I just read Charles Soule's novel, "The Light of the Jedi," which made me decide to give the High Republic enterprise another go. I then read the "Starlight Stories" anthology, which collects the High Republic stories from "Star Wars Insider," that Titan published. This arc, which I previously read, is next in the chronology.
I'll say upfront that I understand why I didn't enjoy this series when I first read it, because it isn't geared toward someone just dipping a toe into the High Republic pool. I'm surprised Disney thought we could appreciate the story that it's telling here without reading the ones that preceded it.
For example, in the first few pages of issue #1, Avar Kriss and Sskeer from "The Light of the Jedi" and Estala Maru from "First Duty" appear. Scott assumes you know about Kriss and her role in the Great Disaster, the Disaster's connection to Hetzal, and Sskeer's relationship with Jora Malli. Moreover, Yoda and Grandmaster Veter arrive to offer Kriss the position as Starlight's Marshal, something I'm pretty sure happened off-panel in "Light of the Jedi." Without this understanding, you're left wondering why we're focusing on these people at all.
Interestingly, we don't hear anything about the Nihil in issue #1. Instead, Scott focuses on Keeve Trennis passing her Trials, a tedious affair I mentioned in my original review of issue #1. It's tedious in no small part because Scott relies on a lot of clichés throughout the issue, a problem I consistently have with Star Wars authors.
Issue #2 is an improvement, as Sskeer, Trennis, and the Kotabi twins, Ceret and Terec, investigate a distress signal in the Kazlin system. They discover a devastated ship, though a scan reveals survivors on board. Once aboard, they discover the ship is full of the gas the Nihil use to take over ships and discover a dead Hutt. Scott doesn't elaborate on the threat the Nihil pose, showing only glimpses of Sskeer's PTSD from the Battle of Kur. You really have to understand who the Nihil are to understand why the gas is so relevant.
Meanwhile, Sskeer's connection to the Force remains interrupted, something we learned in issue #1 when Kriss couldn't sense him. Here, he can't sense the Nihil survivor. It isn't all that surprising, though, as we also see that he's unable to control his rage, something Trennis witnesses first-hand when she discovers he's eviscerated said survivor. Kriss is also forced to chastise him for demonizing the Nihil, describing them as "animals" without honor. It's all very not Jedi of him, underscoring why his connection to the Force is troubled.
Another detail that Scott fails to highlight is the significance of Sskeer discovering a grain that comprises one of the three ingredients of bacta. If you read "Light of the Jedi," you know that the Republic is just developing bacta in this era, something Trennis mentions in passing. Without that knowledge, I'm not sure you'd understand why it's so valuable.
Back on Starlight, Maru identifies the grain as vratixia renanicus, and Ceret searches the ship's navidroid to discover the ship was in the Sedri system at the time of the attack. Kriss dispatches Sskeer and Ceret to Sedri Minor, where they discover the colonists are growing vratixia. As Skeer argues with a colonist insisting the residents want nothing from the Republic, an apparition leads Ceret into the fields, and he disappears.
Issue #3 is easier to follow, as Scott stays focused on the mysteries on Sedri Minor.
It turns out several people from the neighboring community have gone missing like Ceret, though Kal Sulman, the community's overbearing "speaker," doesn't want the Jedi involved. He expresses surprise when Trennis mentioned the dead Hutt they found aboard the ship in issue #2, so I'm guessing he's working with them, which he doesn't want everyone else to know. Meanwhile, Sskeer is increasingly unhinged, so Kriss decides to go find Trennis when Sulman tells her that she's gone missing.
Of course, she isn't missing; she's gone to find Ceret. Accompanied by a curious boy named Bartol from the community, she succeeds in finding Ceret as well as the boy's missing, and now deceased, friend. (Scott delivers one of the few emotional notes here as Bartol's curiosity gives way to grief.) We learn that creatures called the Drengir are behind the disappearances and recent crop failures, though Scott doesn't yet give us a reason. Instead, Kriss arrives just in time to save Trennis from one. But the Drengir wind up possessing Sskeer when Terec coughs up their spores (for lack of a better word) on him, and Kriss and Trennis now face him in the Drengir's cave.
My review of issue #4 stands, with the only additional point being that Kriss and Skeer initially thought Sulman knew about the Drengir but, as I suspected, he actually made the deal with the Hutt Cartel to take over Sedri Minor.
Scott ups the ante significantly in issue #5 as the Jedi face three problems at once: Kriss and company face the Drengir and the Hutts on Skedi Minor while the Jedi on Starlight face down their own Drengir infestation after the spores explode from the deceased Hutt's body. Moreover, Maru starts getting increasingly frantic calls for help as the Drengir infestation spreads along the Galactic Frontier.
Of course, they could've avoided this situation if the still Drengir-controlled Skeer hadn't attacked Myarga the Merciless (the Hutt who arrived on Sedri Minor at the end of issue #4). Kriss convinces Myarga to throw in her lot with the Jedi by having Maru broadcast the distress signals coming into Starlight, included from Nar Hutta.
Meanwhile, Sskeer confesses to Trennis that his connection to the Force is fading. Trennis originally thought Sskeer knew the ridadi swarm was going to attack on Shuraden in issue #1, but he confesses that he didn't. Putting aside his problems with the Force, though, Sskeer has an idea to end the Drengir threat: Myarga called him "diseased" earlier in the issue, so he lowers his defenses so Trennis can use the Mind Touch to convince the Drengir that all the "meat" on the Frontier are diseased. It works, though possibly at the cost of Sskeer's life.
Reading this issue, I realized that I still have the problem I had when I first read these issues, which is that I'm not really buying the emotionally connections. Trennis often waxes poetic about her relationship with Sskeer, and Sskeer talks about how much faith and trust he has in Trennis when he lowers his defenses to her. But something about the way Scott writes these characters means that I'm just not buying it.
At any rate, at this point, it feels like a side show to the larger High Republic story, though we'll see how it progresses.
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