– Spoiler Review –
Marc Bernardin’s Mace Windu #1 brings us a breath of fresh prequel air to Marvel’s comics, as the eponymous Jedi Master gets roped into a race for a new form of super-fuel and the seemingly anonymous woman who’s willing to sell to whomever rescues her first.
Mace Windu #1 is part of an opening wave of Prequel era comics, with more to come this year, but it stands apart somewhat due to the exciting decision not to have it set during the Clone Wars! There’s always plenty of drama during the war, so I totally get why stories are often set during it, but it’s a nice change of pace to see more of how this era worked for the Jedi Order and the Republic prior to the conflict, how intrinsically their interests aligned, especially compared to what we’ve been seeing in The High Republic era. Mace Windu even says it best this issue as he’s learning his mission is about chasing down coaxium super fuel, “Forgive me, but why does this involve the Jedi?” I felt the exact same way as he did, but when Gara (a Jedi giving the exposition) explains the tactical advantage it would give crime syndicates or anyone who gets their hands on this new formula over Republic patrols, of course the Jedi are ready to jump since they are so intertwined, to the point they are the ones on the mission, no Republic assistance. It’s expected of them to do the work for the Republic, which is so different from the High Republic era, as while they do work side by side, but they don’t just work on the Republic’s interests and usually they are jointly doing so if something comes up. It is in both the Republic and the Order’s interests to stop criminal outfits from grabbing this super fuel, since they are linked and they would quickly become ineffective if they were outpaced easily, so it does make sense for the Jedi to get involved, especially given their abilities and how the woman with the fuel, Azita Cruuz, broadcasted her demands to everyone. I’ll be curious to see Cruuz’s motivations and where Marc Bernardin is going with this story, as I’m wondering if we’ll see the cracks in the Jedi’s deep ties with the Republic and some pre-Separatist sentiment due to Cruuz’s motivations. This era is ripe for showing the writing on the wall while still showcasing the Jedi as guardians of peace and justice, so given Bernardin’s pedigree, we could be in for quite the layered treat, even in just four issues.
Who is Azita Cruuz, you might ask? Well, you already know as much as I do about her, without much more to find out in the issue itself. She’s resourceful, smart, and motivated, from the way she hides in a hospital to her flight from it and pursuing forces, but her reason for stealing and selling of the coaxium ultra, as they are calling it, remain unknown for now. I’ve had some hope for her character since this was initially announced and, based off how Bernardin handles Mace himself and even Yoda, I feel like we won’t be disappointed going forward. The Clone Wars show has had its moments with Mace and its precursor Clone Wars had one of his most memorable, while Shatterpoint is still the gold standard of Mace’s leading appearances, which Bernardin falls closer to in this open issue’s depiction. There’s a lot of Samuel L. Jackson in Mace during the first issue, or at least that’s how it felt to me, especially in one scene where we get a depiction of what he’s telling some local ruffians he’ll do to them if they try to fight him, while he’s got the stoic yet playful demeanor to him. There’s a bit of his aggressive side as well, not only in the scene mentioned, but from his opening pursuit of the droids when he mind tricks a fisherman/uses the Force to push their boat to him seemingly slicing through Cruuz’s pursuers when he catches up to her instead of just disarming them. There’s a playfulness too, mainly seen between him and Yoda after his return from the opening mission, while I enjoyed the way he approached finding Azita, the way he worked through and deduced where to find her even in the small big town she was hiding in. As I said earlier, based off Bernardin’s writing so far, the issue count won’t get in the way of entertaining characters, from the titular to the new.
On art for the series is penciller Georges Jeanty, inker Dexter Vines, colorist Andrew Dalhouse, and Joe Caramagna for lettering. While there’s a small area of habitability on the planet Azita broadcasted her message on, the enormity of the mission before Mace still rings through in double page when the Jedi Master first sees the size of the town in front of him, a densely stacked city enclosed inside ice. This being a small, yet still big town is prevalent throughout the rest of the story, as the ice walls and ceiling often appear in panels, showing how enclosed they are, while the streets feel claustrophobic yet winding as Mace ventures around them. I loved the black and white choice for Mace describing what he’d do to the ruffians about to beat him up, while it being sandwiched between close-ups on Mace’s intense face, his green goggles a shocking, standout color next to the black and white, only makes the quick, aggressive violence depicted even more brutal (and helps us realize it’s not actually happening). I really enjoyed the look on Mace’s face when he looks down and sees Azita escaping from the hospital window, subtlety and this being easy no longer viable options, while the sequence which follows is a fun chase, from the way Azita stumbles around in her escape, forging ahead despite the dogged pursuit, the growing sense she’s running out of room, to the way Caramagna helps direct us along her flight through the city streets. Speaking of Caramagna, he really helps the opening joke by Yoda land, as while the art sets up the serene beauty and peaceful nature of the Jedi Temple, the scene setting text box doubles down on its serenity, placed at the bottom of a panel to transition us right into Yoda’s little jibe about his towel is available for Mace to dry off with. The first of those panels, the one depicting the Jedi Temple at a distance, against the night sky of Coruscant, is quite beautiful, Dalhouse’s colors really making the majestic-ness of Coruscant’s many lights at night pop.
Here are a few other things:
- The issue opens in media res, though in reality it’s picking up from the end of “Showdown at Ocean’s Deep,” Bernardin’s short tale in Revelations (2023) #1, and sees Mace securing a skeleton key for high security prisons from a band of reprogrammed droids. Mace Windu #1 seems to be distancing itself from this story, but I wonder if it’ll come back around somehow before the series is over.
- While this series is only four issues and therefore will likely end in May, there is still more Mace Windu content coming this year! In April, he’ll be one of the characters in John Jackson Miller’s The Living Force novel, a Jedi Council trip gone haywire story, while in August he’s got his own novel, The Glass Abyss, which finds him fulfilling a posthumous request from Qui-Gon Jinn.
- It’s Black History Month and Mace of course stars on the variant cover for his series’ first issue (as seen above)! Check out the rest of the Black History Month variants here!
Mace Windu #1 is a solid enough start to the miniseries, promising an intriguing story and greater characterizations.
+ Characterizations so far are on point or intriguing
+ Art team carries a good pace, action scenes, and sense of small big town
– Sense of urgency for mission initially didn’t hit
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Bluesky, Twitter @MynockManor, and Instagram @mynockmanor.