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Star Wars Legends Epic Collection #43
Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The New Republic, Vol. 4
The Thrawn Trilogy is here! Five years after the glorious Rebel victory against the second Death Star, Luke Skywalker is the first of a new line of Jedi Knights! Han Solo and Princess Leia are married, and have taken on many of the burdens of governing the New Republic. But the galaxy is not yet safe. Far, far away, something festers. One lingering faction of the Empire - near death, but all the more dangerous for it. And a new discovery could spark it back into life. The last of the Emperor's warlords, Admiral Thrawn, is ready to seize his chance as a dark and deadly force - and suddenly, the odds are stacked heavily against Luke, Leia, and Han!
COLLECTING: STAR WARS: HEIR TO THE EMPIRE 1-6, STAR WARS: DARK FORCE RISING 1-6, STAR WARS: THE LAST COMMAND 1-6
COLLECTING: STAR WARS: HEIR TO THE EMPIRE 1-6, STAR WARS: DARK FORCE RISING 1-6, STAR WARS: THE LAST COMMAND 1-6
472 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
15 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 5, 2025
That was painful. The story is very choppy and cuts a lot of stuff out. Just read the original trilogy by Zahn. Then you don't have to deal with art that ranges from ugly to decent, fan service that sees Mara Jade as sexy rather than a character, the comedy missing entirely, and the removal of anything that even hints at Thrawn being a remotely fleshed out character.
August 30, 2025
It’s been eight years since I read Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn trilogy. I remember enjoying them back then—not perfect by any means, but entertaining enough to justify the hype at the time. They had the advantage of being the first major stories set after Return of the Jedi, so I gave them a lot of leeway. There was room for mistakes, experimentation, and even the occasional dumb moment because, well, someone had to figure out what came next for Star Wars. Those books weren’t flawless, but they were important. Even with their clunky bits, they had ambition. (Unlike Zahn’s later Star Wars novels, which range from mediocre to flat-out terrible.)
Now we have Star Wars: The New Republic Vol. 4, the comic book adaptation of some of that era’s stories. Let me just say this: it is a disaster from page one. Whatever charm or sense of scope the novels had has been hacked to pieces and left bleeding on the floor. This adaptation doesn’t just fail—it embarrasses itself at every possible opportunity.
The storytelling is a joke. The scenes don’t flow; they stumble. Panels jump from one moment to another with zero transition, as if the editor gave up halfway through and decided, “Eh, good enough.” Dialogue is stripped to bare minimums, and not in a smart, minimalist way—it’s just dumbed down. Characters bark one-liners or generic exposition, then vanish from the page without consequence. There’s no tension, no buildup, no payoff. Just… noise.
The story itself? Forget it. Whatever was left of Zahn’s original plot has been ground into incoherence. Subplots appear and disappear with no resolution. Things happen, but not for any discernible reason beyond “we need to fill pages.” Reading this felt like being forced to watch a badly dubbed bootleg of a movie you once liked, except this one comes with worse pacing and fewer redeeming qualities.
And let’s talk about the art—if you can even call it that. Bland doesn’t begin to cover it. These panels look like someone traced action figures and slapped on some flat colors. There’s no depth, no detail, no sense of motion or energy. It’s as if the artist’s main goal was to make every character look as generic and forgettable as humanly possible. Luke, Han, Leia—they all blend together into the same dead-eyed mannequin with a different haircut. You’d have an easier time telling them apart if they were just stick figures.
Then there’s Thrawn. Oh, Thrawn. I never liked him much in the novels—always felt overrated—but here, he’s not just unimpressive; he’s pathetic. Supposedly the big genius, the brilliant tactician? Not in this book. Here, he spends 448 pages looking like a confused office manager who wandered into the wrong meeting. He bumbles, he stares, he stands around doing nothing of value. If this is the mastermind everyone raves about, then I’m amazed the New Republic didn’t just beat him by accident. Half the time he looks like a caricature of Joe Biden squinting at a menu, wondering what he’s ordering for lunch. Strategic brilliance? More like strategic boredom.
And boredom is the theme here. This entire volume is boring. Boring in a way that makes you question your life choices. It’s not fun-bad, it’s not guilty-pleasure bad—it’s soul-crushingly, mind-numbingly bad. At 448 pages, it feels less like entertainment and more like punishment. I swear I aged a year reading this thing.
Final verdict: Star Wars: The New Republic Vol. 4 is a complete failure on every level. Lazy writing, incoherent storytelling, atrocious art, and characters so flat they could be wallpaper.
Now we have Star Wars: The New Republic Vol. 4, the comic book adaptation of some of that era’s stories. Let me just say this: it is a disaster from page one. Whatever charm or sense of scope the novels had has been hacked to pieces and left bleeding on the floor. This adaptation doesn’t just fail—it embarrasses itself at every possible opportunity.
The storytelling is a joke. The scenes don’t flow; they stumble. Panels jump from one moment to another with zero transition, as if the editor gave up halfway through and decided, “Eh, good enough.” Dialogue is stripped to bare minimums, and not in a smart, minimalist way—it’s just dumbed down. Characters bark one-liners or generic exposition, then vanish from the page without consequence. There’s no tension, no buildup, no payoff. Just… noise.
The story itself? Forget it. Whatever was left of Zahn’s original plot has been ground into incoherence. Subplots appear and disappear with no resolution. Things happen, but not for any discernible reason beyond “we need to fill pages.” Reading this felt like being forced to watch a badly dubbed bootleg of a movie you once liked, except this one comes with worse pacing and fewer redeeming qualities.
And let’s talk about the art—if you can even call it that. Bland doesn’t begin to cover it. These panels look like someone traced action figures and slapped on some flat colors. There’s no depth, no detail, no sense of motion or energy. It’s as if the artist’s main goal was to make every character look as generic and forgettable as humanly possible. Luke, Han, Leia—they all blend together into the same dead-eyed mannequin with a different haircut. You’d have an easier time telling them apart if they were just stick figures.
Then there’s Thrawn. Oh, Thrawn. I never liked him much in the novels—always felt overrated—but here, he’s not just unimpressive; he’s pathetic. Supposedly the big genius, the brilliant tactician? Not in this book. Here, he spends 448 pages looking like a confused office manager who wandered into the wrong meeting. He bumbles, he stares, he stands around doing nothing of value. If this is the mastermind everyone raves about, then I’m amazed the New Republic didn’t just beat him by accident. Half the time he looks like a caricature of Joe Biden squinting at a menu, wondering what he’s ordering for lunch. Strategic brilliance? More like strategic boredom.
And boredom is the theme here. This entire volume is boring. Boring in a way that makes you question your life choices. It’s not fun-bad, it’s not guilty-pleasure bad—it’s soul-crushingly, mind-numbingly bad. At 448 pages, it feels less like entertainment and more like punishment. I swear I aged a year reading this thing.
Final verdict: Star Wars: The New Republic Vol. 4 is a complete failure on every level. Lazy writing, incoherent storytelling, atrocious art, and characters so flat they could be wallpaper.
January 2, 2021
Someone else said it best - this was basically a copy and paste job from the books. And not a very good copy and paste job. Entire sections of the books were skipped or reduced to a single panel, giving us a confusing and disjointed story. This is really disappointing because the characters are great, Zahn’s writing is top notch and we’re given some really compelling new characters. This just needed to be properly adapted. Big disappointment - and that’s a lot coming from me! I’m usually very forgiving with my reads, but don’t bother with this one - just read the books proper.
November 23, 2019
Did not age well. Novels are much better.
November 11, 2020
Seems to be an adaption of prose novels and just doesn’t work too much material is disjointed, you can’t cram 1500 pages of prose into 500 pages of comics. Art work isn’t the best either.
May 22, 2023
As a big Star Wars fan, I've always been more interested in the comics than the novels, since part of the draw of Star Wars for me is its spectacular visuals (I can't imagine reading about a lightsaber has the same effect as seeing it on film or rendered by an artist) along with its pulpy, comic book-ish sense of adventure. Of course I've heard of Timothy Zahn's highly praised trilogy of novels - Heir to the Empire; Dark Force Rising; The Last Command - but I've never tried reading them. So when I found out there was a graphic novel adaptation of the trilogy, I jumped at the chance to read them.
And overall, I must say I enjoyed the comic adaptations of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command; it definitely captured that rollicking Star Wars adventure feel for me. The art was great, too, especially Terry Dodson's art in Dark Force Rising.
That being said, the story unfortunately felt a little slap-dashed together. I felt like there was a ton of context missing, which made certain portions somewhat confusing. I don't know if this is due to poor adaptation, or if it's simply due to the constrictions of the comic book format - novels and comic books are two very different mediums, after all. So in order to really see what people find so special about Zahn's Star Wars trilogy, I think I'll probably have to try the novels themselves.
And overall, I must say I enjoyed the comic adaptations of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command; it definitely captured that rollicking Star Wars adventure feel for me. The art was great, too, especially Terry Dodson's art in Dark Force Rising.
That being said, the story unfortunately felt a little slap-dashed together. I felt like there was a ton of context missing, which made certain portions somewhat confusing. I don't know if this is due to poor adaptation, or if it's simply due to the constrictions of the comic book format - novels and comic books are two very different mediums, after all. So in order to really see what people find so special about Zahn's Star Wars trilogy, I think I'll probably have to try the novels themselves.
June 16, 2025
Skimmed as I was listening to the audiobooks of each entry in the Trilogy. Great art and cool to see the books visualized but definitely an abridged version of each book in ways that make the overall story worse off for it, especially when you get to the end of Last Command which just kinda blows through the entire finale in 2 pages. Fun to look at if you have read the books but definitely does not work as an alternative to reading them.
April 5, 2022
A competent adaptation of an excellent trilogy that manages to cover a complicated story with only minor concessions.
4/5 Some nitpicks, but only one or two gripes.
4/5 Some nitpicks, but only one or two gripes.
January 4, 2021
This book contains the Dark Horse Comics adaptation of Timothy Zahn's classic Thrawn trilogy. The story continues perfectly after Return of the Jedi and is a much better sequel than Disney's trilogy, in my opinion. It gives you the classic Star Wars feel while also feeling new, not repeating stories that have already been told. The old characters are represented well and the new characters are diverse and interesting. Mara Jade is a character I would love to see brought back into the new canon in some way.
Compared to modern Star Wars comics, this adaptation is very wordy and considerably longer. Some pages had as much text as artwork. So, it took longer than expected to read but didn't take away from the experience for me. It's just worth noting that the focus is more on dialog and story telling than it is on beautiful artwork.
Several times while reading I had to flip back a page or two because I thought I had missed something. However, it was more often the case that the writer just seemed to skip over plot points.
Overall, this is a great read although not as good as the novels themselves. If you want to experience the Thrawn trilogy, you may save a bit of time choosing the comic adaptation over the novels, but not a lot (since the comics are quite dense and wordy). However, you can't really go wrong with choosing either one or even both. It's just a great story and very faithful to the spirit of the original trilogy.
Compared to modern Star Wars comics, this adaptation is very wordy and considerably longer. Some pages had as much text as artwork. So, it took longer than expected to read but didn't take away from the experience for me. It's just worth noting that the focus is more on dialog and story telling than it is on beautiful artwork.
Several times while reading I had to flip back a page or two because I thought I had missed something. However, it was more often the case that the writer just seemed to skip over plot points.
Overall, this is a great read although not as good as the novels themselves. If you want to experience the Thrawn trilogy, you may save a bit of time choosing the comic adaptation over the novels, but not a lot (since the comics are quite dense and wordy). However, you can't really go wrong with choosing either one or even both. It's just a great story and very faithful to the spirit of the original trilogy.
April 6, 2020
Not a half-bad adaptation of the iconic novels by Timothy Zahn. It's certainly better than the Disney Sequels and Anthology Films and The Mandalorian. I wasn't a fan of how the Noghri looked, but the rest of the artwork is not bad. However, if you know how the story turns out completely from reading the original novels, then there will be no surprises since there are no new scenes thrown in.
January 18, 2020
A solid graphic adaptation of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews