Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 3

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection #3

by Kevin J. Anderson, Tom Veitch, Joshua Ortega

The early adventures of the Jedi order conclude! Almost 4,000 years before A New Hope, a young Jedi named Exar Kun steals his master's holocron, intent on learning the secrets of the Sith - and takes on Jedi Knight Ulic Qel-Droma as his apprentice! Will this dark knowledge corrupt them and turn them into Sith, as well? Only the Jedi Nomi Sunrider may have the answer to their fates - and whether they face doom or redemption in the Force! As war turns Jedi against Jedi, who will survive - and who will be lost to history?

Collecting STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI - DARK LORDS OF THE SITH #1-6, STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI - THE SITH WAR #1-6, STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI - REDEMPTION #1-5, and material from STAR WARS TALES #23 and DARK HORSE COMICS #7-9.

Genres: Star Wars, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Marvel, Fiction

462 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 11, 2023

About the author

Yes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. I love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.

I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.

I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.

My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.

Reviews

[Al Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting tale of Exar Kun’s fall, well done Star Wars as it is supposed to be. Art is mixed and strangely they have a story at the back that is out of chronological order.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's some good stuff here, but a lot of the path to the Dark Side stuff feels undercooked. Way too much Sith magic nonsense. A tighter story could have made Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun's stories meaningful.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This overall was a pretty fun read and yeah there are some flaws but I love how it continues the story from last volumes final arc and we see so many plot elements come together with the rise of exar kun and thus the siths to their eventual downfall and how that leads to KOTOR!

The first arc "Dark lords of the sith" was super good, we get to see Ulic and al as they plan to free the Empress Teta system as the twins Aleema and her bro have taken it over and their dark sith sorcery at work and how Ulic goes undercover to stop them, also focus on exar kun as he is guided by freedon nadd and then goes to korriban then to Yavin-4 and becomes a full fledged sith and masters the dark side and we get both POVs and Nomi trying to rescue her love Ulic multiple sides but you see his seduction by the dark side and how he refuses her multiple times and then Exar vs Ulic and Aleema until we see the sith magic at work and exar becoming the dark lord of the sith and ulic his apprentice and what they do next! Quite a lot of drama here. And I like how this arc shows the downfall of a hero and the dark side's corruption and how it leads to some fascinating character study!

The next arc "sith war" sees Ulic and Exar launch full scale attack on the republic and thus the jedi, exar recruiting and corrupting people on Yavin-4 and then Ulic launcing attack on Ossus and Oregon and we see how mandalorians are involved, him captured, then rescued, the final fate of aleema, Cay rescuing his brother, Ulic realizing and coming back, curse by Nomi to him and the fall of Exar kun! It was pretty good!

The last story arc "Redemption" was so good as we see Vima, Nomi's daughter seek Ulic on the icy world of "Rhen var" and she wants to train under him and be a jedi, and maybe its his redemption chance and well he trains him, "Sylvar" is wanting revenge and sort of goes back to dark side and comes back but at Nomi's requests searches for Ulic and then Nomi also arrives to find Ulic and her daughter and how it all connects and we see Ulic vs Sylvar and how he saves her and the targic fate of Ulic and maybe he got redeemed and maybe the origin of Vima now and the end of the tale finally and it was really good, this last arc was so well paced and read really fast and I loved it, all plot points coming together in the end in a really great manner!

SO yeah this volume does have a great focus on characters and explaining the nature of dark side and its corruption and is a great character piece for Ulic and his regrets and down fall and redemption by the end and also sets the stage for EXAR KUN whose featured prominently in the "Jedi academy" trilogy of novels, and so yeah if you read it before/after that it makes for a great experience and really shows you the inter-connectivity of this universe and how awesome it is or can become!!

And I certainly enjoyed it more than the last volume and yeah it has its flaws and some lore may feel contradictory and all, but then again these came in the early years of the expanded universe so just enjoy it for what it is and have a good time reading it!!

[Timothy Moshier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again reading for the purposes of listening to and fully understanding an AMCA podcast, I found myself enjoying this volume of Tales of the Jedi comics considerably more than the previous. Frenetically paced, this volume presents a much better look at the Old Republic and the war with the Sith that defines this era of Star Wars comics and video games. I really enjoyed the tragedy of the Qel-Droma brothers, the fall of Exar Kun, seeing Nomi Sunrider at the apex of her power, and the brief aside into Mandalore and his role in the Sith War. This is Star Wars at its most interesting - conspiracy, universal politics, and war in a time long, long ago. I also thought the art in this volume took a major step up, and the layout of some of these pages was very impressive. The final arc of Tales of the Jedi was a little less strong than the others, but overall I'm glad I read the series, and if I can find the time it might convince me to venture into some other Star Wars comics. Definitely recommend this to Star Wars fans, even if you're not big on comics.

[Alejandro Montero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fun nostalgic read. I read this many many years ago and it's just a fun comic. It's fun to see a story that was crafted before the prequels and as such, the jedi depicted are freer with their actions and emotions. The rules of star wars had not been settled when this was written but it still holds up in some ways with the current canon despite this no longer fully being.
That said, I do wish they bring most of the elements back to canon, adapting it when necessary. It's a great story of falling to the dark side (although the dialogue sometimes is a bit jarring).

[Joshua Mifsud · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally got the chance to read these with this new reprint. I read Jedi Academy as a teenager but just never got my hands on these. Sith War is definitely the best arc of the whole saga but I still don’t think the writing was great since I never got invested in any of the characters. Mandalore was fun but i probably just ruined the series for myself years ago by reading all the spoilers and seeing the artwork online.

[Lewis Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

back when star wars made sense

[B.A.G. Studios · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh dear. Well, I’m realizing 3 months after finishing this that I never wrote a review. I’ll do my best to recall, but it’s been a minute, and I’ve read a good bit of Star Wars since then too.
Last time, I felt like it was a really solid Avengers situation, where it’s not so much about the story as getting the characters together for the next adventure. Well, I like Age of Ultron, myself, but after reading this, I understand the people who don’t, I think.
Maybe closer to home, in more ways than one, this could be considered an Episode VIII: The Last Jedi -lite. It takes the setup from last volume, and completely goes an entirely different direction. Rey is super important, no she’s not / Ulic is becoming a legendary Jedi, no he’s not. (To an extent,) I like Last Jedi, myself, but after reading this volume, I understand the people who don’t, I think.
In the briefest of terms, the first arc, “Dark Lords of the Sith”, is terrible. And it sets the basis for the rest of the book. It’s just spooky scary ghosts that pop up and turn people evil, and how freakin’ lame is that? There’s no drama or reason for the turn — there could’ve been, but they bail out instead of committing to it. It arguably ruins a good character from the previous volume in the worst way possible, like the inverse of ruining Kylo Ren by redeeming him for no good reason.
But.
If I just pretend there were good reasons for his turn to the Dark Side and start with “The Sith War”? Oh wow, it’s actually not bad. Now I still don’t think it’s worth walking this far back in time in the Star Wars Galaxy, but I’ll give you that it’s pretty entertaining, and — again, pretending he’s a Dark Sider for good reasons — a satisfying story of loss and regret. But as easily and contrived as he fell to the dark, it’s super easy (barely an inconvenience) for Ulic to turn back to the light at the end, and it just all feels so ridiculous.
But…
It’s really just the last arc that sells it, because it ends up being a more believable Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Luke situation. An old legendary Jedi Master (if we pretend he was such) is cut off from the force after being believably manipulated into becoming a Sith Lord (if we pretend it was believable) and finds himself years later tasked with begrudgingly training a young girl with great promise just in time to… well, not save the galaxy — that’s maybe the biggest negative to this arc, I feel like it’s missing a plot. There’s really no rush, and the only stakes are whether or not she becomes a Jedi through him or not. And sure, maybe the other girl will kill Ulic or maybe she won’t, but it’s a little thin for a whole arc. Too decompressed. Otherwise, this was a compelling story. I just wish it had a believable background of how and why Ulic let down the galaxy in the first place.
Each arc is better than the last, but also reliant on pretending the last was better than it was. It’s also harder to not include the first half of the first volume in this pseudo head-canon I’m imagining, because you need the creepy spooky ghosts. It’s just… a lot. And I don’t think it really enriches the universe as much as it could. I’m still not convinced this era is necessary (or really even all that good).
——
A brief aside, the new coloring is way better than the original coloring as included in the back of this volume, holy crap.