– Spoiler Review –
As the threat of Grand Moff Adelhard grows, so too does the Imperial Remnant forces’ nefarious plans, so what’s a burgeoning New Republic to do? In The Battle of Jakku: Republic Under Siege #4, the miniseries’ finale but 4 issues remain of the entire maxiseries, we find out if a small strike force is enough to bring Adelhard’s reign to an end or if other forces have their own plans in mind.
Between the mostly telling and some showing, by the time we arrive at Republic Under Siege #4, Grand Moff Adelhard’s threat to the New Republic’s plans, especially with the big Jakku battle to come, feels worthy of all the concern characters like Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, Princess Leia Organa, and Luke Skywalker express in the opening segments. Practically it make sense the New Republic would be hesitant to do anything about Adelhard because he needs more attention than they think they can spare, what with the Imperial forces amassing at Jakku, alongside some other campaigns they are dealing with. What didn’t quite make sense was Luke being the one to advocate for action and taking down Adelhard, as while I get he and his sister were just the targets of an assassin, it feels off compared to his pacifistic mindset as a Jedi. It doesn’t help Luke calls Calder a good man when, after five years of comics, we’ve never seen the two together so it rings hollow, and while they did lose a lot of good people, per Lando and Preeti, it doesn’t seem enough to justify Luke’s vengeful sounding words. While I like how Adelhard is basically shut down from the inside out later on, all the debating and the off-kilter Luke seems unnecessary to some degree afterwards. Even with 12 issues this story feels too condensed in too many places, but Alex Segura continues to keep it a fun experience, at least, with big events and filling in some more blanks during this era.
As for Adelhard, we see his downfall…maybe. As NR plant Lt. Alaytia presents evidence of Reyna Oskure’s other loyalties, confirming the slightly confusing reveal from last issue she’s also working for Grand Moff Randd, a Gallius Rax loyalist, Reyna doesn’t even bother to fight it, instead confirming it. It’s an enjoyable scene as she whittles down Adelhard, laughing loudly in his face, and reveals the why behind all her actions so far and how unimportant he is to the larger story, all culminating in a little kiss before the Trandoshan assassin, named Kranor, arrives to take Adelhard and Commander Bragh down. This is the last time I’m going to beat this dead fathier but…now I’m completely lost on how/why Luke ever could’ve called Reyna “Adelhard’s Counselor and Blade” as there’s been less and less evidence of this, including her usurping his control of the Anoat sector. Luke, Lando, Preeti, Rynn, plus Beiliert Valance and Jyala Haydenn, alongside a ragtag group of ships, arrive in the middle of all this betrayal, though even in the chaos Reyna threatens the new arrivals with a larger forces to come if they don’t piss off, so while most of the group peels away to help with the coming battle over Jakku, it looks like Rynn and Preeti, and maybe Luke, will stay behind to see what will happen in the sector despite Adelhard’s apparent defeat. The way Reyna’s stooge Kranor decides to get ride of Adelhard and Bragh is to send them careening towards a planet in a damaged escape pod, and in Adelhard’s apparent final moments, he realizes his purpose was a lie and the Empire he served was dead, so something stronger and deadlier must rise…and then the pod crashes, causing a massive explosion. And yet…a hand reaches up from the destruction, and it looks to be an armored individual. Is it Bragh, whose big armor helped insulate him? Or did Adelhard somehow take his armor and use it to survive? We’ll find out later this month when The Battle of Jakku: Last Stand, begins.
Completing his final issue on the run is Stefano Raffaele, as well as Alex Sinclair on colors, while letterer Joe Caramagna will remain on. When Reyna is brought in after Alaytia’s evidence about her loyalties to Randd, the entire sequence really stood out to me, especially in the way Raffaele and team played up Reyna’s confidence and the Grand Moff’s misguided nature about his importance. From the start, Reyna, escorted in by Bragh and Alaytia, has a certain swagger to her you wouldn’t expect from someone so brusquely summoned (as she puts it), something Caramagna helps highlight by drawing us down from her pose in the first panel to the giant smirk Raffaele has on her face in the next one. Sinclair’s colors seem to have Bragh almost indistinguishable from some of the background, as if his imposing size isn’t as much of a factor in these early moments of Reyna’s revelations to Adelhard. On the next page, we get a close up on Adelhard’s face, sincere in his belief he’s important despite what Reyna’s saying to him and by pulling so close and having such a big word bubble of his defiant speech, it makes the pull back in the next panel, where the sound FX “HA”s, bold, red, and not in a bubble all the more sudden and telling how wrong, truly wrong Adelhard is. Reyna’s snickering through the next few panels shows how unserious she thinks Adelhard is but I really enjoyed the next page reveal of her going feral at Adelhard as she really brings him down, as you can tell she’s not as human as she looks, since she’s Anzati. The reveal of the little fleet Luke, Valance, and team have on their side was fine, the ships mostly one color and sort of shaped like something we’ve seen before, but that would be my only nitpick of the work.
Here are a few other things:
- Adelhard’s Star Destroyer is called the Scepter, but Mon calls it a Super Star Destroyer earlier in the issue, but it’s clearly only been a regular one this whole time.
- Valance did end up helping, though not just to protect Luke, but to help lead the assault on Adelhard’s forces. Like Doctor Aphra’s time earlier though, it felt more like a cameo than anything too substantial, but that might be enough for Valance Nation!
- Here’s the current release schedule for the remaining Battle of Jakku story: 12/25 Last Stand #1; 1/8/2025 Last Stand #2; 1/15/2025 Last Stand #3; 1/22/2025 Last Stand #4.
The Battle of Jakku: Republic Under Siege #4 resets the board in some ways surprising and some ways not, setting the stage for the big four issue finale to the maxiseries!
+ Reyna taking down Adelhard, maybe
– Luke seems off
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.
THE BATTLE OF JAKKU MAXISERIES REVIEWS
Insurgency Rising: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 – Republic Under Siege: #1 | #2 | #3