The new publishing venture, The High Republic, is about to move into a second round of books. Before that, I wanted to revisit all of the first round of releases, from comics to novels to picture books, and talk about some of the more unique aspects of the era, with reflections on what I really like from the series and what I’d like to see more of moving forward!
Star Wars is entering a new era, both in terms of the real world surrounding it and the events within the stories.
In the real life context, Star Wars could easily have fallen into a holding pattern. In December of 2019, the final episode of the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker, was released to mixed reviews and overall endless Discourse on Twitter. The next film, Rogue Squadron, is slated for a late 2023 release. In a lot of ways, no one would’ve really been surprised if the franchise slowed a bit, with a novel here or there and the consistent marching on of tie-in comics. The last slate of movies left plenty of stories dangling for future authors to take, like the fates of Qi’ra and Enfys Nest, the backstory of Sheev Palpatine’s return to Exegol, or the future of Ezra and Grand Admiral Thrawn. Instead, we learned that a cadre of talented authors and artists were working together to bring together a new era of storytelling, a charge led primarily by prose writers rather than animation, TV, or movies.
This new era, The High Republic, is set 200 years before the events of the Invasion of Naboo. The Republic sits at its height, a golden age of prosperity and expansion. Before January 5th, with the launch of Charles Soules’ Light of the Jedi, nothing had taken place in this era, giving the creative team completely free reign to work out whatever stories they wanted. The first wave focused on the launch of a space station known as the Starlight Beacon, a key outpost for Jedi and Republic alike to reach into the wider galaxy. But the opening of the Outpost is threatened when a freight ship is shattered in hyperspace, an attack coordinated by the Nihil.
The promotion for the era asked a major question: what scares the Jedi? This question will guide this review of the first wave of material, featuring Light of the Jedi, Test of Courage, Into the Dark, The High Republic issues #1-5, and The High Republic Adventures #1-5.
What scares the Jedi?
The question of “what scares the Jedi?” is a major question across the broad spectrum of storytelling, but it comes into a sharp relief in this era of stories. One of the biggest changes between the era of the High Republic and the Skywalker Saga, or even the Legends Tales of the Jedi pre-history or Legacy future stories, is that there is a distinct lack of Sith characters. As far as we know, no Sith Lord has been active in the 1,000 year period leading up to the reveal of Darth Maul on Tatooine. That is, at least, no Sith Lord has been publicly active. This led the writers into a really creative decision: how do we make something that can stand against the Jedi in a reasonable way?
Enter the Drengir, the Nihil, and…the inner lives of the Jedi.
First, the Nihil. The Nihil are a group of fanatic space pirates, a faction of marauders under the leadership of the Eye of the Nihi, Marchion Ro. The Nihil are a fascinating group of pirates with a super fascinating hierarchy. On the top, you’ve got Marchion, the Eye of the Nihil; under him, three Tempest Runners; under them, Clouds and Strikes. On a basic level, giving so much structure to a group like this also gives it a lot of personality. Groups like Kragan’s pirates from Resistance are less interesting because they don’t have this same amount of definition. Maybe more interestingly is their major weapon from the first round, the Path Engines. The Path Engines allow the Nihil the ability to run on hyperspace “Paths,” routes that don’t operate around the same hyperspace lanes as others. These Paths are weaponized against the Republic both in the space above Hetzal Prime and in the Battle of the Kur Nebula. (And, hey, Doctor Aphra and Sana Starros fight to make sure a Path Engine doesn’t fall into the wrong hands 235 years later!)
The Nihil get major attention in Light of the Jedi, Test of Courage, and The High Republic Adventures. Marchion Ro, the great Eye of the Nihil, gets a lot of his page time in Light of the Jedi and THRA. While written by different authors, Charles Soule and Daniel José Older, both give a lot of characterization to the fearsome leader. The long-game reveal of his major plan from the Great Disaster to the Battle of the Kur Nebula is a masterwork in terms of the progression showing off just how dangerous this man really is. Soule pulls off a great turn at the end of his novel, showing the way that Ro has worked through the entire plot of the novel to reveal just how intricate his planning really is. Adventures, IDW’s part of the story, revels in expanding Ro after the Battle of Kur, giving the newly ascendant leader time to shine and show just how cruelly he fights, even against children.
A Test
of Courage shows a few run-of-the-mill Nihil who served (formerly) under Kassav. This young reader’s book doesn’t give us a ton of information about the two individual Nihil, but it does give us a bit deeper look into their motivations. The Nihil are desperate to keep the Republic out of the Outer Rim, seeing them, and the Jedi, as massive threats to their organization. Unfortunately, as the Jedi get more involved in the Great Disaster, the Jedi come against the Nihil harder and harder.
One of the most interesting things about the Nihil is their major threat comes from the technology they rely upon, rather than some sort of new trick in the Force. The Nightsisters of Dathomir and the Sith are interesting foils to the Jedi in terms of the alternative ways that they wield the Force. The Nihil are great enemies to the Jedi because they use tools to pull stuff off that Jedi couldn’t even dream about. Doesn’t seem like any use of the Force, at least, as far as we have seen, can get Jedi to follow Nihil on the Paths. Charles Soule really digs into the heart of the Nihil – or their lack thereof – in comparing their relentless slaughter of the galaxy with the heart of the Jedi toward anybody that they are near.
One thing I particularly love about the Nihil, that Older brings out in the first story arc of the Adventures comics, is the Nihil aren’t completely technologically driven. In fact, they are pretty close to the natural world around them. A lot of their main ships take a lot of design cues from arachnids, bringing out a primal horror that sits behind the Nihil. They also have access to giant beasts that they pit their captives against in gladiatorial pits. They’re not just pirates, but there’s a whole culture developing around the Nihil I’m excited to see get expanded on.
Moving forward, I would love to see a bit more of a focus on individual Nihil characters, especially seeing what makes them tick. Unfortunately, with barbaric and cruel antagonists, I think that authors can sometimes forget to make them unique. Even the worst pirates can still be motivated for reasons other than greed – or, heck, even a deeper reason for their greed. What makes them want to hoard?
The second major villain of the era are the Drengir, which get a lot of “screen time” in Into the Dark and Marvel’s The High Republic. The Drengir are a sentient race of botanical beings, telekinetically linked to one another’s minds. Though they are botanical, they are interested in eating meat – human, alien, and non-humanoid meat. And even worse, they not only spread like weeds in the planets around the galaxy, but they can “weed” themselves into the minds of sentient beings, taking over their minds and making them serve the Drengir. They are extraordinarily hard to kill, as simply chopping them in half doesn’t do much to end their lives as they simply revine themselves back together.
The Drengir are an interesting threat so far. In a lot of ways, they bring a great twinge of horror to the series without going into parody like the Deathtroopers duology from Legends. Both Cavan Scott, in the Marvel series, and Claudia Grey, in her young adult novel, lean deeply into the mind-control powers of the Drengir. Both Dez Rydan and Sskeer, the Trandoshan Jedi Master, deal with differing levels of control of the Drengir. This turns the Drengir threat into something deeper: Jedi vs. Jedi action. The threat changes from somehow ending their seemingly indestructible lives to saving their Jedi friends.
The Marvel comic series also hints that we’ll see their origin. Right now, we’re not sure how to take this type of statement, but there are at least three really interesting roots to investigate here. First, the origin of the Drengir themselves. How did they become space-faring? In which ways did they start to develop their connection with the dark side of the Force? Second, how did they come in contact with the Amaxine warriors? How did that story really shake out? And third, what was their battle with the Sith like? Claudia Grey loves to connect her stories, so it was a treat to see the Amaxine story picked up after the hints Bloodline dropped for us. I can’t wait to see how the authors explore the history of the Drengir and the Amaxines and the Sith – and, with no spoilers, it looks like there are plenty of interesting stories developing with the Drengir in wave 2.
Moving forward, I would like to see a bit more of what makes the eldritch horrors unique. Taken altogether, especially under the guise of a sentient botanical being, the Drengir are a bit of the same as some villains we’ve seen before. Hopefully, as we explore more of their backstory, including their great interactions with the Amaxine warriors of Bloodline fame, I’m sure they’ll take every opportunity they have to do something new.
What scares the Jedi?
But maybe more importantly is the growing darkness within the Jedi themselves…whom we now turn our focus to. There is a HUGE cast of Jedi in the era, which makes it a bit harder for us as reviewers to nail down the main characters. Thankfully, most of the books focus only on a few: Vernestara Rwoh and Imri Cantados in A Test of Courage; Avar Kriss, Terec and Ceret (twin non-binary Jedi), Keeve Trennis, and Sskeer in Marvel’s series; Reath Silas, Jora Malli, and Cohmac Vitus in Into the Dark. It’s Light of the Jedi and THR Adventures that really start to run these numbers extremely high, when you add in Bell Zettifar, Loden Greatstorm, Indeera Stokes, Burryaga, Qort, Lula Talisola, Zeen, and many, many more.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE having a huge, revolving cast of characters. It easily answers some of the biggest bummers of stories post-Order 66, when the Jedi are too dead to star in future stories, and The Clone Wars era, where everyone is way too content to keep telling stories about Anakin and Obi-Wan. And a lot of them really do have a lot of individual aspects that make them interesting. There are two that, in Wave I, do kinda seem really similar, Stellan Gios and Elzar Mann. (Thankfully, and I won’t say much, screen time in The Rising Storm deals with that a lot!) But I would love to see more secondary stories come out that give these Jedi a bit more of their own focused time.
But maybe more interesting than some of the really captivating Jedi cast members is the Jedi Order themselves. This isn’t the story of Yoda’s Jedi Order, where the Order is way too entangled in the worlds of the Republic and under the sway of the Dark Side. This is a Jedi Order that works near the Republic, but not at the Republic’s whims. It almost reverses it, in the sense that the Republic gives the Jedi a lot of leeway and legal freedom to do what they need to do. Instead, this is a Jedi Order that focuses on the fight for light and life, mostly unencumbered by the darkness that overtakes the Order later. This allows for incredible feats, like redirecting a tibanna gas container that hurtles toward a sun, or building lightwhips based on a dream. What really shines is the way that the Jedi are given to peace and disarmament… until their enemies force their hands in a different direction. The Skywalker Saga might be the story of the death and rebirth of the Order, but the High Republic era shows their height… and maybe the beginning of their slow decay into the hands of Sidious.
This is where, in my mind, the era truly shines. Where the Prequel Trilogy poked on the circumstances that surrounded the Jedi, and the choices they made (or were forced to make) in response to those outside stimuli, The High Republic pokes on Jedi dogma itself. Is the Jedi Code air-tight? Or does it present its own challenges? Or, maybe: would the Jedi Order, if followed perfectly, prevent its own fall? Or does its own codes and morality have blindspots? Is the problem the Jedi or the individual Jedi? This seems to be a huge question that the era asks, and I’m curious to see where it goes from there.
But this isn’t a time without any optimism. All five of the authors of the era are really digging in deep to develop what it means to be a bright Jedi in this time period. A couple of stand-outs for me include the Wookiee Jedi Burryaga, a young oak-of-a-Jedi who’s great empathy really connects him with the people around him, sometimes to his own disadvantage. Lula Talisola is a bright young Jedi, and I love seeing the way that she and the other Padawans accept Zeen, but also expose the way that the Order really works. Keeve Trennis is an absolute delight, a far cry from a lot of the Jedi that we’ve already gotten to know. Cavan Scott noted in the third episode of The High Republic Show that they know where her story is going, so each moment serves to get her closer to that. I love that they are taking an intentional effort to combine everything into one major story, not wasting even a moment.
Moving forward, I would love to see stories giving characters individual attention. It looks like Vern, Imri, and Reath might live in the younger audience books this round and next, which is great! But in the future, as stories expand, I would love to see slimmer main casts of Jedi to give them a little room to expand.
Reading Order:
Theoretically, the authors say that you can read these books and comics in any order. And, really, they are correct! All five of these do have stand-alone stories that don’t need to be connected to the others, if you don’t want. It is my opinion, though, that if you can somehow read them all, and want to read them in order, this quick list is the way to go:
First, start with Light of the Jedi. The novel lays out, in detail, the Great Disaster and the following Emergences. Then, it moves to the events of Elphrona and the Battle of the Kur Nebula. Great Jedi Rescue covers events from the first half of the novel, so it might be fun to read it simply for visual depictions of our characters. The High Republic Adventures follows a group of Padawans dealing with a major Emergence in the Trymant system. Into the Dark starts just after the Great Disaster and eventually corresponds with the Battle at Kur, ending with the dedication of the Starlight Beacon, so I put it second. A Test of Courage takes place just before the Starlight Dedication. Marvel’s series picks up just before the Dedication and moves into the future, events unfurling from the fallout of Into the Dark.
Quick Hits:
–Light of the Jedi is an expansive and beautiful novel. The Great Disaster has some of the best Star Wars writing this year, and I do put it alongside Freed’s incredible Victory’s Price.
-A Test of Courage dealt with some themes a little too sparsely (what was Vern worried about her lightwhip for?), but in terms of handling trauma in a children’s book? Incredible.
-Reath Silas is one of my favorite Jedi ever – if I had to point to a Jedi that I can relate to, I couldn’t find a better one than Reath.
-I strongly recommend re-reading Dooku: Jedi Lost as a reminder of some of the pre-hidden Easter eggs we didn’t quite know we were looking for.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!
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