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Star Wars: Republic #1
Star Wars: Prelude to Rebellion
Ki-Adi-Mundi is a Jedi Knight of formidable strength and influence. On his homeworld of Cerea, most of the planet`s citizens are happy to continue their low-tech lives of simplicity, isolated from the Republic, but a growing voice calls for the advanced technologies brought by offworlders. When Ki becomes a strong voice of opposition for such development, he is falsely charged with murder and is swiftly drawn into a web of conspiracy and intrigue that could rock the galaxy to its foundations--a web that may have the vile crime lord Jabba the Hutt and the powerful Trade Federation at its center, setting the stage for Episode I --The Phantom Menace
117 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2000
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127 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 31, 2023
Set in 32BBY
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to like this, because I love reading about secondary characters and learning more about them, this one was just an ok story. Simple and predictable as to what's happening and how it's going to end.
"Remember nobility in many hearts lives! Find it you must and cherish." - Yoda
Ki Adi tries to talk some sense to citizens, his daughter gets in trouble, he tries to find out some stuff and then he has to save his daughter. That's all.
I liked the world build up for the Cereans how they live and all that, but some things got to me, like there's a fight in the middle of a gathering with lots of citizens, Ki-Adi Mundi loses his lightsaber (ok?! Nice one Mr. Jedi Master) and then someone picks it up and accidentally kills someone else, then Ki Adi who was a few feet back, runs over there, while the killer runs away, and everyone is like "oh my, look, the jedi killed someone" Like, really bro? I don't know who's supposed to be more stupid here; the citizens or me reading this plot. Little things like that grind my gears.
Justice the fruit of compassion is. Revenge, the fruit of hatred. - Yoda
Also, the women-men ratio things and men having because of it 5 or more women each or something and we're supposed to look at 1 man being with 10 women because of how the population is or something. but we rarely see any women in the world.
Anyway, an ok story with nice artwork. Very simple and the end is predictable. Could be a lot better.
"I’ve never opposed the use of technology in the pursuit of justice. But drinking from a well doesn’t mean you wish to drown in a river." - Ki Adi Mundi
"Hate the act, but pity the being, lost his battle with the Dark Side, he has." - Yoda
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to like this, because I love reading about secondary characters and learning more about them, this one was just an ok story. Simple and predictable as to what's happening and how it's going to end.
"Remember nobility in many hearts lives! Find it you must and cherish." - Yoda
Ki Adi tries to talk some sense to citizens, his daughter gets in trouble, he tries to find out some stuff and then he has to save his daughter. That's all.
I liked the world build up for the Cereans how they live and all that, but some things got to me, like there's a fight in the middle of a gathering with lots of citizens, Ki-Adi Mundi loses his lightsaber (ok?! Nice one Mr. Jedi Master) and then someone picks it up and accidentally kills someone else, then Ki Adi who was a few feet back, runs over there, while the killer runs away, and everyone is like "oh my, look, the jedi killed someone" Like, really bro? I don't know who's supposed to be more stupid here; the citizens or me reading this plot. Little things like that grind my gears.
Justice the fruit of compassion is. Revenge, the fruit of hatred. - Yoda
Also, the women-men ratio things and men having because of it 5 or more women each or something and we're supposed to look at 1 man being with 10 women because of how the population is or something. but we rarely see any women in the world.
Anyway, an ok story with nice artwork. Very simple and the end is predictable. Could be a lot better.
"I’ve never opposed the use of technology in the pursuit of justice. But drinking from a well doesn’t mean you wish to drown in a river." - Ki Adi Mundi
"Hate the act, but pity the being, lost his battle with the Dark Side, he has." - Yoda
April 30, 2016
Star Wars Legends Project #63
Background: Prelude to Rebellion came out in 6 issues from December 1998 to May 1999. The trade paperback was released in May of 2000. Several years later it was collected in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise of the Sith (my review). The story was written by Jan Strnad with art pencilled by Anthony Winn. Strnad also wrote a couple storylines for the X-Wing comic series, and has worked on various other non-Star Wars comics and books, in addition to writing for television (most notably for Disney shows like Goof Troop). Winn has not worked on any other Star Wars series, but has done a lot of other work, particularly for Marvel on X-Men and Avengers titles.
Prelude to Rebellion is set 33 years before the Battle of Yavin, 1 year before The Phantom Menace. The main character is Jedi Knight Ki-Adi-Mundi, with major appearances (randomly) by Ephant Mon and Jabba the Hutt. Naturally, the story ends up on Tatooine, as well.
Summary: As a Jedi and a Cerean, Ki-Adi-Mundi is proud to protect and defend his planet from both internal and external threats. Now he faces a threat that is both: As the Republic presses Cerea to join, hoping to flood the simple planet with new technology and trade and gain access to the Cereans' valuable natural resources, Ki finds himself at odds with both the cynical diplomats who would exploit his world and the younger generation who feel he is hopelessly mired in the past. But even Ki doesn't know the true depths of the evil being plotted in secret.
Review: I wish I could say that this is the worst backstory in all of Star Wars, but unfortunately I've read "Skippy the Jedi Droid." Suffice to say this is still really, really bad. And it's bad in two ways, one of which is not really its fault, but which I hold against it anyway. First, broadly, the things that are its fault: The writing is stilted and corny. The story never makes any sense at all. There isn't a single character that is likable or even just slightly compelling.
Second, the thing that isn't really its fault: This story does an incredibly poor job, on almost every level, of fitting into the continuity established by the prequels. It helps to know, as I did not realize until I was done reading, that it was published entirely before the release of Episode I. So many baffling things about this story suddenly make sense once you know that. So, maybe it's not really this story's fault that it doesn't play nicely with the rest of the established canon because that stuff wasn't established yet. However, I still feel like I have to count that against it on some level, because first, so many of the ideas in it are just so bad on their own merits (thank goodness they fit so badly with everything else), and second, they shouldn't have played so extensively in a sandbox that hadn't been built yet!
So, let's look at some of these issues in a bit more detail. I'm probably not going to be able to get to everything that made this so awful, but I'll try to be systematic about it. The most egregious offense in the writing is the constant running narration written in present-tense. I'm not sure what style it's going for . . . Maybe a little hard-boiled detective noir, maybe more Golden-Age of comics . . . But it just comes off like an evangelical tract in all of its awkwardness and compulsion for over-explaining.
The story starts off okay, if you ignore all of the weirdness of the details and the shallowness of the premise, but how it unfolds never makes any sense. Ki ends up in pursuit of a fugitive, which leads him off-world and lands him in the middle of what turns out to be a totally unrelated plot that never quite gets explained all the way. Which is okay, because it turns out not to matter at all anyway. It's all just an excuse to resolve Ki's character arc and provide a totally vague tie-in with some Trade Federation stuff that's theoretically going to be important in Episode I (but actually totally isn't).
But it's hardest to get over how awful the characters are. Ki is basically the only sympathetic figure with any screentime. Everyone else is either incredibly annoying or super-evil (or both). And that would be fine if either Ki or any of the villains were remotely interesting, but they aren't. Ki's character arc is basically to learn that his living daughters need to be as important to him as the son he may one day have, which is just gross. Don't ever have your main character learn a lesson that any basically decent human being already gets. Of the remaining cast, Ephant Mon comes the closest to being worthwhile. He's an utterly bizarre choice for the role he fills, but there are hints at a mix of ruthlessness and intelligence in his character that could have really gone somewhere. Could have.
The fact that Ephant Mon, a random alien standing around in Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi, plays a major role in this story seems like such a throwback to a pre-prequel mentality of making connections between the brand-new period of the prequels and stuff from the original trilogy. This would also explain (perhaps) why the story feels like it has to drag us back to Tatooine, apropos of nothing, where now apparently deadly ion storms are a common occurrence.
Far more jarring than that, though, is pretty much everything about Ki-Adi-Mundi and how he goes about being a Jedi. Ki leaves his family (oppressed by vicious local raiders) to train with the Jedi with the explicit idea that he will one day return to his homeworld and deal with the problems there. Which, actually, is the one difference that makes sense. There really is no good explanation for why it takes Anakin 10 years to go back and try to figure out whether he can free his enslaved mother in the prequel trilogy, and that he basically goes rogue to do so. But that's the only thing about Ki's life that makes any sense. We're told that on Cerea, only 1 in 20 children is born male, which necessitates the males of the species marrying multiple wives. Ki has at least 2 that we see, though he seems to have as many as 6? Or is it 20? It's not terribly clear, but he has multiple daughters as well (although we only see 1).
Obviously this is a pretty serious departure from the no-marriage, no-attachments Jedi Order we see in the prequels. But even more than that, it's such an obvious juvenile male fantasy, too . . . Particularly when female Cereans in the story seem totally subordinate to males (all of the authority figures we see are male, and Ki's wives are totally submissive and deferential to him). Which doesn't make a lot of sense if you consider that they're supposed to be 95% of the population. Males would obviously be important in a society like that because of their role in the continuation of the species, but would it really be so extremely patriarchal? It feels like a failure of imagination by a male author.
This story also puts Ki at odds with the Republic in this story, and the Republic, or at least their representatives, basically come across as some of the major villains. It's never very clear exactly how that meshes with Ki's role as a leading member of an order that is sworn to protect the Republic, since he doesn't even live on a planet that is a member of the Republic, and it seems he never leaves the planet. In fact, when he eventually does depart, he has to get special permission from the Jedi Council to extend his jurisdiction, which is just all kinds of odd.
The artwork is alright, even really good in a lot of places, with one huge exception. I imagine it would take a great deal of effort to draw Cereans in a way that doesn't make them look like the Coneheads. Winn didn't pull it off. Actually, he made it worse by giving a lot of them hairstyles and make-up and headgear that emphasized the absurdity of their heads, particularly the teenagers. Which was even more unfortunate when all of the teenagers talked like characters out of a 1950s educational short.
And there are plenty of other issues, as well . . . But you get the picture. Avoid, avoid, avoid. This story's biggest contribution to the timeline is that it concludes with the Jedi Council wanting to make Ki a member . . . but so did Jedi Council: Acts of War, so even that revelation is redundant at this point.
D-
Background: Prelude to Rebellion came out in 6 issues from December 1998 to May 1999. The trade paperback was released in May of 2000. Several years later it was collected in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise of the Sith (my review). The story was written by Jan Strnad with art pencilled by Anthony Winn. Strnad also wrote a couple storylines for the X-Wing comic series, and has worked on various other non-Star Wars comics and books, in addition to writing for television (most notably for Disney shows like Goof Troop). Winn has not worked on any other Star Wars series, but has done a lot of other work, particularly for Marvel on X-Men and Avengers titles.
Prelude to Rebellion is set 33 years before the Battle of Yavin, 1 year before The Phantom Menace. The main character is Jedi Knight Ki-Adi-Mundi, with major appearances (randomly) by Ephant Mon and Jabba the Hutt. Naturally, the story ends up on Tatooine, as well.
Summary: As a Jedi and a Cerean, Ki-Adi-Mundi is proud to protect and defend his planet from both internal and external threats. Now he faces a threat that is both: As the Republic presses Cerea to join, hoping to flood the simple planet with new technology and trade and gain access to the Cereans' valuable natural resources, Ki finds himself at odds with both the cynical diplomats who would exploit his world and the younger generation who feel he is hopelessly mired in the past. But even Ki doesn't know the true depths of the evil being plotted in secret.
Review: I wish I could say that this is the worst backstory in all of Star Wars, but unfortunately I've read "Skippy the Jedi Droid." Suffice to say this is still really, really bad. And it's bad in two ways, one of which is not really its fault, but which I hold against it anyway. First, broadly, the things that are its fault: The writing is stilted and corny. The story never makes any sense at all. There isn't a single character that is likable or even just slightly compelling.
Second, the thing that isn't really its fault: This story does an incredibly poor job, on almost every level, of fitting into the continuity established by the prequels. It helps to know, as I did not realize until I was done reading, that it was published entirely before the release of Episode I. So many baffling things about this story suddenly make sense once you know that. So, maybe it's not really this story's fault that it doesn't play nicely with the rest of the established canon because that stuff wasn't established yet. However, I still feel like I have to count that against it on some level, because first, so many of the ideas in it are just so bad on their own merits (thank goodness they fit so badly with everything else), and second, they shouldn't have played so extensively in a sandbox that hadn't been built yet!
So, let's look at some of these issues in a bit more detail. I'm probably not going to be able to get to everything that made this so awful, but I'll try to be systematic about it. The most egregious offense in the writing is the constant running narration written in present-tense. I'm not sure what style it's going for . . . Maybe a little hard-boiled detective noir, maybe more Golden-Age of comics . . . But it just comes off like an evangelical tract in all of its awkwardness and compulsion for over-explaining.
The story starts off okay, if you ignore all of the weirdness of the details and the shallowness of the premise, but how it unfolds never makes any sense. Ki ends up in pursuit of a fugitive, which leads him off-world and lands him in the middle of what turns out to be a totally unrelated plot that never quite gets explained all the way. Which is okay, because it turns out not to matter at all anyway. It's all just an excuse to resolve Ki's character arc and provide a totally vague tie-in with some Trade Federation stuff that's theoretically going to be important in Episode I (but actually totally isn't).
But it's hardest to get over how awful the characters are. Ki is basically the only sympathetic figure with any screentime. Everyone else is either incredibly annoying or super-evil (or both). And that would be fine if either Ki or any of the villains were remotely interesting, but they aren't. Ki's character arc is basically to learn that his living daughters need to be as important to him as the son he may one day have, which is just gross. Don't ever have your main character learn a lesson that any basically decent human being already gets. Of the remaining cast, Ephant Mon comes the closest to being worthwhile. He's an utterly bizarre choice for the role he fills, but there are hints at a mix of ruthlessness and intelligence in his character that could have really gone somewhere. Could have.
The fact that Ephant Mon, a random alien standing around in Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi, plays a major role in this story seems like such a throwback to a pre-prequel mentality of making connections between the brand-new period of the prequels and stuff from the original trilogy. This would also explain (perhaps) why the story feels like it has to drag us back to Tatooine, apropos of nothing, where now apparently deadly ion storms are a common occurrence.
Far more jarring than that, though, is pretty much everything about Ki-Adi-Mundi and how he goes about being a Jedi. Ki leaves his family (oppressed by vicious local raiders) to train with the Jedi with the explicit idea that he will one day return to his homeworld and deal with the problems there. Which, actually, is the one difference that makes sense. There really is no good explanation for why it takes Anakin 10 years to go back and try to figure out whether he can free his enslaved mother in the prequel trilogy, and that he basically goes rogue to do so. But that's the only thing about Ki's life that makes any sense. We're told that on Cerea, only 1 in 20 children is born male, which necessitates the males of the species marrying multiple wives. Ki has at least 2 that we see, though he seems to have as many as 6? Or is it 20? It's not terribly clear, but he has multiple daughters as well (although we only see 1).
Obviously this is a pretty serious departure from the no-marriage, no-attachments Jedi Order we see in the prequels. But even more than that, it's such an obvious juvenile male fantasy, too . . . Particularly when female Cereans in the story seem totally subordinate to males (all of the authority figures we see are male, and Ki's wives are totally submissive and deferential to him). Which doesn't make a lot of sense if you consider that they're supposed to be 95% of the population. Males would obviously be important in a society like that because of their role in the continuation of the species, but would it really be so extremely patriarchal? It feels like a failure of imagination by a male author.
This story also puts Ki at odds with the Republic in this story, and the Republic, or at least their representatives, basically come across as some of the major villains. It's never very clear exactly how that meshes with Ki's role as a leading member of an order that is sworn to protect the Republic, since he doesn't even live on a planet that is a member of the Republic, and it seems he never leaves the planet. In fact, when he eventually does depart, he has to get special permission from the Jedi Council to extend his jurisdiction, which is just all kinds of odd.
The artwork is alright, even really good in a lot of places, with one huge exception. I imagine it would take a great deal of effort to draw Cereans in a way that doesn't make them look like the Coneheads. Winn didn't pull it off. Actually, he made it worse by giving a lot of them hairstyles and make-up and headgear that emphasized the absurdity of their heads, particularly the teenagers. Which was even more unfortunate when all of the teenagers talked like characters out of a 1950s educational short.
And there are plenty of other issues, as well . . . But you get the picture. Avoid, avoid, avoid. This story's biggest contribution to the timeline is that it concludes with the Jedi Council wanting to make Ki a member . . . but so did Jedi Council: Acts of War, so even that revelation is redundant at this point.
D-
March 8, 2019
Who's ready for a rant about Cerean gender politics??
So Cereans have a really lopsided gender breakdown: 20 women for every man. Yet despite the fact that there are so many more women than men, it's still a painfully heterosexual world. It seems to practice polygamy, but not polyamory. The women married to a single man seem to have a sort of combative relationship; there's a primary bond-wife and the rest of the women are honor-wives. This would have been a prime opportunity for some good queer polyamory and they fucking fell down on the job I am so angry.
Plus, despite the fact that there are drastically fewer men than women, the majority of the Cerean characters in this book were still men?? I feel like all the members of the Elder's Council were men and I am just floored. Hell, the main character is a dude and I am so mad that it wasn't the queer woman that it clearly should have been based on their species breakdown.
The actual story is pretty much the usual SW action/adventure nonsense but I'm just so angry about their gender politics I could scream which leaves me hating this comic series.
So Cereans have a really lopsided gender breakdown: 20 women for every man. Yet despite the fact that there are so many more women than men, it's still a painfully heterosexual world. It seems to practice polygamy, but not polyamory. The women married to a single man seem to have a sort of combative relationship; there's a primary bond-wife and the rest of the women are honor-wives. This would have been a prime opportunity for some good queer polyamory and they fucking fell down on the job I am so angry.
Plus, despite the fact that there are drastically fewer men than women, the majority of the Cerean characters in this book were still men?? I feel like all the members of the Elder's Council were men and I am just floored. Hell, the main character is a dude and I am so mad that it wasn't the queer woman that it clearly should have been based on their species breakdown.
The actual story is pretty much the usual SW action/adventure nonsense but I'm just so angry about their gender politics I could scream which leaves me hating this comic series.
December 13, 2019
December 13 2019 - 2 stars: I think I've now read this volume as much or more than any other Star Wars comic. Which is weird because it's not exactly anything special. It just sits at the on-ramp to some of the most (at least by ambition) mature and thoughtful storytelling we have about the prequel-era Jedi and the Clone Wars. Still, on this read I was more able to appreciate its weirdness in abstract. The retro character designs (the choice to put all these goofy 50's perms and biker gang haircuts on the Cerean head is pretty goofy and fun), the chocobos, the isolationist/anti-tech angle for Cerea. It's all strange in a way the Mandalorian has me appreciating as a look for Star Wars content. The problem is that it's mostly not executed very well. It's weird if you squint the right way, but otherwise it feels like a very prosaic and familiar kind of heroic masculine storytelling, almost like something out of Conan. There are damsels and scheming outsiders trying to undermine the family life of our heroes and devious bandits (who are sometimes led by sexy lady bandits!) and it's mostly just super familiar, dull, and almost feels like a step backwards from Star Wars into its genre predecessors.
I don't know how they got permission to do all this to Ki's backstory--making him an older discovery like Anakin, getting a dispensation to have a family, like Anakin, with no real long-term consequences in mind. He is put in dark, tempting situations, but they never get a grip on him as a character. He just glides right through it all. Plus, he's a strangely conservative figure. I'm not sure that characterization is a bad choice in theory, since Ki always comes off as a bit stiff in the films too. It's weird that it isn't ever really remarked on. The world conforms to him rather than challening him. The characters around him aren't offensively bad, they're just boring. His robot companions, his family, his informant all make me think of more vibrant and interesting characters in other series. It's a strange story that doesn't quite fit, and doesn't manage to overcome that with particularly strong writing. Though it's not the worst by any means--comparing this to eg the Star's End adaptation makes it look pretty stellar.
What I think I never realized until just now is that these stories were actually published before AotC. They are, in a sense, the Splinter of the Mind's Eye of the prequels. So the fact that so many things about the Jedi seem to openly contradict the prequels themselves implicitly, and explicitly contradict later EU material, isn't that surprising.
August 21 2017 - 2 stars: [When I first read all the SW comics I lumped the reviews to avoid inflating my books read count, but that seems silly now and I kinda regret not having that more complete/high resolution review information. So this is just for the first arc of Republic, Prelude to Rebellion.]
There's some kind of odd stuff here--the technological isolation is bizarre, and all the Cerean kids have '50s haircuts and big pimples like they're in Jughead or something. Neither of those choices work all that well for me, but it's at least nice to see a story with so much distance from the movies. Ki-Adi-Mundi's personal arc is weirdly conservative (he mourns the fact that his wives haven't given him a son), which could be an interesting angle if it were developed instead of just asserted. And the underworld scheme makes a mockery of this interesting political debate by turning it into a boilerplate criminal conspiracy.
July 1-11 2011: [This review represents the entire 83-issue Republic series] - 5 stars
Since Republic was not a single story arc focusing on more or less the same characters (as were KOTOR and Legacy), it is understandable that it was less consistently incredible, and certainly less compelling most of the time. However, once Quinlan Vos' story arc really kicked in, it did gain that sense of great story-telling. Vos' character, his frequent interactions with the dark side, his relationship with Khaleen, and his ultimate redemption felt original and unique. The emotion was real, a natural consequence of a good story well executed. In that sense, it was tragically better than Anakin's story in the prequels: a good story criminally executed.
Anakin's appearances in Republic were loathsome - it's quite clear that the character was not invented by any of the authors; all of their characters understand and accept the principles of their order and find them challenged in realistic, meaningful ways. Anakin is written to be obnoxiously in defiance of the order, to have learned nothing, ever, about what it means to be a Jedi. Since his character is thus so unlikable and his downfall written into his character so clumsily, his downfall is not meaningful. But that's really not a major part of Republic, thankfully, so sorry for the tangent.
It was great to get to see some of the cooler Council members in action - Oppo Rancisis, Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, etc. Yaddle even got some lines early on. Master Zao is a brilliant character, and while it might be a shame so few major characters die, I am definitely glad they let Master Zao live. "The food is fine. It is in harmony with itself, with the other food, and the universe. Consider - perhaps the problem is with you and not the food." Master Zao is a "Taoist" wandering Jedi, who "is a leaf, blown by the Force," rather than a direct servant of the Jedi Council. He cooks food, and those who are at peace find it quite delicious, while those who aren't find it disgusting. Nice.
I don't know how they got permission to do all this to Ki's backstory--making him an older discovery like Anakin, getting a dispensation to have a family, like Anakin, with no real long-term consequences in mind. He is put in dark, tempting situations, but they never get a grip on him as a character. He just glides right through it all. Plus, he's a strangely conservative figure. I'm not sure that characterization is a bad choice in theory, since Ki always comes off as a bit stiff in the films too. It's weird that it isn't ever really remarked on. The world conforms to him rather than challening him. The characters around him aren't offensively bad, they're just boring. His robot companions, his family, his informant all make me think of more vibrant and interesting characters in other series. It's a strange story that doesn't quite fit, and doesn't manage to overcome that with particularly strong writing. Though it's not the worst by any means--comparing this to eg the Star's End adaptation makes it look pretty stellar.
What I think I never realized until just now is that these stories were actually published before AotC. They are, in a sense, the Splinter of the Mind's Eye of the prequels. So the fact that so many things about the Jedi seem to openly contradict the prequels themselves implicitly, and explicitly contradict later EU material, isn't that surprising.
August 21 2017 - 2 stars: [When I first read all the SW comics I lumped the reviews to avoid inflating my books read count, but that seems silly now and I kinda regret not having that more complete/high resolution review information. So this is just for the first arc of Republic, Prelude to Rebellion.]
There's some kind of odd stuff here--the technological isolation is bizarre, and all the Cerean kids have '50s haircuts and big pimples like they're in Jughead or something. Neither of those choices work all that well for me, but it's at least nice to see a story with so much distance from the movies. Ki-Adi-Mundi's personal arc is weirdly conservative (he mourns the fact that his wives haven't given him a son), which could be an interesting angle if it were developed instead of just asserted. And the underworld scheme makes a mockery of this interesting political debate by turning it into a boilerplate criminal conspiracy.
July 1-11 2011: [This review represents the entire 83-issue Republic series] - 5 stars
Since Republic was not a single story arc focusing on more or less the same characters (as were KOTOR and Legacy), it is understandable that it was less consistently incredible, and certainly less compelling most of the time. However, once Quinlan Vos' story arc really kicked in, it did gain that sense of great story-telling. Vos' character, his frequent interactions with the dark side, his relationship with Khaleen, and his ultimate redemption felt original and unique. The emotion was real, a natural consequence of a good story well executed. In that sense, it was tragically better than Anakin's story in the prequels: a good story criminally executed.
Anakin's appearances in Republic were loathsome - it's quite clear that the character was not invented by any of the authors; all of their characters understand and accept the principles of their order and find them challenged in realistic, meaningful ways. Anakin is written to be obnoxiously in defiance of the order, to have learned nothing, ever, about what it means to be a Jedi. Since his character is thus so unlikable and his downfall written into his character so clumsily, his downfall is not meaningful. But that's really not a major part of Republic, thankfully, so sorry for the tangent.
It was great to get to see some of the cooler Council members in action - Oppo Rancisis, Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, etc. Yaddle even got some lines early on. Master Zao is a brilliant character, and while it might be a shame so few major characters die, I am definitely glad they let Master Zao live. "The food is fine. It is in harmony with itself, with the other food, and the universe. Consider - perhaps the problem is with you and not the food." Master Zao is a "Taoist" wandering Jedi, who "is a leaf, blown by the Force," rather than a direct servant of the Jedi Council. He cooks food, and those who are at peace find it quite delicious, while those who aren't find it disgusting. Nice.
June 6, 2025
eu genuinamente queria saber quem foi a brilhante mente (pra n dizer o contrário) que entre tantas outras oportunidades decidiu que uma backstory pro ki-adi-mundi ia ser uma ótima prequel pro episódio 1!!! e ainda por cima não é nem interessante, é só ruim mesmo. a única coisa minimamente fofa foi o yode (e isso porquê eu adoro os bichinhos da espécie glup shitto).
June 15, 2012
Dull, lifeless, pointless laboured storytelling. Don't start here.
March 20, 2017
One of the few Jedi Council members to get a speaking line in the films, plus one of the more upsetting Order 66 deaths (after Aayla Secura), we get to find out more about Ki-Adi-Mundi and Cerean culture. It was great seeing how a Jedi can do his duties while being a family man at the same time. The 20-1 female-male ratio of Cereans meant that Ki-Adi-Mundi was allowed to marry for the sake of the species.
This story takes a little while to get going leading to a bizarre aliens-type encounter in space (it would be great to see those things back again) and a rather unnecessary encounter with Jabba the Hutt and a lightning storm.
Jabba's best buddy Ephant Mon also featured a fair bit in this story, and I enjoyed seeing him fleshed out a bit more. I always found him one of the more intriguing characters of Jabba's entourage.
The bonus story at the back that follows Ki-Adi-Mundi's first solo mission as a Jedi dealing with bandits on Cerea was a nice little bonus.
This story takes a little while to get going leading to a bizarre aliens-type encounter in space (it would be great to see those things back again) and a rather unnecessary encounter with Jabba the Hutt and a lightning storm.
Jabba's best buddy Ephant Mon also featured a fair bit in this story, and I enjoyed seeing him fleshed out a bit more. I always found him one of the more intriguing characters of Jabba's entourage.
The bonus story at the back that follows Ki-Adi-Mundi's first solo mission as a Jedi dealing with bandits on Cerea was a nice little bonus.
February 8, 2024
Overall alright Legends story that fleshes out Ki-Adi-Mundi, gives him more depth than the movies do (not very hard to be fair), but it is nice to see a side character get some development. For a story about a planet with people with strangely shaped heads, it manages to design these characters to not look too ridiculous, so I must give props to the story for that.
I thought the second half of the story was stronger than the first half, and I like how Ki is shown to be a rather caring jedi and loving father.
I thought the second half of the story was stronger than the first half, and I like how Ki is shown to be a rather caring jedi and loving father.
January 25, 2020
EU Comics #1
My first EU comic review. Going to keep this one brief since I didn't think too much of it.
I've always thought Ki Adi Mundi was a cool character so it was nice seeing his backstory. I feel with the gender politics thing it was a missed opportunity to explore that deeper. Was interesting to see a Jedi who was married and had children, was allowed that by the Jedi council. Not forming a connection is obviously going to be a conflict for Ki.
The art was decent, the story was pretty by the books Star Wars.
2.5/5 stars
My first EU comic review. Going to keep this one brief since I didn't think too much of it.
I've always thought Ki Adi Mundi was a cool character so it was nice seeing his backstory. I feel with the gender politics thing it was a missed opportunity to explore that deeper. Was interesting to see a Jedi who was married and had children, was allowed that by the Jedi council. Not forming a connection is obviously going to be a conflict for Ki.
The art was decent, the story was pretty by the books Star Wars.
2.5/5 stars
March 3, 2020
Bleh. I didn't like the artwork, and the story wasn't great. Why is Ki-Adi-Mundi allowed to have wives and kids and visit his family? Was this written before the prequels set the rule for "no attachments?" Is he an exception because his species has so few males? The hairstyles on the Cereans drove me crazy. The women looked like they had '60s beehives and even some of their clothes looked extremely Earth-like.
February 8, 2025
Prelude to Rebellion
Star Wars Project #28
Rise of the Sith Era #28
Characters:Ki-Adi Mundi
Major Events: An interesting pre-cannon look at Jedi. I think this is before the mythology of personal connections was added, as we see Ki-Adi Mundi with his wives and children. His planet is tech free and some bureaucrat comes in to push the tech agenda, and the young members of the Cerean population want to give in (including his daughter). Things go bad and someone uses Ki's lightsaber (republic tech) to kill someone and his daughter goes on the run. it didn't stick the landing, but gave some good thinking to the universe. Is Ki a hypocrite for living with the luxuries of the republic but not allowing his planet to, or is he protecting them because he is aware of its consequences. I wish they explored this a little more, but it devolved into a poorly executed rescue mission
Scores6.5/10
Star Wars Project #28
Rise of the Sith Era #28
Characters:Ki-Adi Mundi
Major Events: An interesting pre-cannon look at Jedi. I think this is before the mythology of personal connections was added, as we see Ki-Adi Mundi with his wives and children. His planet is tech free and some bureaucrat comes in to push the tech agenda, and the young members of the Cerean population want to give in (including his daughter). Things go bad and someone uses Ki's lightsaber (republic tech) to kill someone and his daughter goes on the run. it didn't stick the landing, but gave some good thinking to the universe. Is Ki a hypocrite for living with the luxuries of the republic but not allowing his planet to, or is he protecting them because he is aware of its consequences. I wish they explored this a little more, but it devolved into a poorly executed rescue mission
Scores6.5/10
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 13, 2018
A very vanilla storyline, but this is how all series start when they’re not sure what they’re doing.
The most interesting part was that Jedi were apparently allowed to marry, a point which would have made he Jedi far more interesting than the monk version we got in the prequels.
All Jedi hubris when it comes down to it.
The most interesting part was that Jedi were apparently allowed to marry, a point which would have made he Jedi far more interesting than the monk version we got in the prequels.
All Jedi hubris when it comes down to it.
May 26, 2019
It's okay I guess. Literally no one asked for this many issues of Ki-adi-mundi, but okay. Sure.
June 4, 2019
Really rough start to what became a fantastic series in its 2nd half
February 13, 2020
Just as boring as Episode I-III.
June 30, 2022
My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:
https://youtu.be/iGNCdU-N-SA
Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/iGNCdU-N-SA
Enjoy!
July 1, 2022
Not terrible but very mediocre. Apart from the inclusion of a few deep background characters from the films, there is very little in the design or execution of this book that feels like Star Wars.
July 19, 2022
Ki-Adi-Mundi as a Jedi Knight. On his homeworld of Cerea
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2023
really interesting choice to start off this run with ki-adi-mundi
June 2, 2025
The worst star wars story I've chronologically encountered so far.
August 13, 2025
fajne kurde, ładne
November 23, 2015
PRELUDE TO REBELLION
Continuing my trek through some of the earlier Star Wars comics, we come to Dark Horse's first ongoing series set in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Originally simply entitled Star Wars, the series was retitled Star Wars: Republic to avoid confusion when Dark Horse began publishing a second ongoing focused in the era of the Original Trilogy films. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to refer to the series as a whole using the Republic subtitle in these reviews. This story was reprinted in the eponymous trade paperback, which also featured the backup tale Vow Of Justice, and in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise Of The Sith.
Jedi Knight Ki-Adi-Mundi serves as the Jedi protector for his homeworld of Cerea, a relatively primitive world far from the beaten path of interstellar travel. Cerea isn't a member of the galaxy-wide Republic, but there are those who would very much like to change that--open up Cerea as a market for modern technology and exploit its unique natural resources. When violence breaks out at a pro-Republic rally and his daughter is implicated, Ki-Adi-Mundi is sucked into an investigation of smuggling, murder, and conspiracy....
This one was pretty mediocre, and doesn't fit very well with the other stories in the same era. Partially this is a function of this story being the first published in this era, even before The Phantom Menace. When this was released, it wasn't known that Jedi were not allowed to marry. Later the writers were forced to retcon the backstory and explain that Ki-Adi-Mundi was granted an exception to this rule based on his species' low birth rate. While we know the Republic was growing corrupt in its final days, here it appears downright villainous. I don't want to say that this was bad, but it wasn't great--especially compared with some of the later arcs of the same series.
This tale is set one year prior to the events of The Phantom Menace, and occurs simultaneously with Jedi Council: Acts Of War.
CONTENT: Mild violence. Mild profanity. Mild sexual innuendo, including a couple scantily-clad women in Jabba's court.
VOW OF JUSTICE
Vow Of Justice is a tale that ran as a backup feature in issues four through six of Dark Horse's ongoing Star Wars comic, later retitled Star Wars: Republic. It was included in the trade paperback collection Prelude To Rebellion, and was reprinted in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise Of The Sith.
This story features a much younger version of Ki-Adi-Mundi as a recently-knighted Jedi returning to his home planet of Cerea for the first time to end the reign of a local warlord who had terrorized the region before Ki-Adi-Mundi's departure for the Jedi Temple. What he finds on arrival, though, is not what he expected....Can the newly minted Jedi Knight hold true to the Jedi ways, or will he allow the Dark Side a foothold by taking vengeance on the raiders for their persecution of his family?
This shorter tale isn't as problematic as the main story, even if it is fairly predictable in its conclusion. Definitely worth tracking down, especially if you're a fan of Ki-Adi-Mundi. This story is set thirty-five years before The Phantom Menace, or sixty-seven years before A New Hope.
CONTENT: Mild violence. Mild profanity. Mild sexual innuendo, including a few scantily-clad characters.
Continuing my trek through some of the earlier Star Wars comics, we come to Dark Horse's first ongoing series set in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Originally simply entitled Star Wars, the series was retitled Star Wars: Republic to avoid confusion when Dark Horse began publishing a second ongoing focused in the era of the Original Trilogy films. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to refer to the series as a whole using the Republic subtitle in these reviews. This story was reprinted in the eponymous trade paperback, which also featured the backup tale Vow Of Justice, and in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise Of The Sith.
Jedi Knight Ki-Adi-Mundi serves as the Jedi protector for his homeworld of Cerea, a relatively primitive world far from the beaten path of interstellar travel. Cerea isn't a member of the galaxy-wide Republic, but there are those who would very much like to change that--open up Cerea as a market for modern technology and exploit its unique natural resources. When violence breaks out at a pro-Republic rally and his daughter is implicated, Ki-Adi-Mundi is sucked into an investigation of smuggling, murder, and conspiracy....
This one was pretty mediocre, and doesn't fit very well with the other stories in the same era. Partially this is a function of this story being the first published in this era, even before The Phantom Menace. When this was released, it wasn't known that Jedi were not allowed to marry. Later the writers were forced to retcon the backstory and explain that Ki-Adi-Mundi was granted an exception to this rule based on his species' low birth rate. While we know the Republic was growing corrupt in its final days, here it appears downright villainous. I don't want to say that this was bad, but it wasn't great--especially compared with some of the later arcs of the same series.
This tale is set one year prior to the events of The Phantom Menace, and occurs simultaneously with Jedi Council: Acts Of War.
CONTENT: Mild violence. Mild profanity. Mild sexual innuendo, including a couple scantily-clad women in Jabba's court.
VOW OF JUSTICE
Vow Of Justice is a tale that ran as a backup feature in issues four through six of Dark Horse's ongoing Star Wars comic, later retitled Star Wars: Republic. It was included in the trade paperback collection Prelude To Rebellion, and was reprinted in Star Wars Omnibus: Rise Of The Sith.
This story features a much younger version of Ki-Adi-Mundi as a recently-knighted Jedi returning to his home planet of Cerea for the first time to end the reign of a local warlord who had terrorized the region before Ki-Adi-Mundi's departure for the Jedi Temple. What he finds on arrival, though, is not what he expected....Can the newly minted Jedi Knight hold true to the Jedi ways, or will he allow the Dark Side a foothold by taking vengeance on the raiders for their persecution of his family?
This shorter tale isn't as problematic as the main story, even if it is fairly predictable in its conclusion. Definitely worth tracking down, especially if you're a fan of Ki-Adi-Mundi. This story is set thirty-five years before The Phantom Menace, or sixty-seven years before A New Hope.
CONTENT: Mild violence. Mild profanity. Mild sexual innuendo, including a few scantily-clad characters.
June 26, 2012
Cette BD porte sur le Jedi Ki-Adi-Mundi. Celui-ci est le Jedi attitré à la planète Cerea. La première partie : Cette planète ne fait pas vraiment partie de la République mais il y a des pression pour qu'elle en fasse partie. Ki-Adi-Mundi s'y oppose car selon lui, les nouvelles technologies venant des autres planètes auront pour effet de détruire l'écosystème de Cerea. Ses ennemis kidnappent sa fille pour le faire revenir sur ses idées.
Deuxième partie : Cette partie est une retour en arrière sur le passé de Ki-Adi-Mundi. On découvre comment il devient Jedi et sa première mission sur Cerea.
Ce n'est pas une très bonne bande dessinée. Le personnage principal me laisse vraiment indifférent. De plus, l'histoire de la première partie n'est pas très intéressante. La seconde l'est un peu plus. au moins, les dessins sont beaux.
Deuxième partie : Cette partie est une retour en arrière sur le passé de Ki-Adi-Mundi. On découvre comment il devient Jedi et sa première mission sur Cerea.
Ce n'est pas une très bonne bande dessinée. Le personnage principal me laisse vraiment indifférent. De plus, l'histoire de la première partie n'est pas très intéressante. La seconde l'est un peu plus. au moins, les dessins sont beaux.
October 27, 2013
An interesting idea about the conflicts of technology and traditions, and the young vs. the old. However I can't say it was written particularly well. The art was good for the most part, although any depictions of Yoda crept into uncanny valley.
April 23, 2016
Another side story the flows together into the development of the Phantom Menace storyline. Artwork is solid, storyline is good yet nothing groundbreaking, but from a lore aspect, it definitely adds flavor.
December 30, 2016
Una historia sensacional, pero muy baja calidad gráfica.
June 12, 2016
Bizarre and what is worse extremely boring. I kinda liked Ki-Adi-Mundi in the Clone Wars cartoon series but this made me reevaluate the character.
December 15, 2022
It wasn’t awful. The art could've been better, though.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews