Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 2: The Fall of the Sith Empire

Tales of the Jedi

by Kevin J. Anderson, Mark Heike, Various

The Sith Empire has rallied its forces for an all-out battle for control of the galaxy. Its goal: Crush the Republic. And with so many Sith Masters among them, the goal is not unachievable. As Naga Sadow readies his fleet to attack, one lone person threatens to undermine the entire campaign -- Jori Daragon. She isn't a Jedi. She's an explorer, a mapper of hyperspace who stumbled on the plans of the Sith. And she just may be the saviour of the Republic.

Collected issues: Star Wars - Tales of the Jedi : The Fall of the Sith Empire #1-5

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

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as strong as the first entry in the series. It felt like they were doing some great, intricate development of the story, and then rushed to resolve it. I bet this could have been fleshed out into another volume to give a more satisfying resolution to this part of the history of the Star Wars universe.



Tie in: there are some references that reminded me of the Lost Tribe of the Sith stories I read recently. It was cool to hear some of the same names and get background on the Massassi and the ancient Sith.



I have the next volume lined up to try soon, but I think the storyline of these two volumes has been closed - I expect it will go in a different direction.

[Sud666 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume continues the tale of the Sith invasion of the Republic.

Gav has started to work for Sith Lord Naga Sadow, while Jori flees back to the Republic. Once she does the Sith follow her trail to Republic Space where Naga Sadow starts his invasion. The Jedi Odan-Ur has to fight against the Sith on Coruscant and we see the start of his idea for a Jedi library on Ossus. But the war changes course for Naga Sadow, as he realizes that his rival Ludo Kresh has other plans for the Sith Empire. The end explains why Exar Kun, much later in time, finds the Sith temple on Yavin and is able to commune with Naga Sadow.

A good story, with endings that have portents for the future. A good story about the first Sith war against the Republic. This is thousands of years before the time of Vader. Lightsabers still come with power packs. Interesting to see. Any Star Wars fan will enjoy this one.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much better than the last volume and that is basically because of the main villain here, but still not enough to earn more stars.

I liked Naga Sadow and still hated the main characters (Jori and Gav) who are still remaining true to themselves and they keep on being stupid making stupid decisions that make no sense and they generally just keep making everything worse.

The dark lord of the Sith was interesting to see and I've found out I'm going to read about him and watch him in future media so that's cool

The 2 main protagonists (the dumb ones) they were bitching and crying about finding again each other since the last volume, and when they finally DID find each other here, because of a dumb reason they turn on each other? And they change decisions and feelings like it's nothing over the course of seconds? Nope.

And another thing which is the main thing that lost a full star, the whole WAR between the Sith and the Empire lasted like.. a couple of hours tops, and that sucked. Jori, the main character, was given a lightsaber like it's nothing from Jedi Masters who don't even know her, and just because she warned them about the Sith Empire coming for war which SHE was responsible for (I mean, you see the amount of stupidity here) and even so, she knows how to swing a lightsaber like it's the thing she grew up with. Meh..

Other than that the artwork was good and the end was promising which I hope it gets better on the next one!

[Mateusz Surowiec · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10
+
- masa fajnych tekstów
- świetny art style
- cudowne sceny

-
- main bohaterowie i ich decyzje
- fabuła taka se
- jako początek wielkiej historii Sithów... No... Tak se
- no tak se no

Main zły jest taki se też

Ogólnie to taki bez polotu ten początek tych wydarzeń dawno dawno w odległej galaktyce

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've really been enjoying the art in this series. It's not fancy or stylised, but it's a pleasure to look at.

I struggled more with the story and prose. The entire plot felt very rushed, this massive war between the Republic and Sith lasted only a few pages. On top of that, the characters were all dumb as bricks. They probably weren't any brighter in the last volume, but their stupidity stood out to me more here. And then finally to round it all off, is the terrible dialogue. And believe me, the dialogue is terrible.

Online these comics seem to be a highpoint for a lot of Star Wars fans. I have to admit that at this point, I'm struggling to understand why.

[Kamil Bryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Te same wady co pierwsza część, a zalet jakoś mniej. Tony ekspozycji. Gav Daragon to jeden z najgłupszych bohaterów w historii literatury, naprawdę. Ogólnie spory zawód, a i tak nie oczekiwałem wiele.

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Wars Legends Project #6

Background: Tales of the Jedi: The Fall of the Sith Empire was released in five issues from June to October 1997, and the trade paperback came out in May 1998. It was written by Kevin J. Anderson and pencilled by Dario Carrasco Jr., the same team who produced the previous Tales of the Jedi arc: The Golden Age of the Sith (my review here).

The Fall of the Sith Empire begins immediately after the conclusion of Golden Age of the Sith, 5,000 years before the Battle of Yavin. Speaking of which, there are some cool shout-outs to the origins of those Massassi temples on Yavin and a few other Expanded Universe tie-ins that I wouldn't want to spoil. This comic completes the arc of the characters begun in the previous series, and doesn't introduce any additional elements.

Summary: Jori Daragon has fled the Sith Empire. Forced to leave her brother Gav behind, she hopes to warn the Republic of the threat presented by the impending Sith invasion, but little does she know that a tracker has been attached to her ship, and she is leading the invaders straight to the Republic's doorstep. Meanwhile, Naga Sadow's plans to assume the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith and lead his armies in glorious battle nears fruition, and the Force-sensitive Gav may prove to be just the malleable-but-powerful apprentice that can seal the success of the venture.

Review: This is the pay-off I've been waiting about 15 issues to see (5 issues of Tales of the Jedi, and 10 issues of Dawn of the Jedi before it, because the pay-off of that series hasn't been published yet). The depiction of the Great Hyperspace War was epic and thrilling, rightly taking up the majority of this comic. The art was fantastic, and the fighting was intense. Massive space battles and planetary invasions are a cornerstone of what makes Star Wars awesome, and I appreciated the mega-dose of that I saw here.

That said, I have a few points of significant confusion about the set-up of this whole scenario, both pertaining to the role of the Daragon siblings. At the end of The Golden Age of the Sith, Naga Sadow stages a raid to free the captive Daragons (who are believed by the other Sith to be Republic spies), and makes it look like the Republic was responsible. He then plants just enough evidence of his own responsibility to lure his arch-rival into a trap, thus accomplishing two things at once: staging a dramatic escape to send Jori scuttling back to the Republic with the planted tracker, and extinguishing his chief competition.

So here are my questions: 1) Jori is so convinced of an impending Sith invasion that she pulls all kinds of crazy stunts to make sure the Republic is warned (more on that in a moment). But Jori escapes the system under the impression that Sadow is being attacked by fellow Sith for helping her escape. She has no reason to believe that there is an invasion in the works. Sadow's secret plan is to invade, but she thinks he's an ally, and the other Sith are loudly opposed to doing any such thing. So why does she think an invasion is coming?

And about those "crazy stunts" I mentioned. As soon as Jori lands back at home, she is immediately arrested for the theft and property damage she and her brother committed when they left the system previously. Her warnings fall on deaf ears, and she is sentenced to hard labor on a colony world. But, having worked there for an unspecified length of time, she randomly decides that it's just too important to warn someone. And she decides that, since the guards have probably got countermeasures to thwart any planned escape, she'll only be able to escape if she doesn't plan at all and just goes for it. This flawless leap in logic works, and she escapes fairly easily, roaring back home and breaking into the Empress's palace to warn her. Seems like, if she was capable of that kind of supreme effort, she ought to have just broken into the palace before she got packed off to a prison colony.

Oh, and the warning is pretty much pointless, anyway, because Odan-Urr, one of the Empress's Jedi advisors (and a "major" character who has played such a minor role that I haven't bothered to mention him by name before), has been having nightmares about a Sith invasion since the last series, and he already warned the Empress. And she already heeded his warning and set her war machine in motion. But everyone still acts like Jori's warning matters, even though it clearly doesn't. Anyway, that was all part of the first question . . .

2) Sadow uses the "Republic raid" that frees the Daragons as the impetus to rally the other Sith to take action. But as soon as the invasion is ready to launch, he trots Gav out as his protege, even going so far as to make this completely random, inexperienced person the commander of his flagship. Aside from the fact that this makes no sense, and totally backfires in all of the ways that you'd expect it to: Why don't the other Sith notice that the Republic spy who was rescued by the raid that sparked their invasion is suddenly in command of their fleet?

And while we're talking about Gav Daragon, his character arc was pretty terrible. I won't call it the clumsiest light-to-dark-to-light transformation I've ever seen, because (let's face it) Luke has some pretty terrible character arcs along these lines in a few stories, but it's extremely sketchy. The reasons for his decisions are all there, but Anderson never does the hard work of showing this process happen in a natural or convincing way.

So, definitely some serious issues with the writing here, and depending on the reader, that could be pretty distracting. Most of the issues I've outlined above didn't significantly bother me until I started to think through the story later. That's mostly because, as I said before, the battle scenes are awesome, and Naga Sadow remains a compelling villain and by far the best character, so seeing his character complete its arc in this series (with hints of future villainous exploits) was quite enjoyable. Maybe that enjoyment is leading me to be overgenerous, but I like what I like, and I'd be willing to read this comic again, and probably even re-read The Golden Age of the Sith as part of the full story.

C+

[Lance Shadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm finally back to finish my review series for Tales of the Jedi. This is the ;second volume in the prequel duology of this series, the followup to The Golden Age of the Sith. After really enjoying that volume, I was a bit disappointed by this one. Fall of the Sith Empire is not bad at all- I would still consider it better than Tales of the Jedi: The Collection, Dark Lords of the Sith, or The Sith War, but compared to Golden Age of the Sith, I was a little underwhelmed.

THE STORY: Jori Daragon, having escaped the Sith Empire, is desperately trying to warn the Republic of an impending invasion. Unfortunately, her past antics have caught up to her and she is arrested. Will somebody listen to her, or will the Empress Teta system be unprepared for the impending slaughter?
Meanwhile, Gav Daragon is conflicted with his decision to join Sadow as he leads the sith forces into battle.

THE BAD: I think what I was dissapointed the most with was the characters in this volume, especially Gav and Jori. They were very interesting and relatable characters in the first volume, but after reading the second I think much of that came from their dynamic. Because here, they are separated almost the entire time the flaws in their characterization really stand out- they just aren't very interesting on their own individually.
The majority of the other characters, once again, are forgettable, but again, Gav and Jori kept me interested enough to let them slide. But because Gav and Jori are so much less interesting here the fact that nearly all of the side characters are bland really sticks out.
The execution of the story is also flawed in that many of the key character developments (particularly with Gav and Jori) are glossed over and are not that effective.
The dialogue is also not that interesting so most of the first act was hard to get through.

THE GOOD: Fall of the Sith Empire was still enjoyable even if it failed to live up to The Golden Age of the Sith.
Naga Sadow is still a very fun character, and his interactions with Ludo Kressh were as interesting as they were before. He's still devious, he's still cunning, and he is still intimidating.
The artwork in this may actually be even better in this volume than it was in Golden Age of the Sith- the characters looked really good, the backgrounds were gorgeous (particularly the panels that were in space) and there are plenty of well drawn large scale battle sequences that span the whole page. Even if the characters were dull the artwork was fantastic, doing an excellent job capturing a compelling ancient Star Wars setting.
There is a little bit of narration but it is extremely restrained and minimal, only there to briefly describe a location or concisely describe something that is going on- but most of the time the comic reads like a comic should, letting the story be told through the characters and the artwork.
Finally, it was interesting to see all the connective bits to the Ulic Qel-Droma Story arc and how the events in the prequel duology lead up to it. It was cool to see Odan Urr set up the library on Ossus, Empress Teta solidify the unification of the Koros System, and Naga Sadow start the Massassi civilization that Exar Kun would come across on Yavin 4 .

THE CONCLUSION: Fall of the Sith Empire by default is the second best of the Tales of the Jedi series, but is a ways away from the quality of its predecessor. Still, the Tales of the Jedi prequel duology (which I consider The Golden Age of the Sith and Fall of the Sith Empire to be) is a mostly enjoyable story arc with a compelling plot, decent main characters (with the villains being especially well characterized), interesting connective lore for the primary Ulic Qel-Droma story arc, and fantastically done artwork that feels like Star Wars but also believably fits as an ancient version of Luke Skywalker's world.
I'll tell you if the rest of the series as a whole is still worth it after I read Redemption, but I'd check out the Tales of the Jedi prequel duology even if you didn't like the other comics in this series. It still has the children's bedtime fable feel of the rest of the series but greatly improves the characters, writing, and artwork. For once, the force is actually decently strong with some Star Wars prequels ;)

[Martin Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

While the previous first half of this story had been surprisingly good, the quality in this one drops quite considerably. It's mostly a garbled mess of chaotic battle scenes without really anything clever to them. Nothing interesting happens and the characters stay bland.

[Alana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, it's ok. Just a big battle with not a whole lot of character or even story development. Jori was an interesting character and could have been fleshed out more, but most of the characters really were underutilized. Just fills in some gaps in early Jedi history.

[Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

The conclusion to the ancient Sith War story. Nothing spectacular here at all. Some minor concluding references for fans, but overall a rather lack-luster piece of Star Wars history.

[Kurt Rongey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story that happens thousands of years before Star Wars: A New Hope. Gav Daragon and his sister Jori are young trader/adventurers who have become fugitives from the Republic. After some time in Sith space, Jori is being released to return to the Republic. Gav is staying behind under the mentorship of Sith lord Naga Sadow to be groomed for a leadership spot in the Sith Empire. Unbeknownst to either Gav or Jori, Jori's ship, the Starbreaker 12, has a homing beacon that will allow the Sith to find the location of the Republic and launch an attack to take it over. What follows is a war story, very colorfully illustrated and spanning star systems.

This volume gathers up 5 issues of a Dark Horse Comics series with no indication where one issue ended and the next one began. I enjoyed the very dynamic artwork, with bold coloring many awe-inspiring page turns.

The story is pretty convoluted, switching locations and character perspectives every couple of pages to show what's going on in the half-dozen plot streams. That's a lot to do in 135 pages. Is it a narrative success? No. But I like the way it translates Alex Raymond-style Flash Gordon into the Star Wars universe, in a way that I think Lucas originally envisioned.

This is Star Wars in the mode I like it best, with lots of cool ships, lots of hopping around planets and lots of ships zapping each other across the void. I'm actively reading all of the depictions of the ancient history of the Star Wars Universe I can find. I enjoy writers' speculations about it, and comics are great to provide a visual guide.

Parent suggestion: Ages 10+

[Zare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conclusion of the storyline about first major conflict between Sith and Republic.

Using the brother-sister exploration team as a means of invading Republic, Sith start attacking on multiple fronts. Only by sheer luck and numerous sacrifices do the Republic and Jedi order manage to repel them.

But what seems to be a victory is nothing more than prelude to the storm because Sith have come back from the exile and poisoned the waters so to speak. They are back for a long war.

What might turn down some readers is the very way story is told. Authors do not go into much detail but present events in digested form, like something you would expect from pages from diary or chronicle. So if one is expecting deep character development - sorry, you wont find it here. But if you seek information on the lore then you are in the right place.

This is story of sacrifice required to defeat the evil powers, first saga of almost legendary age and all characters are presented as greater than life (like Empress Teta, Jedi warriors and Naga Sadow). All the other characters are just given as sort of a background noise.

Art is more uniformed than first book. There are some gorgeous space combat scenes and battle scenes on Coruscant.

Highly recommended.

[Alternate Lore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this followup to The Golden Age of the Sith. The pacing is dramatically different this time around—gone is the extensive exposition-heavy worldbuilding. The stakes have already been set and we go straight to the action.

The already decent art style from Golden Age gets even better here, bringing the ancient Sith era to life with more confidence. Battle scenes still require considerable effort to follow, but the overall visual presentation is mostly on point.

My main gripe is that the pacing is just way too fast! The entire conflict later known as "the Great Hyperspace War" starts and ends in this 5-issue volume, with large battles only lasting a couple of pages each. There's so much more that could have been done with this setup, and I suspect this may have been the original intent. The scope of the war deserved more room to breathe.

The ending is also notably open-ended, inviting possibilities for followup stories that sadly never materialized. I really feel like we got a compressed version of what could have been a truly epic storyline.

[BIGnick BIGnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not gonna lie this was a step down from its predecessor in terms of writing.
A lot of the character developments feel rushed to get to the next plot point. Gav in particular seems excessively naive. In the first book it’s understood because him and his sister are both young but now he’s seen what the sith empire can do and what they’re about and continues to go along with the plan even though it’ll destroy/conquer his home and potentially kill his sister. It’s also unclear why Naga Sadow even needs Gav. There’s some forced drama between Gav and his sister when she comes across his guards killing their mutual friend.
That being said its got the most charming Hutt and continues the overarching story which is great! While it’s not up to par with its fellow entries it’s very much worth the read.

[Jaycee Costley · Rating 2 out of 5]

RIP Aarrba. Less strong than the first story, it pulls away from Shadow and focuses more on the siblings who just aren’t as interesting as the story thinks they are. They were better as unwitting instigators of doom- their arcs don’t feel earned, and I don’t buy Shadow making the brother his apprentice. We never see his supposed great power so something actually useful- he was never worth the risk. It makes it feel like a narrative convenience to force Shadow’s defeat, and it’s less satisfying as a result.

[Ilias Avramidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much battle and chaos made the plot fade a little. Well, it's a story about a big war, the first actually, between the Sith and the Galactic Republic, ok, but i think they could give a little more depth to some characters and cut down some battle pages. Nice introduction of the Massassi warriors tho. Also i think this is the first time the Yavin system is shown in the EU, makes you really realise how long ago these stories take place! That was cool!

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering when these comics were written, they have aged terribly! The artwork is very old-school and retracts from the story hugely - the same can be said for the entire Tales Of The Jedi series. None of the characters have any depth to them and very little thought beyond reacting to what is before them.
The story itself has more merit as a 'historical' bit of interest. Particularly how the Massassi temples came to be on on Yavin and the Jedi archives came to be on Ossus.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give it a 6/10.

This is basically the last half of the story following "The Golden Age of the Sith".


Now this story is as generic as they come. The art is subpar. There's nothing really interesting in it, no good dialogues, nothing to set it apart. The only thing it has it going for it is that it is Star Wars.


I'd only recommend it to die hard Star Wars fans.

[Books_gang_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐/5⭐ Tohle mě bavilo o trošku víc, pořád je to na svou dobu dobrý. Stylizace stále super, fakt to vypadá, že jsem pět tisíciletí před filmy, konec byl milý. Problém tu je ale s tím, že daná "Hyperprostorová válka" je docela odfláklá. Je to docela useklý a mohlo to být delší. Ono totiž další volume Knights of the Old republic bude o něčem jiném (neplést si s "novější" KOTOR sérií).

[Lucca Falbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weaker than the first volume, although the art is fantastic the story has much ambition but the climax never really arrives. The Sith Empire is so weak here that the war falls flat. The dialogue is another weak spot.

[Meg V · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get past how dumb the main characters were. I feel like nowadays they would have been made teens or something much younger instead of obviously adults and then they would be more forgivable, but as it is I can’t believe their ridiculous decisions drove this whole war.

[Alayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Cloudy · Rating 3 out of 5]

EU Comics #6

Better than Golden Age of the Sith. Gav and Jori were annoying characters, Jori getting better and Gav dying. The end of the series connects with Episode 4; which is a cool touch.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Conclusion. I hope this is not the end

[liv · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[David Cordero · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first confrontation of the Republic and the Sith Empire.

[Bane Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Gerardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Max Rhodes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine, a bit too jumpy. Not really any chance to let anything marinate