The High Republic Phase III continues on, though admittedly much slower than the previous two phases (the wait for the next main book has felt like forever!) and with that comes “Shadows of Starlight”, a four issue comic series that basically fills in the gaps between the end of Phase I and “The Eye of Darkness”, the first book of Phase III (for those not in the know Phase II took place in the past…) It does manage this in a mostly satisfying way, even if reading it after reading the book meant a lot of the gaps had already been filled in by my mind’s eye anyway… Let’s take a look!
Issue 1 focuses on the immediate aftermath of Starlight Beacon’s fall, with the entire Jedi Order called back to Coruscant for emergency meetings. The Jedi Council announce the installing of the “Guardian Protocols”, basically a list of wartime emergency acts that include such things as Padawans being pushed through to Knighthood in a hurry to bolster their forces, and abandoning several outposts to focus on defending key areas. Before all that we also see everyone’s favourite Jedi couple Elzar Mann and Avar Kriss resist giving into despair at the loss of their friend and the destruction of the Beacon, complete with Mann admitting what happened in the last moments of the Beacon’s life. It pushes them apart and Kriss heads off to Nihil space before their Stormwall goes up, with Mann heading to Coruscant as told. Finally we also see Yoda reveal he has brought in a Nameless expert: ex-Jedi from Phase II (a.k.a. a hundred years ago) Azlin Rell, who has survived this long past his life expectancy due to falling to the Darkside and using its power to sustain him, but never actually focusing on anything other than the Nameless, thus he isn’t a Sith or anything evil as such, but his mere presence makes the rest of the Council extremely nervous.
Ah so “Hroooar” is Wookie for “For Life and the Light!”, got it.
Issue 2 is entirely focused on Avar and Elzar as the former fights off Nihil marauders in their home turf while the latter starts meddling with old technology in an attempt to contact her through the Nihil’s broadcast blocker. He uses a piece of old Jedi technology to get a single message to her, which lifts her spirits while nearly killing him, so he decided to change tactics. This leads to the start of “The Eye of Darkness” novel quite nicely. Issue 3 similarly ends with two characters in the place they are in the novel as it focuses on Bell Zettifar and Burryaga, including a brief recap of the “Tales of Light and Life” short-story where Bell found Burry alive after the fall of Starlight, and a scene where they get officially Knighted. We also see Bell’s Master Indeera Stokes at least able to get about in a wheelchair and Bell reunite with his Charhound Ember before the two newly minted Knights decide to go on board a ship bound for the edge of the Stormwall to protect those they can.
I see a young Stellan Gios was Tony Stark. Interesting development!
The third issue also shows us how Jedi Grand Master Pra-Tre Veter got captured and unsurprisingly it wasn’t easily! It was a great scene, shame I know where it leads… Finally Issue 4 focuses entirely on Marchion Ro and how his Nihil went from directionless rabble to a chain of command that included several subordinates handling different parts of the Nihil empire, including politician Ghirra Starros and evil scientist Boolan (who was actually a child convert of the Path of the Open Hand from Phase 2, which I didn’t realise when reading the book originally) Again, all these people were introduced in the book and introduced well but its nice both seeing them in person and seeing how they got involved and rose in power within the Nihil. That’s it! No need for a Spoiler Section here…
Overall Thoughts:
Marchion Ro starts a Nihil rave that lasts for days. Seriously, it goes on for DAYS.
Overall “Shadows of Starlight” was a good preview for “The Eye of Darkness” but given I read it after I read that book it didn’t do a lot for me. I liked seeing some of the characters and incidents referred to in the book in comic form, that’s always fun, but overall it was a “fine” gap-filler that really didn’t need to exist due to how well the book was written anyway…
