beyond the wide world's end

These are from volume 4 and volume 5 of the Clone Wars arc from Star Wars: Republic, "Light and Dark" and "The Best Blades." "Light and Dark" is another John Ostrander and Jan Duursema one: all Quinlan Vos and Aayla Secura, with a heavy dose of Count Dooku and some follow-up from his Vos and Secura backstory from previous pre-Clone Wars comics. Lots of moral ambiguity.

Needless to say, this is very image-heavy.

( Light and Dark )

*

"The Best Blades" is, in my opinion, the most so-so of the nine Clone Wars TPBs. Three of the five stories in it are rather blah -- there's a decent one about Bail Organa and how the political arena is another battlefield, one about how Palpatine is a manipulative bastard sending his Jedi friends to the death, and the eponymous one about Yoda trying and failing to play politics. I thought about scanning that one just to show y'all the Padawan in knee-highs, leather boots, a mini-skirt, and a crop top (because that's totally what you wear into battle!) but decided against it. It does however have two really good stories, "Hate and Fear" and "No Man's Land", the follow-ups to the Battle of Jabiim arc. I am not terribly keen on the art -- it's the floating heads, and Giorello's not great at action -- but I love the story.

( The Best Blades )

Next up: more Quinlan Vos, more Quinlan and Obi-Wan (YAY!), and Obi-Wan being a crazy, crazy badass and Anakin being a badass crazy person. Also Padme's sole appearance in the comics. (On some level I prefer SW:TCW to the comics, because we get the Padme we see in TPM and AotC, instead of the Padme we see in RotS. Padme's appearance in the comics is not particularly impressive: I wish that she appeared in the Bail Organa issue along with Mon Mothma. But I digress.)