's comic adaptations at this point. As for the art, David Roach's work in issue #3 of the first mini-series was the low point so far for me. The artwork in this issue, by Tony Atkins and Denis Rodier (presumably on pencils and inks, respectively), I don't mind too much at all. It's serviceable and does its job of telling the story in a clear manner. It also kinda reminds me of some of the artwork we got in 2000 AD on occasion, though I can't exactly say why. Ulic is gray for some reason... it's not clear if they just decided to make him gray or he's sick with the Dark Side... if he is, why him an not the others? All four of the Jedi on Onderon – Ulic, Cay, Tott and Master Arca – are drawn as looking haggard and unwell. It's stated that Master Arca in particular is suffering from the effects of having been in close proximity to the Dark Side of the Force for an extended period on Onderon. That very much ties in with what I always assumed about why the Emperor looked the way he did when I was a kid – the Dark Side psychically harms and ages its practitioners. Thinking about it, I wonder if that was something my pals and I picked up from the Return of the Jedi novelisation? I'm not sure now why we thought that, but that's definitely how we understood the Dark Side to work back in the '80s. Of course, Veitch ran with that idea in Dark Empire with Emperor Palpatine requiring new cloned bodies every so often, so this at least fits in with the earlier Dark Horse comics. Clearly though, the implication here is that even if a Jedi is just being bathed in Dark Side energy for a reasonable amount of time, their body will start to show signs of aging and decay. The Naddist ship and their big scary warrior are all black and pointy, to make sure we know they are the bad guys. (its a little better on the cover, but honestly not all that much). I'm starting to remember why I dropped these not too long from now. Yeah, the Naddist leader looks ridiculous in his battle armour – like a reject from the Micronauts or something! And worse still, his name is Warb Null! I mean, seriously….Warb Null?!! That's such a cruddy name. On a related point, Freedon Nadd himself doesn't look much better when his Force Ghost appears. He looks like he's wearing a budget costume from Tron! The Freedon Nadd Uprising was the last TotJ story I read back in the '90s. I bailed after that. Re-reading both mini-series again for this thread, I can kind of see why. These comics aren't quite as bad as I remember them, but they're not really grabbing me in any serious way either. They are just sort of "meh". Nomi... all of a sudden she's one of the five best Jedi? Shades of Rey Skywalker??? I found it funny that they show a meeting of Republic leadership on whether or not they should send the Jedi help on Onderon, and its like a cafeteria table with 20 people around it... quite a far cry from the Galactic Senate from the movies. Ha! Well, from little acorns big oak trees grow. |
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. IIRC, the book starts as 'Star Wars' and is the clone wars era to start (Kai Ai Mundi is the main character for the first arc I think) then it starts moving forward until we get to Quilan Vos. Then at some point it splits into 'Republic (where it pretty much continues) and 'Empire' which moves forward. 
