Tales from the Legends continuity of Star Wars, taking place millenia before the films, during the origins of the Jedi!
The origin and early days of the Jedi order! Thousands of years before A New Hope, before lightsabers and hyperspace, a group of beings on a distant planet strive to balance the mysterious Force -- until a stranger arrives, and the doors to the galaxy are thrown open! Millennia later, in the wake of the Sith Empire's reign, two Jedi legends emerge: Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel-Droma! But when Exar Kun covets the secrets of the Sith, will dark knowledge corrupt both him and Ulic? Only Nomi may have the answer to their fates! As war turns Jedi against Jedi, who will survive...and who will be lost to history?
COLLECTING: Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Force Storm (2012) 1-5, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Prisoner of Bogan (2012) 1-5, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Force War (2013) 1-5, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi (2012) 0, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - The Golden Age of the Sith (1996) 0-5, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - The Fall of the Sith Empire (1997) 1-5, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (1993) 1-5, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - The Freedon Nadd Uprising (1994) 1-2, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - Dark Lords of the Sith (1994) 1-6, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - The Sith War (1995) 1-6, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi - Redemption (1998) 1-5, material from Star Wars Tales (1999) 23, Dark Horse Comics (1992) 7-9
John Ostrander is an American writer of comic books. He is best known for his work on Suicide Squad, Grimjack and Star Wars: Legacy, series he helped create.
Originally an actor in a Chicago theatre company, Ostrander moved into writing comics in 1983. His first published works were stories about the character "Sargon, Mistress of War", who appeared the First Comics series Warp!, based on a series of plays by that same Chicago theatre company. He is co-creator of the character Grimjack with Timothy Truman, who originally appeared in a back up story in the First Comics title, Starslayer, before going on to appear in his own book, again published by First Comics in the mid 1980s. First Comics ceased publication in 1991, by which time Ostrander was already doing work for other comics companies (his first scripts for DC Comics were published in 1986).
Prior to his career in comic books, Ostrander studied theology with the intent of becoming a Catholic priest, but now describes himself as an agnostic. His in-depth explorations of morality were later used in his work writing The Spectre, a DC Comics series about the manifestation of the wrath of God. His focus on the character's human aspect, a dead police detective from the 1930s named Jim Corrigan, and his exploration of moral and theological themes brought new life to a character often thought of as impossible to write. He has also worked on Firestorm, Justice League, Martian Manhunter, Manhunter, Suicide Squad, and Wasteland for DC.
This omnibus collects a LOT and is a really high-quality collection. The comics are in a great order, and most of them are brilliant.
Dawn of the Jedi is an underrated and fascinating read, even if sadly cut short by the Disney sale, with nice art and a solid story and characters.
Tales of the Jedi as a whole is something I have a more controversial opinion on. It is a milestone comic and one of the most important and influential in the entire franchise, but I didn't care much for it, sadly. The art is really nice, and the characters are solid, and even the story is good, I just have a real strong distaste towards Tom Veitch's writing style, and even struggled with most of Kevin J. Anderson's writing.
However, there is one that fucking blew me away.
Tales of the Jedi: Redemption is a sort of epilogue set a decade after the finale of the other Tales of the Jedi comics. The art is gorgeous, the characters are much more mature and interesting than they ever were in the other comics, and the writing is beautiful and profound. It is a rather introspective comic dealing with the events of the other comics on an emotional level, with tiny scales that only really matter to the individual people involved rather than the galaxy as a whole. This makes it far more impactful, as we follow Vima Sunrider, the daughter of Nomi Sunrider, and Ulic Qel-Droma. It's a true deep dive into Ulic, dealing with suicide and grief, and it's such a hard-hitting comic that it genuinely made me emotional after finding the other comics such a slog. It's honestly worth it just for this arc, which is worth this omnibus alone!
I'd strongly recommend this omnibus to any omnibus collectors who are Star Wars fans looking for something a little different to read.
There's fun to be had with these stories. I'm giving this book 3.5 stars.
So, in a chronological reading order, this would the very first omnibus to read, because part of this takes place even before the old republic. It's also very new reader friendly, as almost all the characters in this book are introduced here for the first time.
This omnibus covers basically two parts:
The Dawn of the Jedi: This storyline spans 15 issues and was published in the 2010s. As such, the artwork is amazing, but the story feels very rushed. It starts out with a lot of world building and history. Then the story focuses on a few characters and slowly builds to a massive war. The early beginngs of jedi lore is intriguing, but I could still ask: 'And what came before this?'.
I really like the design of the antagonists here, the Rakatans look creepy, but very cool. The story has some problems, as there's a huge war, but no characters die. As usual, Jedi Masters are not very competent. The story ending feels rushed, and some threads are left unexplored.
The Tales of the Jedi - Sith Prelude: This spans 10 issues, all of it published in the 90s. It functions as a prelude, that only loosely ties into the main story. This prelude is entertaining, but also feels quite rushed. The artwork is great for it's time and it focuses a lot on the Sith side of things. It is a bit inconsequential to the main ongoing, however.
The Tales of the Jedi - Sith Prelude:: Then there's the main attraction of this omnibus, spanning a total of 19 issues plus a few extras here and there. The writing is very dense, so this really feels like the main part of the book.
It starts of quite slow and does a lot of world building and introduces the reader to the characters. It is well written and engaging, but it progresses very slowly. From the very beginning, it becomes obvious that the established Jedi order is an incompetent bunch, ready to be toppled.
I do like, that this story seems to have 2 main characters and a lot of side characters, and it jumps back and forth and keeps things engaging and interesting. The dark side steadily grows and takes hold of more than one jedi. The transformation to the dark side is very reminiscent of the prequel trilogy, even though it was published before these movies came out.
As things escalate, the pace of the story becomes quicker and the reading experiences much more enjoyable. The artwork started out quite rough, but it looks great in the later issues.
I think I would have preferred a smaller omnibus of just the Tales of Jedi, as the other stories really dilute this collection.
Overall I can recommend this omnibus, but it's not a quick read.
I’m a sucker for ancient Sith and Jedi’s lore, so I was pretty thrilled at the prospect of this omnibus. Here we have different tales settled in different epochs, collected in chronological order for this collection. The quality varies in writing and art, and there are some inconsistencies between authors (for example the details about Naga Sadow), but one gets the sense of an overreaching development in the plot. The first saga about the origin of the Jedi (or better said Je’ daii) and the Infinite Empire and the last tales are the best part of the omnibus; it’s fascinating to explore the pre-Sith darkside forces and the way the idea of light and darkness was different in the early days. Overall an ok reading like many Star Wars comics
Dawn of the Jedi series is a fun series that explores a completely different era for the franchise but had to cut itself short due to the Disney merger
Tales of the Jedi is the usual slop that Kevin J Anderson writes in his star wars material.
The only part of this Anthology that had any true emotion behind it was Redemption arc of the Tales series.