Review: Star Wars The High Republic Adventures #4

It cannot be overstated how important Daniel Jose Older and Harvey Tolibao’s Star Wars The High Republic Adventures comic is to the larger High Republic story. This is true not only because it introduces the concepts important to the era to a youth audience in a way that shows things from a younger perspective, but also because it creates a fantastic visual language for the enemies and allies of the Jedi during this time.

The only weakness this comic has had is a tendency to break the fourth wall a bit with interspersed pages describing details of Jedi lore in a conversational way. Thankfully this issue mostly does away with this, only interspersing a single page detailing the various lightsabers of the Jedi. What is really well done with this series is keeping the perspective that of the children on both sides of this conflict.

While this is clearly the Jedi world with Masters and Padawans racing across space in massive battles, the intrigue and moral conflicts are through the eyes of Krix Kamerat on the Nihil side and Zeen Mrala from the Jedi perspective. These friends separated after Krix feels betrayed that Zeen never revealed her Force sensitive nature to him, are both filled with all the uncertainty and identity issues natural to being placed in the midst of war and duplicity. The fact that they remain in communication and are both to some extent playing each other for information keeps their test of friendship the central concern of the series.

Zeen begins the issue meditating and talking with Lula on the Jedi side before an alert is called and Farzala tells them the fleet may have found a Nihil outpost. Meanwhile on the Junk Moon Quantxi, Krix is working with the Nihil commander Marchion Ro who are trying to lure the Jedi in using Krix’s friendship with Zeen. The Jedi launch a massive attack even as Krix tries to send a separate message to Zeen asking her to meet him separately.

The decisions by Zeen and Krix are interspersed by massive battle scenes in space and a smaller chase scene on Quantxi. The issue ends with the Jedi receiving a distress call from Quantxi and heading there even while Zeen leaves the Jedi base to meet up with Krix.

In spite of being from a child’s perspective, the story and art are a treat for fans of every type. The artwork by Harvey Tolibao is true art at its finest. There is no house style at play here as Tolibao’s detailed, layered, fantasy quality of art paired with an incredibly beautiful color palette from Rebecca Nalty makes every single panel a treat.

All of this is important because the comic is creating a specific visual language for the broader High Republic world we can’t get from the novels. This is the book where we see the largest amount of Nihil and the general Jedi order within their respective worlds and it is everything we’d imagine. It is an interesting juxtaposition of this massive Jedi order against the scrappy nests of Nihil. Thankfully all of this is just the beginning as The High Republic era and Daniel Jose Older’s involvement in the Star Wars Universe are just getting started.

Writing: 4.5 of 5 stars
Art: 4.7 of 5 stars
Colors: 4.8 of 5 stars

Overall: 4.7 of 5 stars

Writer: Daniel Jose Older
Art: Harvey Tolibao
Colors: Rebecca Nalty
Publisher: IDW Publishing

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.