Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Vol. 4

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures #4

by W. Haden Blackman, Ryan Kaufman, Justin Lambros

Four more tales of hyperkinetic Clone Wars action! As the Clone Wars burn across the galaxy and the true intentions of the Sith are revealed, the true heroes of the conflict emerge. Chewbacca leads the Wookiees against the Republic invaders on the jungle world of Kashyyyk, R2-D2 and C-3PO uncover a plot to assassinate Padme, an orphaned refugee witnesses the rough life of a Clone Trooper firsthand, and Anakin Skywalker fights alongside a young Jedi who will play a part in his descent into the Dark Side.

• More stories of harrowing danger and astonishing heroism—all done in the stripped-down, high energy style of the acclaimed Cartoon Network series.

Genres: Star Wars, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Graphic Novels Manga

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 2005

About the author

W. Haden Blackman is a writer who has long worked in the Star Wars universe. He is also the project lead on the MMO Star Wars: Galaxies and the video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Reviews

[Sophie_The_Jedi_Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we go again!

The first story in here is more of what you'd expect from these books - Artoo and Threepio having a misadventure in their signature personalities.

The second one is one I remember from when I first read these, but it confused me then and it still does now. See, this one is Anakin going off on a rescue mission to pick up this Jedi woman. And Anakin's kind of flirty with her? I mean, only in the context of joking because obviously, but it still felt weird. Not only is Anakin married at this point - and being desperately in love with Padme is a huge part of his character - but Anakin... is not a flirt. At all. He's supremely awkward in Attack of the Clones because he doesn't do this kind of thing. Maybe he is more confident in TCW, but I still have a hard time reading this as genuine Anakin.

Ooh, this next one, this one is my favorite. It's about some clones rescuing a child, and learning more about them... oh, that ending is so harsh, but it's so good.

The last one is about Chewbacca and some other Wookies fighting on Kashyyyk. It's only really notable in that Chewbacca is in it. This is another one where it has the most potential for being a full TCW episode.

4/5 stars. The third story was definitely the best, but the others are not as impactful. Onto the next one!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

this series is actually really growing on me. at first i didn’t like the fact each story was random but now i think it’s pretty cool and a nice variation of the star wars world. i still don’t know where the stories come from tho but i’m okay with it.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in 22BBY

Fun times with the Jedi during the Clone Wars!

[Graham Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read in 2005, review from 2024)

Even if I think I read this only once in middle school, it was one of the best volumes of the series. Besides seeing some favorite Star Wars characters (Chewie) and factions (Republic Commandos) it was one of the first post-Revenge of the Sith stories exploring the hard life of the clones and humanizing them and I think the first time in a Genndy Tartakovsky related Clone Wars project showing them transition towards becoming the Empire's foot soldiers.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four more adventures from the original Clone Wars cartoon days. First is a rather silly one featuring C3PO and R2-D2 followed by one with Anakin going off to rescue another Jedi from a strange droid infested space station. The last two feature Order 66 stories, which seems odd as this is only the fourth volume in a 10-volume series, and that cartoon series took place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

[Neville Ridley-smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fine mess by the Fillbach Borthers - a little bit of fun - quite silly.

The Brink by Lambross - some pretty cool bits

Orders by Kaufman - just ok

Descent by Blackman - a bit of a mess

[Rivulet027 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first story where C-3PO and Artoo inadvertently save the day through their misadventures was cute.

The second story had an interesting start. Artoo manages to pick up a weak distress signal from Jedi Knight Keto and Anakin takes off to go help despite Obi-Wan reminding him they are supposed to regroup with the fleet since they are running low on supplies and armaments. Anakin takes off to help and though he's getting thousands of life signs the space station the distress signal leads to looks abandon. After land he finds a bunch of dead clone troopers. Serra Keto is alive and insists they leave right away. Anakin insists on investigating. There are some small pink cyborg creatures that can combine to be huge. Serra tries to help and Anakin eventually punches a hole in through the outer wall of the room they're in to get the creature into space. Serra and him manage to get the door closed. Anakin starts heading to the landing platform saying that the space station is falling apart. Serra says that the only way to destroy the creatures is to destroy the space station and themselves. They make it to the landing platform and Serra is not please to see that Anakin came in a one seated fighter. "You brought a one-person ship on a rescue mission?" she asks. Anakin responds, as the space station is falling apart around them, "You can wait for a bigger ship to come along if you like." She gets in his lap. As they make their way towards his hyperspace ring he offers to take her to see some spectacular crystalline asteroids.

The third story is why I'm giving this five stars. It's told from the perspective of a young kid named Evan. He's hiding in the ruins of the farmhouse he grew up in that the droids destroyed. He gets found by a clone trooper. The leader tells him that he's going to come with them to a refugee camp. Evan protest that he doesn't want to leave his home. The trooper tells him that these are their orders and they're going to follow him. The troopers keep picking him up by the collar of his tunic. When they get to some fields Evan sees his chance and runs away. He makes it the the river, then gets attacked by a droid. The clone trooper rescue him. Now the troopers are less scary and more his heroes. They set up camp for the night and introduce themselves: RC-1013 is in charge and he goes by Sarge, Zag has a scar across is left eye, Tyto has a tattoo that you can't quite see on his right arm, and Di'Kut's armor is painted green. They answer his questions and are generally nice to him. Evan tells them, "Back there with the spider walker...you risked you life to save me". Sarge answers, "Save women and children. Those were our orders." "And 'we don't question orders'" Evan says, repeating what had been said to him earlier. "Right," Sarge agrees. Evan says, "I don't understand." Sarge tells him, "We're bred and trained to follow orders. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're bad. We've got no homes, no mothers to raise us, no fathers to guide us, but we were thrown into a war and trained to die for a Republic we'd never even seen. We've got nothing but each other and our orders." The next day they make it to the refugee camp and Sarge introduces Evan to General Traavis. Evan is wide eyed and happy to meet a really Jedi. Traavis greets them and is friendly, happy to share the news that General Grievous is dead. Then Order 66 comes through Sarge's helmet, which he is holding in his hand and Evan's standing there as they kill General Traavis.

The last story is Chewbacca and Tarfful evading clone troopers after Order 66.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a fan of droid stories 90% of the time and "Another Fine Mess" is no exception. Yawn.

"The Brink" is a decent Anakin story. At least he does something other than crush battle droids. There's a sassy girl Jedi. Idk it's something.

Orders/Descent is the second redeeming stor(ies) in the series. I'm picking up a pattern here--stories about clone troopers, outside of Filoni's Clone Wars, are often poignant for me. This one is no different. Their hearts are so damn pure, rescuing that kid, risking their lives for him, teaching him about their values. And then those values lead them to murder their friend in front of him! And then that transitions straight into them doing a genocide on the wookiees, ultimately to their deaths! Oof. If this is what it means to be a "story about space wizards for kids" then sign me up.

[Jedi Sunni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I continue to enjoy this series for what it is and nothing more. This is a series created for kids with very little complexity but enough for an adult to enjoy. This was an entertaining read none the less with plenty of good stories. There is very little in the way of character development as these are short stories. I like to see what is happening in other part of the universe during this time which you do get to see a little.This was a good read, so I give this book a 4.3 out of 5.0.

[Greg Kerestan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stylized mix of silence and stillness in the past volumes seems to be a little forgotten in this set of stories. It feels more like "Clone Wars" filler than Tartakovsky-era vignettes. Luckily, the Order 66 story has a brutal and sudden denouement that sells the whole thing, though the C-3PO story is a little silly and disposable. (Also- it's unusual to see Anakin flirt with a woman who isn't Padme!)

[Ana (Lorien's version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soy muy fan de las ilustraciones.
En cuanto a las historias, fueron diferentes a las de los tomos anteriores ya que la mayoría de enfocaba en los jedis que tenían que cumplir alguna misión, y en este vemos a varios escuadrones de clones, así como vemos otro punto de vista de cuando ejecutaron la "Orden 66" (las dos últimas se me hicieron muy tristes )😔, pero eso no quitará que me gustará, aunque si sentí que faltó un poco de acción (o talvez ya me hacía acostumbrado pura acción jsj)

[Gabriele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best issue of the series. The Story “Orders”, however, got to me. Very sad. In this story the concept of inhibitor chips was not yet developed. The chip helped to explain the behavior of the clones in later Clone Wars adaptations and in Bad Batch.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably my favourite volume so far. C-3PO falls apart again, which is fun, and some clone troopers rescue a kid and then traumatize him terribly, which is poignant. The other two stories were all right too.

[Kai Charles(Fiction State Of Mind) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this so much! The Droids take center stage in this volume

[Jenna Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

4yo liked it

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a long gap, enjoyed reading this!

[Alyce Caswell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the previous three TPBs, mostly because the attempts at humour fell flat for me.

[Paula Greenfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more adventures for our heroes. More fun and thrills. This is a great series.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

review to come

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's neat meeting up with some characters who are new to me, like Serra Keto. I wonder if they'll ever pull her into the new canon?

[Jared · Rating 2 out of 5]

Star Wars Legends Project #161

Background: Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 4 was released in October of 2005. It contains four stories in the style of Cartoon Network's animated Clone Wars series: Another Fine Mess, The Brink, Orders, and Descent. The first, third, and fourth were drawn by the Fillbach Brothers, who also wrote the first one. The second was written by Justin Lambros with art by Rick Lacy, the third was written by Ryan Kaufman, and the fourth was written by Haden Blackman W..

Another Fine Mess features R2-D2 and C-3PO. The Brink stars Anakin Skywalker. Orders centers around a squad of clone commandos. Descent features Chewbacca and various other Wookiees. All 4 stories are set around the end of the Clone Wars, 19 years before the Battle of Yavin. The latter 2 deal specifically with Order 66 and its aftermath.

Summary: In Another Fine Mess, everyone's favorite droid duo bumbles through a series of misadventures that accidentally wreaks havoc on a Separatist plot targeting Padme Amidala.

In The Brink, Anakin responds to a distress call and finds a lone Jedi fighting for survival against a bizarre and deadly alien threat.

In Orders, a commando squad rescues a boy whose family were collateral damage of a Republic bombing and give him a vivid lesson in the value clones place on following orders.

In Descent a squad of clone troopers gets a vivid lesson in why it's a bad idea to go to war with the Wookiees.

Review: You can refer to my review of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Vol. 1 for some general thoughts that apply to the series as a whole.

Orders was the best of the lot, and played havoc with my sympathies. As usual, the stories that revolve around clones are the best, and this one has several fun easter-egg references to Karen Traviss's Republic Commando novels and an emotional gut-punch of an ending. Very solid.

The Brink makes the least sense by a long shot. The enemy Anakin is fighting is weird and never really explained. It's a thin excuse for crazy Jedi action, but the framework is flimsier even than normal. And of all the characters, I hate the way Anakin is drawn the most. He looks like a has-been '80s rockstar. Not good.

The other two are just variations on the same theme, but in different genres: Our heroes emerge triumphant from a battle with enemy forces. Except the droid story is a slapstick comedy and the Wookiee story is an action thriller. Or they would be if they had more of an actual plot. Take or leave.

C-

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another likable addition to the series. Aayla Secura crash-lands on Endor and frees the local Ewoks from the horrors of some sort of terrible spider creature. For comic relief, she “captures” a rather sarcastic battle droid whose legs and arms she cut off and carries like a backpack afterwards (the beast ends up “killing” him). Senator Bail Organa uses politics as a weapon and rescues Shaak Ti from the Separatists.

The other remaining stories were the best. The clones are fighting the separatists on the planet of Vidaav. The separatists decide to abandon their allies and retreat, and activate some sort of mining explosive that’s somehow big enough to destroy the entire planet. A clone commander heads into the facility to de-activate the device. In the meantime, one of the natives (who were fighting alongside the Separatists) has somehow caught on to the same fact. These two enemies are now both trying to save the planet, and eliminate any Separatists in the way. As it happens, both enemies confront each other in the control room just as the explosives are about to go off.

The other story has a similar theme. A Jedi apprentice lands on Ragmar V to battle some unwanted renegades, while his Master directs the battle from above the planet. Order 66 is issued, and the Master dies, while the apprentice fights his way over to the renegades’ side, and they both fight together against the clones (based on the ending, for quite a while after that).

[Jaime K · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this adventure compilation, Order 66 occurs, showing how unrelated each substory is.

In Another Fine Mess, R2 and 3PO are on Bri'ahl with Padme and get into some trouble to where 3PO loses his head again. They run into activists acting as Clones, and thwart their plans.
This was maybe a 1.5/5 stars. It was redundant and unnecessary.

The Brink focuses on Anakin taking a solo mission from Obi-Wan after he hears a distress signal. he's brought to a Jedi facing some very odd aliens.
This was a 2/5. I really didn't like the whole 'Anakin saves female Jedi and she has to sit on his lap' bit.

The Clones Orders find a kid named Evan after a battle, and take him with them. Evan learns the harshness of Clone's orders and how they must obey...even with Order 66.
It shows the hardships of the Clones from the very beginning (and I love the Mandalorian embedded in it. Kal Skirata obviously trained them ;) )
5/5 stars

Descent takes place on Kashyyyk, I assume after Order 66 because the Wookiees face the Clones in a firefight. The Wooks lead the men to a monster's nest.
4/5 stars

[Brooke Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book for a different type of audience. But I have to admit, it was not my favorite book. I am not a huge fan of star war but the authors did a very good job of making the stories within the book relate very well to the star wars series. What's interesting about this book is that each story within the volume is scripted and illustrated by different people. Each story is different which is nice for children because they are getting three different stories within one book. All of the stories are set up in comic book form which make the stories easy to read. These stories contain all of the different stars wars characters that people know and love. This would be an excellent book for younger boys because the stories appeal to them most.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suitable for children aged 8+ and those who have seen the cartoons.
Four tales in this volume. A great story with our favourite droids who bumble about after crash landing on a planet. Anakin goes on a rescue mission, and refuses to listen to advice. Clone troopers rescue a child, the twist is so well played on an emotional level that you don't expect in this style of comic. Clones vs Wookies, a fun tale.

A good read.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cartoon Clone Wars adventures continue to be entertaining, both the stories and the art. Writers and artists include the Fillbach brothers, Justin Lambres, Rick Lacy, Ryan Kaufman, Haden Blackman, and Dan Jackson. Good for kids and adults.

Published in trade paperback by Dark Horse Books.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite Clone Wars Adventures graphic novel so far. Artoo and Threepio are accidentally lucky, Anakin makes a new friend in Serra (I'd like to read more about these two!), and little Evan reminds me of why Order 66 was so tragic and awful!

[Sisp4c_ryanlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exellent!

[The Third Place A Teen Library]

SW cwa v.4

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

cha's collection of starwars, intresting variation on the drawings