Set to start in August, Jedi of the Republic – Mace Windu stars the Samuel L. Jackson lookalike Jedi in a Clone Wars-era set tale. The 5-issue miniseries will be written by Matt Owens and illustrated by Denys Cowan, and while details on the series are scarce right now, not even the plot synopsis below gives much away, but the “Jedi of the Republic” title might have some interesting implications. UPDATE 6/1/17: Marvel recently sat down with writer Matt Owens to discuss more details about the upcoming miniseries, which I added some choice bits below. UPDATE 8/30/17: Here’s my review of the first issue!
All the miniseries to date have simply had the character’s name in the title, but Mace Windu’s comic has the curious Jedi of the Republic parent title. I believe this might hint that it’ll be used as a banner to put more prequel-era Jedi starring miniseries under, so we could possibly see something like Jedi of the Republic – Qui-Gon Jinn or even Yoda (which I’d hope would be better than his first comic arc…) in the future. I’m just speculating (though I’m not the only one) but it would seem odd for Marvel to introduce this parent title simply for a one-off miniseries. Then again, it’s not inconceivable they made a weird, longer title just to showcase Mace Windu. Anyways, as for a Qui-Gon series (or novel or standalone film, I’m not picky), I’d rather that be an on-going than a miniseries under this banner, but any comic with Qui-Gon would get my thumbs up.
Here’s Marvel’s vague description for Mace Windu:
“For over a thousand generations, the Jedi have been the peacekeepers of the galaxy…but now, at the dawn of the Clone Wars, they find themselves in a new role: generals in the Army of the Republic. As Mace Windu, one of the Jedi’s greatest warriors, leads a small unit of Jedi into battle shortly after the war begins, the Jedi must make peace with their new role, or be lost to the violence around them!”
Series writer Owens spoke with Comicosity (where he also promises we’ll see familiar faces) and while he’s vague as well, he does give us an idea of what quandary he wants to tackle in regards to the prequel-era Jedi:
“The preferred tools of the Jedi are diplomacy, harmony, education, peace. Now they find themselves leading troops on battlefields across the galaxy. They’re going to have a lot of thoughts about this. Is this really the way to peace? Is this the position I should be taking? Is this really the path the Jedi should be walking down. Doubt is understandable, but what each individual does with that doubt is very telling of who they are and where they will end up.”
Despite the lack of details, I’m seriously excited to see more Mace Windu, or frankly any Jedi from the prequel trilogy era, and I’m curious to see if this will include Mace’s last apprentice, Depa Billaba (who was part of the heartbreaking comic Kanan) as well, or if it’s going to be solely Mace and some clone troopers on an early mission in the Clone Wars. Either way, Mace is an ass-kicker through and through and just getting to see him lay waste to a bunch of droids, as well as maybe get a deeper story about him and the Jedi at the start of the war sounds like a fantastic recipe for an entertaining series on several fronts.
As for the talent behind Mace Windu, writer Matt Owens was a staff writer on both Netflix’s Luke Cage and the fourth season of Agents of SHEILD, while he also started writing his first comic, an Elektra on-going, just last year. While Owens might be a little new to comics, illustrator Denys Cowan is name with a long, storied history, as he’s worked on series’ like Power Man and Iron Fist, Black Panther, and Deathlok, to name a few, as well as did illustrations for the Wu-Tang Clan member GZA’s Liquid Swords album (some good variety there!). We’ll have to wait for teases of his artwork for the series for now, as the cover released alongside this announcement (top image) is from artist Jesus Saiz.
Expect our reviews when the series hits comic book shelves late August!
UPDATE 6/1/17: In the interview, Owens certainly makes it seem like he has an intriguing grasp on what’s happening with the Jedi as the war begins and how Mace feels about it:
“If you question your religion, does that make you a bad Christian? Muslim? Jedi? That’s one of the struggles Mace is dealing with in this story. The galaxy is at war. The role of the Jedi has changed, leading armies into battle. Is this their place? If peace is the ends, are the means justified? Are they on the right side of said peace? These are the kind of soul-searching questions Mace will have to dig deep and answer for himself.”
He goes on to tease several aspects of the series, including tons of time spent with Kit Fisto, the introduction of new Jedi, and a new droid villain. For the new Jedi, Prosset and Rissa, it seems Prosset is a Miraluka, which would mark this species’ first foray into canon! The mercenary droid AD-W4 will be, “…the perfect foil for Mace who is going through a crisis of faith at the time,” since AD, “…embodies the science vs faith debate.” It’ll be interesting to see how this all manages to pan out come August.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
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