Owens, Matt

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

2 out of 5

(1 book)

Star Wars: Jedi Of The Republic - Mace Windu

(Art by Denys Cowan, Edgar Salazar, Roberto Poggi and Scott Hanna)

22 BBY, not long after the Battle of Geonosis.  As Mace Windu finds himself troubled by the role of the Jedi in the newly begun Clone Wars, he and three other Jedi are sent on a mission to a remote planet.  There Mace will have to confront not only his own doubts, but those of his fellow Jedi too.

For (evil) Disney's new canon this story might seem like an interesting new idea, but as someone who read most of the old Expanded Universe canon, I can assure you that 'Jedi is troubled by being warrior' is a very cliched plot that has been done much better elsewhere.  In fact, there's even a better exploration of Mace Windu's feelings on the matter in Matt Stover's novel 'Shatterpoint'.  

So, basically what we've got here is a pretty unimaginative plot, but is it delivered well?  Not really, no.  Mace feels weirdly out of character and even a character who was introduced in this book later goes on to act weirdly out of character.  Seriously, the blind Jedi Prosset Dibs (terrible name, by the way) goes from bad blindness-based banter to "I'm going to kill the Jedi Council" in no time flat.  

And on the subject of the banter; it's really bad.  The dialogue among the Jedi is so cringe-worthy that this book feels more like one of the forgettable filler episodes of Season One of the 'The Clone Wars' than it does a graphic novel aimed at adults.  Let's just say that George 'Are You An Angel?' Lucas would be proud.

One thing I did like was the design of the droid villain AD-W4, right up until the penny dropped that he's just a purple copy of Ultron.

2 out of 5

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