Review: Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #2

Star Wars The High Republic Adventures #2 suffers from a narrow perspective. As we dive in deeper to the prequel era of The High Republic, this issue shows the danger of introducing so many new characters all over again. We have just emerged from an era of storytelling where we knew all the characters and had the joy of seeing them interact and grow. We were then abruptly cut off and shuffled to a new era with no clear connection to the stories we read in phase 1. This means the creators have to be at the top of their craft in introducing the new characters and making us care about them all.

Daniel Jose Older introduces a nice cadre of rogues in this series. Unfortunately we are only seeing them channeled through the dullest of them. That combined with the much more limited artistic abilities of Toni Bruno make this arc feel dull. It cannot be overstated how much creativity and life cover artist Harvey Tolibao injected into the interiors of the last phase of this series. The depth, detail and delight of that series is completely lacking here.

The story is a basic one, Maz Kanata and her Pirates decide to investigate the evil Dank Graks’ ship while they are away. The Dank Graks decide to take over Maz’s ship in turn. Sav Malagan is our hero, an undercover Jedi Padawan on the hunt for adventure. He learns more about the crew. Coromont sings of his own heroics, gossips about Alak’s lost love and carry’s Officer Rado on his back. Officer Rado is a Jiminy Cricket of sorts, assigned to hang on Coromont’s back and ensure he stays within the law. Dexter Jettster from the classic prequel films helps Maz take over the ship even as they are attacked by the Danks in Maz’s ship. Alak hangs a droid head around his neck that tells Maz only one who uses the Force can operate the Danks’ ship.

Of course this is Sav’s opportunity to secretly step up and use the ship’s weapons. The battle is interrupted by Inspector Raf before both crews escape. The end result is that the crews switched ships and Maz is now dependent on Sav and his use of the Force to help her with the new ship.

Rather than allowing us to get to know Kanata’s crew through their actions and independent conversations, we have to go through each of them them spitting out character traits and facts to Sav. This means everyone is centered around one very dull character’s perspective. It’s Alice in Wonderland in space but with none of the character development for our hero. Maz also comes off as a cardboard character, here to push Sav along on his journey rather than having any depth. All of this could change in issues to come, but unless these characters are allowed to interact more with each other we are left with a bunch of descriptions of crazy characters rather than an actual Star Wars book.

Writing: 2.7 of 5 stars
Art: 2.3 of 5 stars
Colors: 2.5 of 5 stars

Overall: 2.5 of 5 stars

Writer: Daniel Jose Older
Art: Toni Bruno
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Author Profile

M.R. Jafri

M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.