Star Wars: The Old Republic Volume 2 Threat of Peace

Star Wars: The Old Republic (Collected Editions)

by Rob Chestney

A look at the era of Star Wars: The Old Republic, written by one of the writers behind LucasArts and BioWare’s massive multiplayer online game, Threat of Peace unveils a galaxy on the brink of destruction three hundred years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic!

For decades, the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire have been at war. The Sith have gained control of the Outer Rim, but their efforts to penetrate the Core Worlds have so far been thwarted. Now, representatives from both sides attempt to negotiate a peace treaty—but deception by the Sith puts the Jedi in an unfortunate position.

• Collects Star Wars: The Old Republic #1-#27, which appeared originally online at swtor.com.

• Bonus behind-the-scenes content found nowhere else!

• Written by Rob Chestney, one of the writers behind the game!

• Critical events prior to LucasArts and BioWare’s massive multiplayer online game!

• Discover more of the newest Star Wars era!

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

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Lance Shadow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Special thanks to my goodreads friend Mogsy for making me aware of the SWTOR tie-in comic series' existence.

This is the second volume in the SWTOR comic book trilogy. Threat of Peace takes place 25 years after Blood of the Empire, but it does not follow the character of Teneb Kel. This time, we get a large group of characters who appear in various parts of the MMO.

That's actually the big problem with this book- there is way to many characters to follow, and I'll elaborate later.

I love SWTOR. I gave my brief thoughts on the game when I reviewed Blood of the Empire, but from the perspective of an avid KotOR fan I think it is very underrated. I also overall like the tie-in novels for the game. However, the comics have been a different story. Blood of the Empire didn't offend me at all, but it was so boring that I couldn't even get it to a 2 star rating.
Threat of Peace is slightly better, but it was also, for the most part, bad.

THE STORY: This comic does not have a plot, or if it does, it is impossible to follow. It takes place during the last of the SWTOR trailers, the one that features Malgus slaughtering the jedi temple. It tries to cover the events surrounding the sacking of Coruscant, showing the treaty surrounding it and the way too many things going on, but again, to many things are happening to follow what is going on.

THE BAD: Well, let's get the obvious one out of the way, the plot/story/mess of stuff happening. The comic jumps around between locations, points of view, you name it, and none of it sinks in because the pacing of the book is way too fast.
The caffeine-induced pacing and constant jumping around between locations and POVs would work if the characters were more interesting, or at least entertaining. But that is not the case because the comic does not give enough time to properly develop them or give us a reason to care about them. I have the most superficial connections to some of these characters because I recognize them from the game, but this comic does nothing to add to any of their personalities.
Finally, I have mixed feelings about Satele in this comic. First off, what were they thinking with her design here? It looks nothing like Satele from the game or the trailers, which this book takes place in between! Second, I felt like satele was out of character. This is supposed to take place about 10 years after the SWTOR trailer that features Satele and Jace Malcom long after battling Malgus on Alderaan, but I don't think this comic got the character right from the vibes she gave off in that trailer or the alderaan flashback scenes from Annihilation. Hopefully the character will be done better in The Lost Suns.

THE GOOD: At least it wasn't boring. I'll give it that.
Anyways, even if I wasn't attached to any character in this book they were at least done a little better here than they were done in Blood of the Empire. There were at least character moments, and there were a couple of fun lines of dialogue. Lieutenant Tavus is a character that plays a role in SWTOR's trooper storyline and it was slightly interesting to learn about what he was like in his youth.
I will also give this comic credit for actually reading like a comic book should be read. Even if the dialogue is mostly incredibly stale, the characters at least have actual conversations that make them feel like cutout characters rather than just vessels for exposition. I'm also really happy that this comic didn't use narration.
The best thing about this again, is the art, even if it is not spectacular. The action is done ok and there are a couple panels that were pretty visually unique or interesting. The character designs were generally pretty good, and the artwork does do a good job of making the era feel apart from the movies.

THE CONCLUSION: Final rating is 1.5 stars
There is actually a sort of appendices section that describes the planets and characters in this comic at the end, and it talks about their importance to the story in the comic and the MMO. It was good that they had that, because most of the info I got for this review came from that. In all honesty, I got much more out of reading the appendices than I did reading the comic.
Threat of Peace has the exact opposite problem from Blood of the Empire- it was too fast paced and crammed way to much into one story. If you really want to learn more about the context of some of the events and background characters in the SWTOR video game, flip through to look at the artwork until you get to the appendices, and just read those. Otherwise, this comic is a mess, and you should give it a pass.

[DC · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are a few moments of witty dialog in this volume, but unfortunately they can't overcome the story telling, which is just a few steps above incoherent. I have never seen a more disjointed comic. We barely get 4 panels before hopping to another story line. You know the story is in trouble when the back of the book contains an index of sorts listing some of the key characters and places. If only I'd read that first! Would this volume make better sense if I played TOR? A good story could stand on its own for gamers and non-gamers alike.
There were a number of characters who were seemingly mortally wounded only to appear unphased by the attack on the next page or to appear deus-ex-machina style towards the end. I could only wonder what was going on. Cortosis vest? Alien powers of regeneration? Sith alchemy? Status as the Chosen One or some such? A good story would have given some hints if not an actual answer.
These events aren't suspenseful or an interesting mystery - just plot holes bigger than The Maw. In addition, character relationships are given just the briefest of nods (the romantic "tension" between 2 characters lasts for all of 3 pages, for example - making the Anakin-Padme love story from AOTC/ROTS seem like a Shakespearean tragedy).

The artwork is also... cursory, or at least in a style I don't like. Some of the inks don't seem finished, and the faces are rendered as though sculpted from clay by me at 8 years old (I wasn't exactly an art prodigy). There are also a few odd composition choices, like the panel with Braden and Nok where it took me a full minute to realize we're staring at the *back* of Braden's head, and that the horns he seemed to have mysteriously sprouted between panels actually belong to Nok's companion (face entirely obsucred by Braden's head).

I'll give volume 3 a try, but if it's like this one, will abandon the series. I've read better fan fiction and seen better fan art.

[Iset · Rating 3 out of 5]

My head hurts. What’s happening here? Events move at a mile a minute, scenes are cut down to the absolute quick and in some cases are only a couple of panels, and it feels like a thousand planets and characters are stuffed into this story. Who’s who and what’s happening where were persistent questions on my mind throughout. I thought the characters and storyline had the potential to be intriguing, but the story needed to slow the heck down, build up the characters, and explain to me WTF was happening. As a result, the story’s payoff was merely confusing and strange to me because it didn’t take the proper time to set up and really earn the payoff it was going for. I definitely felt like the comic was trying to be a gap filler amidst events that readers were already expected to know, and indeed in the author’s notes at the end its revealed that it is placed slap bang in the middle of The Old Republic – which I still have not got round to playing and thus am lost in. Maybe it’ll make more sense once I’ve played the game, but it definitely doesn’t work as a standalone or introduction for the novice approaching the era.

5 out of 10.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok.

I'd rather read about more known character that were around that time, than who-cares characters that are included here, but, what can you do.

It's not a must-read nor has any real impact in the stories before/after this one, it's just a tie-in to the game basically and you get to know some characters. It's ok.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This comic book series was extremely clumsy, the story jumped around way too much and it was tough to follow, despite already knowing the basic premise of it beforehand. Not a comic book series I would recommend.

[Jared · Rating 1 out of 5]

Star Wars Legends Project #25

Background: The Old Republic: Threat of Peace first appeared as part of a webcomic series during 2009 and 2010. The trade paperback came out in May 2011. Threat of Peace was written by Rob Chestney and pencilled by Alex Sanchez. Chestney was a senior writer for "The Old Republic" game, and is currently senior writer for "The Elder Scrolls Online" MMORPG that is in development. Threat of Peace is his only published work so far. This is Sanchez's only foray into Star Wars, as well, though he has done other comics for Dark Horse, as well as a number of titles of DC, including a few Batman comics.

Like Deceived (my review here), Threat of Peace takes place around the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant, 3,653 years before the Battle of Yavin. Some minor characters from that novel have larger roles in this, most notably the protagonist, Satele Shan, but also Master Dar'Nala, Master Zym, Darth Angral, Darth Baras, and so forth. The action is mostly split between Coruscant, Dantooine, and deep space.

Summary: With the pre-treaty cease-fire between the Republic and the Sith already on tenuous footing, the Sith's treachery at Coruscant, and factions on both sides who regard peace as a fatal error, the Treaty of Coruscant is in grave danger of failing almost before it has taken effect. Jedi scatter across the galaxy in an attempt to convince recalcitrant factions on distant worlds to lay down their arms, but a sinister plot orchestrated from behind the scenes poses an even graver threat to the fragile peace. If Satele Shan can't expose those responsible and stop them, the galaxy will soon be plunged right back into the midst of the most devastating war in its history.

Review: This is lazy, sloppy, poorly-executed, and all-around subpar work. That's the bottom line. There is really almost nothing to recommend this comic to readers; even the important events it depicts were explored in another, superior story. It's probably not entirely without redeeming qualities, and it's not a maliciously bad read, but nevertheless it fails utterly at everything that really matters. Three major things bothered me about Threat of Peace:

First, the artwork felt extremely bland except for when I just hated it. The artist did not illustrate characters well, and seemed to struggle to deliver a consistent look. Major characters had their appearance change drastically from panel to panel, which was distracting, and the design was largely uninspired. One particular human Jedi Master, a fairly significant character, looked like a goofy, bald hobbit. I was consistently bored by the visuals.

Second, the plot is all over the place and makes no sense at all. It tries to juggle way too many groups of characters, but never stays with one group long enough to do anything worthwhile. There are all sorts of attempts at foreshadowing, planting red herrings, and delivering plot twists, but they're clumsy, and they're all in service of a narrative "surprise" so lousy, counter-intuitive, and nonsensical that it can only be the result of trying too hard. The motivations of practically every character are inconsistent and have no logical basis other than to serve the whims of the plot at that given moment. And most of what happens is confusing in a head-scratching "but how can that even be?" sort of way. For example, the very idea that you could have a cease-fire that doesn't fall apart immediately when both sides fail to cease firing at one another.

Third, this isn't actually the comic's fault, but rather the fault of later retconning, but it was still a major annoyance to me. There are a lot of things going on in this comic that are totally inconsistent with other stuff. Most notable is the character of Satele Shan, who is drastically different in every other incarnation. In Threat of Peace, she is a young, untested Jedi, still subservient to various masters and even, at one point, a Republic lieutenant. We are repeatedly reminded of her youth and her lack of experience. Unfortunately, the writers (including Chestney, presumably) ended up going a completely different way with her. By the time of the events of this story, as established in various other sources, Satele is actually about 46 years old, and a nearly 30-year veteran of the Great Galactic War, having been present at the very first battle.

It's the kind of detail that I'd probably have very little trouble overlooking if it were the only issue, but given the general low-quality of everything else, it's precisely the excuse I need to just pretend this entire thing doesn't exist. Avoid.

F

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know dropped a steaming cup of haterade on Alexander Freed's Blood of the Empire and claimed that maybe it was time to take a break from Star Wars related comics. And I very nearly did. But, with Threat of Peace already on my iPad, and the hopes that maybe some of Freed's horrible mistakes would be corrected in the next volume, I decided to give this iteration of The Old Republic another chance.

And how did it go? you ask.

Look at that abysmal 1-star rating and that'll tall you everything you need to know.

I don't know how it's possible but Threat of Peace is even worse than Blood of the Empire. It's more confusing. It's more disjointed. It's plot could have been good, but Chestney completely obliterates any hope of it getting there because his execution is utter crap. There's no consistency. No way for the story to even make sense since it can't stay on a single plot point longer than a page or 2. It's like this comic series was written by a kid with undiagnosed severe ADD.
And speaking of crappy, the illustrations in Threat of Peace are some of the worst I ever seen, in any comic book/graphic novel. Some panels didn't even look finished...like the artist read this horrible excuse for a Star Wars novel and said "Meh, screw it", and gave up half way through.

I don't even know if I'm going to bother with Lost Suns if this, and Blood of the Empire are any indication of what I'm going to be reading. I'm honestly thinking it won't even be worth it. I'm sure there are far superior stories I can spend my time with.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

After quite enjoying the first graphic novels, I was severely disappointed with this one. Allow me to explain...

The writing was subpar. Each page changed the scene and subplot, which made the story extremely disjointed. It was difficult to follow the characters and actions even though dialogue. One page followed twp characters on one planet, the next had other characters on a different planet, changing on the following page. No subtext either... very amateur writing.

The art, which can be a saving grace of bad writing, was equally as bad, The characters just looked terrible (suffering from the malady my wife dubbed "potato-faced". I can't describe how bad it was. The poses were awkward and boring, even for the fight scenes. The few backgrounds that were drawn looked nice, but most of the time it was flat colors or phoned-in black backgrounds.

Do yourself a favor and skip this one. I hope the third is a bit better...

[J.M. Giovine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where can I start? This is no canon of the new Lucasfilm Star Wars continuity, nevertheless, The Old Republic is a fantastic story that deserves a place in this Timeline, and while I have enjoyed the new stories in the several formats, there are plenty of titles I wish I could take them into consideration, but if I’m being honest, Legacy has a complicated background; these series of Star Wars Expanded Universe-stories possess quality but an exaggerated amount of continuity mistakes and irrationalities, and The Old Republic is one of those. Not that it doesn’t fit into the universe previously established, but since the newest videogame, The Old Republic, is a sequel of the previous KOTOR series, this comic book finds itself struggling with an hyperactive storytelling issue; it is more worried on telling a rather confusing and unbalanced story that follows the events of the videogame, rather than telling its own story. Taking place 25,000-1000 years before the Battle of Yavin, the Galactic Republic is dealing with a war against the evil Sith Empire, and there’s apparently a threat from both sides, and Sith’s, lead by dreadful Lord Baras, are meant to offer a sort of peace deal with the Jedi allied to the Republic, but things will change once it is reveal there is a plot to alter that peace from someone in the Republic. My first issue with this comic book is its characters; they’re all everywhere and, while in the videogame could’ve been different, there’s zero to no character in either of them. In addition, we’re constantly presented situations in which they seem to do whatever action is needed, so there is no development or establishment between either heroes of villains, so we grow confused in where the story intends us to go. Rob Chestney provides the story, but he doesn’t seem to give time in between panels to actually let the story and characters flow, so we grow exhausted, and Alex Sanchez’s art does not help, which seems messy and noncreative at times. Now, I understand that Jedi’s were different in these time periods in comparison with the Star Wars prequels and current trilogies, but again, they don’t seem to be well defined or conceived and in here they seem to do as they please, and this would’ve rather be an interesting focus, but the story never goes anywhere we really feel like going, and while the twist near the end involving one of the main characters, we never get to truly care about this people, therefore, we don’t care who turns bad or good. The Old Republic does no justice to its source material, and rather than complementing an already great take in the Star Wars Universe ends up delivering a rather mediocre take in the late Expanded Universe, that’ll disappoint hardcore fans of the franchise, but specially, for the Bioware-Lucasarts videogame.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Old Republic MMO is a pretty big bundle of content. It uses KOTOR (and to a lesser extent Tales of the Jedi) as its seed instead of any of the films, but tries to build all at once something with the scope and outline of the Galactic Civil War. And it tries to create all that content largely within one piece of media--the MMO itself--with only three comic arcs and four novels to flesh it out, plus that series of expository history vids. I complain a lot about EU stuff cribbing from the movies too much, and bringing in movie characters where others would make the universe feel more real, but of course they do create a solid backbone for storytelling: the audience always has a context for smaller stories, can infer how they fit in. TOR's story has no protagonists and no clear arc; it's spread out over eight character stories that have more or less to do with the Main story, and often that story isn't clear until toward the end. And the game is not the greatest at storytelling (much of the important info is pushed into lore encyclopedias no one reads), so there ends up being a lot of weight put on these comics to establish characters and storylines that crop up in the game. Threat of Peace takes that burden hard.

There are so damn many characters and schemes and storylines in these three volumes. And unlike many of the one-off schemes in Republic, revealed simply and quickly to create plot movement, these feel like they're meant to be important and comprehensible. But they're really not. There's this whole layered double-cross manipulation scheme that comes clear enough by the end to get what it wasn't and what its motivation was but not really how it affects any of the characters who actually survive and go on to be influential later. This plot is not only just too fast and unclear to follow, it also intersects with every other storyline in ways that just don't have enough development to feel compelling. It's crammed into such tight confines that it can't convincingly do any of the work it was meant to do in setting up these storylines.

The other knock on this book is that the art is just atrociously subpar. I don't like the chunky ship designs in TOR era much to begin with (they're far uglier than much of KOTOR's stuff even) but the ship art here makes them look sleek and elegant by comparison. I'm not sure if they were trying to depict the same ships and failed or just decided to come up with new ships that were just boxes? They're hideous. The art is thick and boxy in general for environments, buildings, machines, etc, while on the other hand the faces and clothes are at times almost unreadable messes of patchy shading and features. One poor Cerean Senator looks like someone inked a face on a wax model and then melted it. I can't fathom how this got published looking like this tbh.

[WindySilver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the biggest problem with this is the fact that it's trying to juggle way, way too many subplots at the same time, leaving most, if not all, neglected and making the big picture a confusing, fractured mess. As a whole, the book is... Mediocre at best. Far better than the previous SWTOR volume, but still far from excellent. I wouldn't use the word "good", either, but I'm not entirely sure on using sub-par either. It had potential but the execution was far from good enough.

The character and world index at the end and the fact that it covers The Sacking of Coruscant are probably the only highlights.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought for £2 in a charity shop which seemed right. It was a bit disappointing. You have the old republic, and set it up simply as another against the Empire story. It lacked the subtly or continuity of Clone wars. The biggest problem was it was so choppy. Most scenes wouldn't even last an entire page. It was jumping between characters so quickly it was hard to keep track of who was who and who was doing what. There was also a really forced straight romance that took place over 5 possibly 6 panels? Which is a shame as there were some potentially great women jedi.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

This poorly-illustrated, badly paced piece of nonsensical garbage actually felt like I should have been paid to read it. What plot I could surmise was exactly the same as the one from the novel Deceived. I don't know much about the MMORPG this story is based on, but I doubt even if I did, I think I would have struggled. Not going to waste any more time on this drivel by writing any more about it. Avoid.

[Taka · Rating 2 out of 5]

I give it a 3/10.

The art is pretty bad, and also inconsistent with most other stories. For example here you can see Satele Shan as a red haired woman with a round face, I would say a Scottish type of face. When in most other stories Satele's hair is black and she looks more like native american.

The story is rushed, the characters are poorly developed.

I'd recommend it to no one, only consider if you're a hard core completionist old republic fan.

[Alyce Caswell · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a mess! Disjointed to the point of being confusing... never lingering long enough in one place for me to connect to any of the characters (or give a damn about them)... I really wish I could claw back the time I lost while reading this TPB and it wasn't even that long!

EDIT: also why the heck did the artist literally draw the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the background of one panel? It was horribly jarring.

[Zombie_Phreak · Rating 1 out of 5]

There didn’t seem to be much to this comic other than just a bunch of fighting. There was very little plot and the characters were just boring.

It’s only saving grace is that the artwork was decent.

Give this one a pass.

[Techno Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great! a lot better than the dribble in Blood of the Empire. Acts as a prequal to the old republic MMO, doesn't attempt to change the wheel with new characters. Happens during the novel, Deceived and since it was released first I would read this before the novel.

[Maegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

More 3.5, but it's Star Wars, so I'll round up. I did like seeing more of Satele Shan, though I feel like this comic should have been a lot longer. I wanted to go more into depth in this story, cause it is the bare bones of an interesting one.

[Stuart · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the quality of the drawing to that of the storytelling, the appendix was more enjoyable and coherent. Wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they were deep into Star Wars lore.

[Phil · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is so clumsy. There are so many characters and it was so hard to follow. Even for someone who is a big TOR fan I can't what it brings to the universe.

[Nicole Magolan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Love a jedi vs sith fight but this series is just....nothing

[Matt Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe some of the other stars comics spoilt me by making sense and explaining things.
This is the worst star wars related thing I've read, so far

[Simone · Rating 2 out of 5]

[A little review of mine from when I originally read this book; going thru my old Excel spreadsheet of books.]

Jedi Gall was cute... & the only bright spot to this book.

[Vanessa Gayle ⚔️ Fangirl Faction · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5 Stars

[Dylan Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tempted to go with 1 star but trying to reserve that for DNFs. This is genuinely one of if not the worst TPBs I’ve read and absolutely the worst so far of the SW EU timeline.

[Marcin Kowalski · Rating 1 out of 5]

The comics and books of The Old Republic era are a perfect vision of duality, which is often explord throughout the lore of the galaxy far, far away. But this is not a pro in this case. As much as I loved the first two books, Revan and Deceived, as much do I hate the first two comics. While the first one was simply bad, this one is even worse, because there was a good story at the heart of this abysmal abomination of wasted time, but the horrific art and the highly incompetent writing doomed this to be one of the worst pieces of so-called art I have had ever the "pleasure" of reading.

To ilustrate how truly bad this thing is, imagine, that actually there is an apendix to this comic, which practically explaines and retells what happened in the chaotic and mostly incomprehensible panels of this book. To be honest, I would have major problems to understand what this is about, if not for the fact that I played through 3 stories of the MMO and read two of the highly enjoyable books.

Stay clear of this... if you get this for free I would actually have you consider burning your copy...

[Joy · Rating 1 out of 5]

And I thought the first one was bad. The story itself was like a print version of a montage -- jumping from place to place for a brief nugget of plot without any sense of how much time has passed in between. I did not like the art at all. It wasn't bad exactly, but the style was very odd, sort of sketch-y with the lines. Some characters looked different enough between appearances that I wasn't always sure until I read a name in dialogue that it was them. It was nice to get a little perspective on the Treaty of Coruscant, but honestly, this jumped around so much, I'm not sure how much I actually learned. (I liked Deceived, the Malgus book, for more on the Sacking of Coruscant, but I was curious to read whatever I could on how the treaty actually went down (there was a bit in the other book, but more as a subplot/frame story level.) My last issue (with a caveat) is the characters' appearances. I'm reading this way after the fact, so I don't know the timeline here with the development of SWTOR, but pretty much no one in this comic looks anything like they did in game (yes I know there's a 10 year delay, but seriously not anything like). I can understand maybe not having it totally nailed down, but really, they look like completely different people and that's distracting. I guess Braden was fine (love me some Braden and I was pleasantly surprised he was in this so much). I think Tavus must have aged pretty drastically, Satele just didn't look right to me, and I don't know what the hell was up with Nok Drayen. I applaud the efforts here to involve just about everyone they could think of in this comic, but I'm just so disappointed in the execution. I wanted to like this so badly.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Synopsis: "A look at the era of "Star Wars: The Old Republic," written by one of the writers behind LucasArts and BioWare's massive multiplayer online game, "Threat of Peace" unveils a galaxy on the brink of destruction three hundred years after the events of "Knights of the Old Republic"!
For decades, the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire have been at war. The Sith have gained control of the Outer Rim, but their efforts to penetrate the Core Worlds have so far been thwarted. Now, representatives from both sides attempt to negotiate a peace treaty--but deception by the Sith puts the Jedi in an unfortunate position.
Collects "Star Wars: The Old Republic" #1-#27, which appeared originally online at swtor.com.
Bonus behind-the-scenes content found nowhere else!
Written by Rob Chestney, one of the writers behind the game!
Critical events prior to LucasArts and BioWare's massive multiplayer online game!
Discover "more" of the newest "Star Wars" era!"

My Review: As much as I love Star Wars and the settings of this GN and even the art in this one, I am not impressed. This was a rather short GN but it definitely need to be longer. You are constantly jumping around to different storylines and nothing is really all that clear. You can get the main gist of what is going on but you know there is a lot more underlying plot lines that just aren't clear. I have the last volume in this set but am starting to think that these epic storylines are better off left in full length novels and movies.

[Cale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whereas the first volume focused on an evil character, this one is instead interested in the gray areas - do ends justify means, and vice versa. The idea is novel, but the implementation doesn't go well. the artwork is muddy and the storytelling is frenetic - rarely do more than two pages in a row focus on the same characters. There are about a dozen primary characters and their stories go so quickly that it never settles into a rhythm. It doesn't help that several of the characters look so similar that it just increases the confusion. There's some character bios at the end of the book, at which point it's a bit too late.

[Yves · Rating 1 out of 5]

Non mais quelle mauvaise bande dessinée!! C'est une des pires que j'ai lu dans la saga de Star Wars. L'histoire est tellement confuse et difficile à suivre qu'ils ont été obligés d'ajouré à la fin des notes explicatives sur ce que l'on venait de lire. J'avoue que je n'avais pas compris grand chose.

Les dessins ne sont pas affreux mais tout simplement difficiles à suivre. Ils apportent leur lot de confusion par leur manque de fluidité. On a parfois l'impression qu'on passe du coq à l'âne tellement les transitions des scènes sont abruptes.

Moi qui est un grand fan de Star Wars et qui n'est pas très difficile, je qualifierait cette bande dessinée de grosse merde et de siphon à dollars.