Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: Rise of the Sith, Vol. 1

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection #9

by Scott Allie, Mike Kennedy, Ryder Windham

When young Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is dispatched to prevent a civil war, he has a close encounter with the Dark Side! Years later, Qui-Gon and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi face an out-of-control cloud cruiser and the lawless world of Ord Mantell, where everyone holds a grudge - and a blaster! And Mace Windu's Jedi Knights face the threat of the Yinchorri - a race more deadly than they ever imagined!

COLLECTING: STAR WARS: JEDI - THE DARK SIDE 1-5, STAR WARS: QUI-GON & OBI-WAN - THE AURORIENT EXPRESS 1-2, STAR WARS: QUI-GON & OBI-WAN - LAST STAND ON ORD MANTELL 1-3, STAR WARS: JEDI COUNCIL - ACTS OF WAR 1-4, MATERIAL FROM STAR WARS (1998) 4-6; MATERIAL FROM STAR WARS TALES 1, 3-5, 7, 9-10, 13-14, 24

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

488 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2015

About the author

Scott Allie is an American comics writer and editor, best known as an editor and executive at Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2017.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, now I see why the Star Wars licence reverted back to Marvel. 99% of the stories are awful. There's a couple of bright spots like the short Darth Maul story by Cully Hammer and some Mahmud Asrar art. Most of the stories and art look like they were created as part of a high school art project. All of the stories herein are pre Phantom Menace.

[Sud666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rise of the Sith Epic Collection covers all the run leading up to the events of the Phantom Menace. While the stories themselves are good, some quite good, it seems Marvel raided the local high schools and secured the services of some of their lackluster students. For the most part the art varies from rather putrid to mediocre and that is a shame.

The stories cover the entire gamut of characters from Mace Windu to Darth Maul. Many of these stories take place before or are events that lead to the conflict in Phantom Menace. Of course the entire volume takes place in a time where the hubris laden Jedi are clueless that not only have the Sith survived but they have set themselves up into a position that will lead to the demise of the Jedi order.

Qui Gon Jinn, young Obi-Wan, Darth Maul, Mace Windu are just some of the fan favorites that pop up in this volume. The stories serve to highlight the quirks in the character's personality. From Qui Gonn Jinn's rebellious behavior to how Maul learned the harsh lessons he learned. Some of the stories are more enjoyable than others, but save for the last two "filler" stories where they use a childish cartoonish style of story telling to tell two insipid and vapid tales. The rest of this is actually quite good. Had the art been on par with the storytelling this would have been a 4 or possibly 5 star book. But still a lot to enjoy for any Star Wars fan.

[DiscoSpacePanther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is much more like it! After ploughing through the weirdness that was the Original Marvel Years, this collection is much more solid.

Admittedly, it starts off a little weakly, with some odds and ends about some of the Jedi Masters featured in The Phantom Menace, but it improves when its focus shifts to Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi (although I found the story with Qui-Gon and a previous apprentice to be a little dull).

My favourite arcs included in this compilation were Last Stand on Ord Mantell and Acts of War — these really show how corruption and abuse of power from within and terrorist pawns from without could become an existential threat to the Republic.

No perfect, but a tonne of fun.

Recommended to anyone who enjoys seeing space wizard ninjas with laser swords fighting giant lizard men, with plenty of exploding spaceships to go around.

The two “humorous” shorts at the end are complete junk, though, and can well be avoided.

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Yaddle's story. It was my favorite. Even though I despised the prequels, these short stories(?) in this graphic novel are worth the time. Enjoyed it.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not get into this. The art was horrible and no real continuity between the stories.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it worth your time? Yes.

Is every story in here fun to read? No, but it's worth it with plenty of good stories with solid artwork, that outweighs the mediocre and bad ones.

I say go for it!

[Tony Romine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Star Wars Rise of the Sith Epic Collection collects various stories and miniseries that take place at various time before the events of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Included in this volume are 13 short comics from the "Star Wars Tales" series , the 3 part micro-series "Vow of Justice" from the Star Wars (1999) comics, "The Dark Side" the first storyline from the Star Wars: Jedi series, the 5 issues from the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan series, and the 5 part Star Wars: Jedi Council story "Acts of War".

The first four comics in this collection all come from the Star Wars Tales series and focus on Mace Windu, the Jedi Master played by Samuel L. Jackson in the prequel trilogy. They are short comics that present interesting points of Mace's life before we meet him in Episode 1. There is a particuarly interesting one that focuses on him obtaining crystals to build a lightsaber. These, like the other Tales stories, are nothing if not enjoyable little breaks from the larger multi issue stories. Mace Windu is a favorite Jedi of mine, so I'm biased in saying these stories are some of my favorites in this collection. The various styles of artwork at play here are great too.

These are followed by another short comic from the Tales series about Yaddle, the Jedi Master who is of the same species as Yoda and provides her a decent backstory. It's actually quite compelling for a character we see on screen very briefly and I'm not sure she even had any lines, but this story is well written.

The three part micro-series, "Vow of Justice" appeared in the last few pages of 3 issues from the Star Wars comics that were published in 1999. It gives the backstory for Ki-Adi-Mundi (the conehead alien), another Jedi Council member who has very little actual screen time in the trilogy, but here is given another very compelling and interesting backstory.

One of the bigger chunks of this book is devoted to the 5 part Star Wars: Jedi story "The Dark Side". It tells the story of a padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn's named Xanatos and his turn to the dark side after the try to stop a civil war on his home planet. I didn't enjoy this one really, the writing itself is quite disjointed and hard to follow and the artwork was pretty drab. Qui-Gon is far from my favorite Jedi and here he presents the same flaws he presented in Episode 1, being quite manipulative of those around him for his own means and not making very reasonable decisions. Apparently this is a prequel to an 18 part kid's chapter book series called Jedi Apprentice. If it's anything as droll as this story, it's an easy pass for me.

Next up is the short comic called "Mythology" from the Tales series. It is basically them explaining why for some reason in the prequel trilogy the Jedi can't fall in love. It's a poor way to explain it and the artwork is overly cartoonish for the dark story it tells. I hate it because making the Jedis celibate is a weird thing Lucas wrote into the canon that goes against a lot of what was established long before the prequels.

"Life, Death, and the Living Force" is another comic from Tales and it involves Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on a planet filled with dangerous creatures. Qui-Gon intially is very helpful and feeds an obnoxious alien type creature, but later that alien comes back with his pack to kill Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. They slaughter the aliens, move on and find another alien and kill it. Apparently there is a lesson here about how the force compels the Jedi to help and harm things if need be. The artwork is okay at least, but the really the story is lacking and it kind of make Qui-Gon look psychotic.

The first storyline from the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan comics is "The Aurorient Express". Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are investigating a space yacht on a cruise that is sinking and in danger of imploding. They meet the various oddballs on the ship and quickly discover there is a plot to destroy the ship. This comic is not good, it's a weird attempt at a humorous Star Wars story and it fails because the jokes are mostly just terrible puns. The artwork is bad, the writing is bad, and this one can be skipped easily.

The second storyline from that series is better. "Last Stand on Ord Mantell" has the duo being sent to investigate a missing baroness's son and that leads them to a poor farmer and his daughter who live in fear of a local taxman named Sundown and a race of dangerous aliens. The story and artwork here are decent enough, it's a pretty interesting comic and is surprisingly violent. There's an interesting moment in the comic where Obi-Wan questions Qui-Gon about him excessively using the Jedi mind trick to get what he wants out of people and Qui-Gon just dismisses the questions because he's a terrible Jedi.

Following these are two short Tales comics about Darth Maul, so here is the first appearance of an actual Sith in this collection that is titled RISE OF THE SITH. One tells the story about how he created his iconic bowstaff lightsaber. You would think that story might be a little more creative than "I lost a fight to a guy who was using a bowstaff, so welded two lightsabers together into a bowstaff and went back and beat him", but that is exactly what happened. It's as basic and typical as you could make that story and to top it off it boosts the worst artwork in this volume (Darth Maul looks like Bevis or Butthead wearing Sith makeup). It should also be noted that this story features the Emperor talking to Maul and looking like he would have in Return of the Jedi, even though this took place before The Phantom Menace when he was still just an middle aged dude in a robe. The second story is about a time where Maul was tested by Palpatine to prove how strong and loyal he was. It's fairly decent, way better than the previous story, and features very very brief glimpses into Maul's origins, something profoundly more fascinating than about 75% of the stories in this collection so far.

The 5 part story arc "Acts of War" from the Jedi Council series is what seems to be the most important story in this collection. It tells the story of an alien race that is aggressively invading planets outside their homeworld and the Jedi Council being called to action to stop them. We get to see all the members using their powers and doing stuff besides sitting in a circle making decisions. We also get hints of the events to come with Palpatine's manipulations that start the events of The Phantom Menace. We also get a brief appearance by Darth Maul, so that makes a second Sith appearance in this collection entitled RISE OF THE SITH. It's a fairly decent storyline and clearly was meant to be some sort of starting place for a possible series about the Council itself, but never took off.

Offered up after this is one serious Tales comic and then three very short, humorous ones. The serious one involves a smuggler that we were introduced to in "Acts of War" named Vilmarh Grahrk. He has been hired to smuggle a princess off her home planet as an uprising is breaking out. It has a couple twists and turns that keep it interesting, I would like to see more stories with Vilmarh in them. The humorous stories are a mixed bag, the Iron Chef parody is awesome and has incredible artwork in it while the Baby Maul comic is weird and forgettable.

So as a collection about pre-Phantom Menace stories, this works I guess. It gives us some background on the Jedi Council members that we see doing nothing for most of the prequel movies. There's quite a bit of Qui-Gon Jinn here too, but that's definitely not a plus on my end. There are just too many comics in this collection that aren't impressive, more of them than there are ones that are actually good. The Tales stories are a great concept and I like them quite a bit, that's a series I'll be looking into I think. I feel like they fall prey to the muddled time in Star Wars history post Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones where there was a lot of retcon and damage control going on to make these characters more marketable to the fans. I think all in all though, it's a lot of wasted potential because part of me really wants Qui-Gon Jinn to be as awesome as old man Obi-Wan, but he's just terrible. Read it to get some context for the prequels, but it's nothing you'll be coming back to any time soon.

[Maegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the extra stories were a little clunky or weird, but overall this was an excellent collection. I especially loved the main bulk of stories that had Qui-Gon with Xanatos and Qui-Gon with Obi-Wan. Acts of War was a high light as well. And, of course, seeing Villie is always a treat XD Some of the silly stories did work for me, though, like the ones where the Jedi make food and trick the Hutt XD

[Ryan Madman Reads & Rocks · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a lot of filler material but I still found most of the stories enjoyable and intriguing.
My complete review is at:
https://youtu.be/ccHFwPQp8bU

[S.J. Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been meaning to start in on the Epic Collections of Star Wars Legends comics, and this seemed as good a place as any. The stories within range from tolerable to downright delightful Star Wars adventure in the times leading up to The Phantom Menace, providing illumination and context for the era. Can solidly recommend!

The tragedy of Qui-gon's first apprentice finally gets some exploration, and that's a win.

[Jacob Mahaffey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is full of stories that are very… fine. Nothing super remarkable or memorable, but nothing overtly bad. Seems to be pretty standard, par for the course stuff, set right before The Phantom Menace. The best stuff is the short stories from the anthology Star Wars Tales series, but all the miniseries are bland and basically the same thing over and over.

[sucker4synth · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay collection of Star Wars comics from various authors and illustrators. Nothing really mind-blowing.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since it's the 20th anniversary of The Phantom Menace and I'd had this collection set prior to TPM sitting in my Comixology library for a little while, I decided to read through the whole thing. So, I guess there was a time when the artwork for Star Wars comics from Dark Horse was pretty bad? Is this just for pre-TPM stories? Because even the artwork for the 2011 miniseries Jedi-The Dark Side is pretty subpar. It's as though it's an intentional throwback to the subpar artwork of that era. There are even stories where the characters are illustrated like caricatures with exaggerated features. Though to be fair, a couple of these are "humor stories" not meant to be taken seriously. But not all of these particular instances were.

As for the stories themselves, I do like that we get a bit more info on the Jedi we see on the Council in The Phantom Menace. We even get a bit of Ki-Adi Mundi, as well as the Council member whose place he took. "Yaddle's Tale" made the character more interesting to me. However, it ends with the Council members igniting weirdly colored lightsabers (a couple of them have red, a couple including Yoda have yellow, Mace has blue). We do get Qui-Gon with Xanatos and Qui-Gon with Obi-Wan, but sometimes his characterization feels inconsistent from what one may imagine from the character. To me, it feels weird having Qui-Gon encourage the notion that Jedi shouldn't love. And it's also weird when he and Obi-Wan slay a beast because the Force tells them to do it. There are also a few Mace Windu stories where it kinda feels like the writers didn't quite figure him out yet. But I do like that the issue of Jedi taking infants into the Order is touched upon. The stories that include Maul do feel a bit like what we end up seeing of him in the TV shows, desperate to impress his master who has tortured him. But I'm sure seeing Maul get continuously tested is something that ended up feeling very repetitive. There's also an odd story called "Deal with a Demon" which features Jar Jar on the cover but not in the story.

Overall, this collection features a wide range of characters minor and prominent in The Phantom Menace. If you're interested in the era surrounding that film or the years preceding it, you might get something out of this, but perhaps not as much substance as novels like Darth Plagueis or Master & Apprentice.

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Watch over your padawan, Master Jinn. I don’t have the gift of foresight as some on the Council, but I know in my heart you are both destined to be Jedi of some renown.”
—

Man, SW comics of the old Expanded Universe can be pretty darn cool, can’t they? There are so many cool Jedi with so many cool adventures! Like, dang, again, I’m really annoyed at how the new canon doesn’t capitalize on this. Very often, Jedi of the Old Republic are just introduced in current canon as foils to prop the protagonists up, instead of characters in their own right, which is what we see here. Jedi who are friends, Jedi who play pranks, Jedi who seem fun to be around! It’s all here!

And it’s not like that the Jedi are depicted as perfect here, either. The fact that they assigned Xanatos to, uh, anything at all, much less a mission on his home planet with his master Qui-Gonn, when the kid is clearly immensely unstable, speaks to them not really being able to read how this is going to go (a clue: badly).

[Also! Oh yeah, Xanatos is in this omnibus comic. I remember him from the “Jedi Apprentice” series, which I meant to re-read.]

There are some weird continuity things here, which means that they clearly hadn’t worked out some of the things that Lucas would later come up with for the next two Prequel movies. There’s no reference to Dooku, which there certainly should be, considering AotC reveals he’s Qui-Gonn’s master. Ki-Adi-Mundi is apparently appointed the Council without being made Master yet, which is clearly not the case in Lucas’s mind, given Anakin’s tantrum in RotS.

So, uh, no, the old canon wasn’t consistent across the board, either, I know. Still, there’s a lot of cool backstory here, especially regarding Darth Maul, Mace Windu, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and Yaddle. The prologue/introduction to this tries to pitch this (and by extension, Legends/the old Extended Universe in totality, I think?) as stories told by people in-universe, through Holos, and may or may not be true? That’s a bold way to approach it, and I think it’s dumb, but points for trying it, I guess.

Also time travel? In my “Star Wars” stories? It’s more likely than you think.

Not every one of the comics in here is a home run. It’s still got some cool stuff, some great character development, and also plenty of Jedi swinging lightsabers. Which is all you’d want in a “Star Wars” story.

[Zac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Star Wars Project #27
Rise of the Sith Era #27
Characters: Ki-Adi-Mundi, Yaddle, Obi-wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu
Major Events:
Mace Windu Tales: Horrible art, very little story - 2/10
Yaddle's Tale: An interesting look at our other entry to Yoda's species. A Padawan that was held prisoner for centuries and emerges to become a Master and placed on the council. It adds some darkness and despair to the universe and creates a compelling character, but it isn't really reflected in any other works she's in.

Vow of Justice: A Ki-Adi Mundi story about becoming being forfeited to the Jedi to save him from Raiders on his planet, only to return years later to exact vengeance on that Raider group. Again, it not really cannon, even by prequel standards, because we now know that Jedi rarely have contact with their families, and usually a Master would not give into revenge. But as an "elseworlds" story, its an interesting look on how the Jedi might have functioned in an alternate timeline.


The Dark Side: This one is very interesting. Ever since reading Jedi Apprentice, I've wanted to know more about Xanatos and Qui-Gons failing. The art is particularly good, and we see (again with the non-cannon prequel material) a Jedi returned to his home planet on a mission where his Father (the king) is being targeted for political assassination. He meets his sister (who is working with a third party member to make another group a patsy for the assassination attempts, even though its the King whos behind all of it in the end), and she is killed in the crossfire. It all sounds very similar to Count Dooku's audio drama (this was probably retconned into that story). We also see Tahl, and a good look into Qui-gons early romantic relationship with her. Ultimately, I had fun but was slightly disappointed with how Xanatos turned darkside, as it really boils down to teenage arrogance and impatience, but it does add some info to Qui-Gons back story and pits more blood family vs jedi family conflict.

Last Stand on Ord Mantell: A lackluster Qui-gon/Obi-wan story. A queen of a planet has an assassination attempt, the Jedi are sent to flush out the attackers group on Ord Mantell, Turns out the queen was behind it all along to get back at Qui Gon for allowing her son to die. Qui-gon decapittes her at the end.

Other Stories: Man these are horrible. Theres a star cruiser one and a chef one that are particularly bad
Scores4/10

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this trade paperback comic collection. I enjoyed seeing how Mace Windu obtained his purple lightsaber crystal in "Stones." I didn't like "Survivors", "Mythology", and "Hate Leads to Lollipops." I liked how time travel was canonically explored in "The Secret of Tet-Ami." I liked getting Yaddle's origin in "Yaddle's Tale: The One Below," but it does have some continuity issues. The "Vow of Justice" arc from the 1998 Star Wars comics was good. I liked seeing Ki-Adi-Mundi's origin story and a coming-of-age story of sorts. I'm glad that he learned that revenge was not the way before he made a big mistake. I already read the Jedi - The Dark Side trade paperback earlier this year, so I'll keep my thoughts contained to that review. "Life, Death, and the Living Force" is a good story for Qui-Gon teaching Obi-Wan life lessons and the importance of following the Living Force. The Maul-centric stories "Nameless" and "Marked" were okay, but had non-canonical elements. "Jedi Chef" featuring Plo Koon and Micah Giiett was funny. My favorite stories in this collection were Jedi Council: Acts of War and the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan-centric comics "The Aurorient Express" and "Last Stand on Ord Mantell." I loved the supporting and starring roles for not just my favorite Master/Padawan duo, but also members of the Jedi Council, such as Micah Giiett. Acts of War had a kinda epic feel to it, showcasing the Yinchorri Uprising, one of the few big conflicts prior to the Battle of Naboo and the Clone Wars.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rise of the Sith is easily one of the more disappointing collections from the Marvel re-releases of the original Darkhorse Star Wars line.

It’s not all Marvel’s fault, as the majority of the issues in this collection were written in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, when The Phantom Menace was still new and Star Wars was going in a totally different direction than originally thought. Because of that, the writers had a blank check and freedom to go weird places and tell strange stories.

This could have been good (look at Legacy and Empire), however what occurred was a series of boring, uninspired, badly drawn, and very loosely tied together stories that don’t do anything for the Star Wars continuity. In Rise of the Sith you get mundane tales like Qui-gon and Obi-wan trying to figure out a hijacked space cruiser, and some bizarrely (aka, horribly) illustrated one about Qui-gon saving some ugly ass creatures, only to kill them later. There’s some super childish and quite lame one-offs at the end of the collection that are pointless.

Really, there’s not even a single “good” story within this collection. A few are just basically “ok” (the Darth Maul shorts being the majority), but they don’t justify reading 488 pages to get to them.

[Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay Legends epic collection. The highlight in this is definitely the Jedi: Dark Side series following Qui-Gon and Xanatos (his apprentice before Obi-Wan). The Jedi Council: Acts of War series and the tales issues about Yaddle and Ki-Adi Mundi were also pretty good. I was not a big fan of much of the other stuff, and overall the artwork in this epic collection was not to my tastes. I'd say only get this if you are a big fan of the prequels, particularly Qui-Gon.

[Wendopolis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was interesting seeing interaction between Obi-Wan and his master, the stories didn’t really add anything new. A lot of the stories were silly or the artwork was so silly it detracted from the story. So, this first volume of Rise of the Sith isn’t very good. The second volume is the one that should be read if you’re interested in how the Sith rose to power.

[Brandon Bishop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of these pre-Phantom Menace stories are just straight dumb. Also the artwork for many of them is by far the worst comic book art I have ever seen. Normally I don’t pay too much attention to artistic styles in comics, but here the poor quality was a huge distraction.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick impressions: Stories vary in length and quality. Compared to other volumes in the Legends Epic Collection, this one can seem less cohesive. Volume highlights stories of Jedi such as Mace Windu and Qui-Gon Jinn. I liked it, but one to borrow.

(Review to post later on my blog)

[Sam W.]

A great collection of many Star Wars comics. This tells in-depth information and stories about Mace Windu and the Jedi Council, things that weren't shown in the movies. It also describes how the Dark Side is always thriving, even if the Jedi don't realize it yet.

[Prince Namor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Star Wars

Very good read... interesting, intriguing, with some established story lines. Well thought out plots. You have got to love the wars between Jedi and Seth.

[Ajit Katharopoulos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories mostly entertaining ...

I enjoyed the stories, tough I wasn't as but a fan of the specific comedic ones. I also find that the certain in at is sometimes frustrating.

[Jesus Campoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collecting arcs and mini-series and mixing it up with SW Tales is a brilliant editorial idea. Great stuff.

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

This was a fun dive into legends stories set during the prequel era. Lots of Anakin, Obiwan and Mace content.

[Joe Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[DC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall the art quality is more enjoyable than the New Republic Vol 1 in these collections to my eye. The first few short stories were quite fun, but the longer arc "The Dark Side" is nearly incoherent in terms of storytelling. The attempt at "layers" just made everything confusing.

There were also some unpleasant depictions of Qui-Gon which... seemed out of character to me and didn't capture the spirit of Jedi mysticism that I think is expressed elsewhere.
I quite liked the story arc for "Acts of War," but there were so many coloring errors. Most notably giving some Jedi red lightsabers. Inconsistency in blade color was also problematic (it changed between panels sometimes), and that Mace Windu didn't have a purple blade, but someone else did (Saese Tiin, but only some of the time). That was... aggravating. But at least the story made sense and was something I wanted to read.

[A.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of stories leads up to Episode 1. As with any compendium, some stories were better than others. The story I enjoyed most was "Star Wars: Jedi - The Dark Side #1-5" which contains an adventure with Qui-Gon Jinn and three other less well known Jedi characters. The character development in this story seemed to me to be the strongest of the whole book.

The weaknesses of this collection, for me, were the short, narrated stories. These stories were often only a few pages, and likely appeared as bonus stories in the back of other comic books. They often answered questions fans have like, How did Darth Maul build his double-sided lightsaber?, or How come Mace Windu's lightsaber is purple? etc. These stories were typically narrated, which grew tired and did nothing for character development. I think they were supposed to feel like ancient lore, as if an old Jedi master was leaning back in his chair and saying to a young padawan, "Let me tell you the legend of . . ." But for me, this fell flat. Narrated stories like this, especially when they're short, or especially when the art is only so-so, just aren't compelling. Again, this is my opinion. Others may feel differently.

Recommended reading for true Star Wars fans. If you're only a fan of the movies, then skip this book. If you love reading expanded universe stuff, then don't miss this one, but I suggest getting it from the library. Though the production value of this book is high (glossy pages, etc.), the $34.99 price tag is way too steep for this book. The stories just aren't memorable enough.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

This omnibus really suffered from a lack of a unifying story or even theme. There was also very, very little actual Sith in it. The final story arc was compelling, as was the start covering Mace Windu, but the middle really dragged.

Unlike several of the other omnibuses I have read the art style varied drastically from story to story, with some of the artwork just not very good, too cartoony.

I would avoid this one, as there are many other much better ones, the clone wars saga for example.