Dan McMahon: The High Republic has been the Star Wars fix that I need every month. It’s odd after having Mando every week and a movie ever year that I still constantly want more. But this is scratching that itch. Sspecifically my new favorite Jedi Sskeer. Jake, you ready to get into this action packed issue?
Jake McMahon: Yesss I am, like dough going into the oven ssssso to ssspeak. But in all honesty yes I’m ready to dive right into this pit of action with some of the best additions to Star Wars since Grogu.
Something is Majorly Wrong on Sedri Minor
DM: In Issue 2, we got a brief glimpse of something awry on Sedri Minor but we are seeing things are a lot more complicated than we realized. When Keeve arrives with Avar Kriss, Terec is in bad shape. They are lashing out at everyone around them which makes sense because their twin is missing. They are 2 halves of one mind it seems. We saw glimpses of how something affected the other in the last issue but it’s so much clearer now that something is terribly wrong. Jedi Master Sskeer is also not doing so hot either. They both are acting a bit erratic. Sskeer’s overall demeanor is setting off red flags to his friend Avar Kriss. The whole reason they’re even on Sedri Minor is that after responding to a distress call that came from a now derelict Hutt ship, they followed the clues on the ship to this planet. So on top of this erratic Jedi issue, they all still need to find out what’s going on here as well that ended with the Nihil attacking a Hutt ship. While standing outside of the ship, Jedi Knight Keeve is approached by the locals. What’d you think of them and their situation?
JM: Well the locals are super interesting to me because it seems they have rich culture.As expected of a barley raising planet their primary food is bread but within the first few pages we see that these people are doing well enough to have a variety of bread from what looked to be a standard loaf to a rich green spiced loaf. They seem very generous to Keene when they try to give her the bread loaves. But you can clearly tell these people are being used by the Hutts for some type of cover up, and that’s clear by how dodgy their leader, Speaker Sulman, is when talking to Marshal Kriss. What’s your take on Sulman and how he wanted the Jedi gone ASAP?
DM: So from the moment he appeared on panel, I knew something was wrong. The way Ario Anindito drew the Rodian’s looking at him showed signs of distress. It’s interesting to see alien species who we haven’t seen a ton of on screen show emotion. The way Anindito draws them, it’s clear what emotions they are feeling despite me not knowing a boat load about Rodians. Speaker Sulman seems like he is up to something sketchy and outright devious. It’s clear he has some sort of sway over this people when they even clam up talking about their lost child. It’s interesting how much is going about on this small planet honestly. It doesn’t seem like the Nihil’s motivation to have too much going on in this situation after attacking the Hutt ship. But something is clearly not right all around which leads to Keeve breaking off on her own.
The Dynamic Duo
DM: While everything is sort of going haywire with her master and Avar Kriss, Keeve sneaks off to investigate on her own. It’s not long before she runs into one of the children who offered her bread before. We find out his name is Bartol and honestly he is great because he just runs head long in the field of crops. Keeve makes a remark to herself that it’s great that she has a partner which to the reader is actually kind of great. It gives us our first glimpse into how she operates as a Jedi Knight. Getting to see a young Jedi thrown into the deep end by their own accord is something that makes for great Star Wars stories. How did you think Keeve is handling herself as a Jedi so far?
JM: I think Keeve is doing great so far as a Jedi. Sure, she’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s got a lot of heart and drive to help people. Once she learns about the four people that went missing she doesn’t hesitate to go looking through the fields that took so many people. She even understands the best course of action when dealing with a child like Bartol. She knew that he was safer with her going through the tunnel than he would have been wandering around the field alone by himself. She also knew how to comfort him after they found his friend had passed away. Also is that a Cal Kestis style split lightsaber I see?
DM: Cal Kestis has nothing on Keeve, he copied her style. The fact that her lightsaber can become two is awesome but what’s even cooler is how it’s held. She has like a lightsaber bandolier across her chest where she can nestle them when not in use. I do think she handles the whole situation spectacularly. The fact that she doesn’t dismiss his grieving is something I didn’t expect from a Jedi. The Jedi code I am used to seeing is one that suppresses feelings. She tells him that it’s okay to feel sad which it is because this whole situation is truly traumatic. If she handled it differently, who knows what could have happened to him, ya know? The icing on the cake though is that she lets him hold her lightsaber which had previously been floating like a torch above them.
The Force is in All Things…Good and Bad…
DM: The root of all of this mess is actually a big beast called The Drengir. The look of this thing is intense. It looks like someone took the face from a Tremors monster, gave it a ton of tentacles, and then spliced it’s DNA with a Piñata. It’s pretty imposing in general but the fact that it has taken over the mind of a Jedi is something else. Cavan Scott is actually writing a horror monster book over at Vault called Shadow Service so I was really hoping we got some elements of that here. When Keeve and Bartol first come across it’s lair, they spot their friends basically intertwined with the monster, it looks like. Ceret has some tentacle like bits going in through their nose and mouth. Did the horror elements work for you here?
JM: I think the horror elements work really well here by the way it’s framed as a darkside entity. Terec looked like he was inhabited by that gross dark side well from The Last Jedi. But it works even better since we’ve seen on series like Rebels how Jedi interact with animals through the Force and understand them. Like the way that Ezra Bridger interacted with the wild Loth-wolves and Loth-cats is a good starting point for feeling a connection through the Force, but here we see the way Keeve and the others connect with plants and the sentient plant monster, the Drengir. The Drengir is able to aggressively use the Force to control others and I think it’s interesting, but I’m curious to see why this mean meat eating flower is so connected to the darkside. Do you think the Hutts operation has caused the planet harm to the point that the planets are being corrupted with darkness?
DM: Jake, honestly, I didn’t even think about that but that sounds like the reason I think. It’s clear something is wrong here and if this creature is now just starting problems, something had to change. It could be something that Speaker Sulman is doing to harvest all the wheat. Could be some sort of pollution that has corrupted the Drengir. The fact that it’s infecting others with some tar like goop like we see get spat all over Sskeer makes it seem like that is the best bet. Avar Kriss slices it in half too in the most hype moments of the issue. Thing is though, when its split in half then both halves become their own individual monster. The bigger issue though is that the issue closes with Sskeer appearing in front of the double monster, his missing arm regrown with vines with an ignited lightsaber in hand. So looks like the two Jedi are going to have a big problem to solve in the next issue…
Cantina Banter
- Estala, the Jedi on the Starlight Beacon, is drinking coffee that is floating next to them. Little things like this add a level of humanity to the Jedi, seeing them do normal things is something I want to see more of.
Jake McMahon
Jake likes the punk rocks and the comic books, but cannot sit still for a two hour movie. He is one of the co-hosts of the GateCrashers podcast.
