Marvel High Republic Issues 1 & 2 Review

 

Welcome to my look at the Marvel High Republic comic so far, I decided to review issues 1 & 2 together so I would have a bit more to go on.

In Issue One we meet Padawan Keeve Trennis along with her master Sskeer who we have already met in Light of the Jedi. Keeve & Sskeer have gone to the planet Shuraden to carry out her trails, and the story takes place after the battle of Kur in LotJ, just before the opening ceremony of starlight beacon. We get a lot more Sskeer, which is something I’d wanted since being introduced to him in LotJ, who is stoic and gruff but not in a mean way. Avar Kriss is concerned about him following Jora Malli’s death, and the ending with Sskeer screaming into the darkness seems to confirm his trauma is from Malli’s death although I did see a similarity to Elzar Mann’s vision of doom at the end of LotJ.

This issue is very much an intro to Keeve Trennis, and she comes across as competent and confident without being cocky and she clearly respects Sskeer greatly. We see her connect to creatures in a similar way to Ezra Bridger in Rebels, and I particularly loved the imagery of this scene.

I’ve seen a number of people have a problem with Keeve using her lightsaber to hang from the rock. Just because a lightsaber can slice through a few feet of rock doesn’t mean it can keep cutting through it forever, look at Ashoka using her sabers to slow herself down in clone wars season 7 when leaping from ship to ship, let it go.

In Issue Two we start to get into the meat of the story, as Keeve and Sskeer investigate a distress call from a ship under attack. The connectivity of the High Republic project means that as soon as we see the first hint of gas we know what it means. The Nihil.

Seeing Sskeer fight is a real thrill, he is a beast, but one you fear on the verge of losing control, he is still suffering, we see him have PTSD type flashbacks, then he cannot sense the Nihil he is hunting through the force.

We are also introduced to Terec and Ceret are very interesting, described as force bonded twins that share one mind, I’m not sure if I will be unusual in really liking them.

There is a real horror vibe to the story here that feels cinematic and not just with the gas on the ship, but the disappearances of Sskeer and Ceret in the fields of Sedri Minor. A small detail that I really like are the lightsabers, Keeve’s and Ceret’s which we’ve seen in greater detail, both are based on the Protection and Defence style from Savi’s Workshop in Galaxy’s Edge.

Art by Ario Anindito, Mark Morales and Annalisa Leoni.

I’m usually not a huge fan of the general Marvel comics style, I prefer more stylised illustrations like Hellboy, The Walking Dead or American Splendor, but I have to say the art in this issue was fantastic, the green gas in particular gave the story so much atmosphere and tension. 

Overall this has been a great start to the series, with issue 2 a big step up from issue one which was more of an introduction, combined I give them 4 out of 5 stars.

Marvel Star Wars The High Republic Issues 1 & 2 (By Cavan Scott) - 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 /5