In Review: Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi #1
The covers: Interior artist Jan Duursema provides the regular cover which is a nice shot of Force Hound Xesh holding his lightsaber. In the skies above him (her? it?) are three Tho Yors. The variant cover is by Gonzolo Flores and it looks more like a bad fantasy novel cover than that of a Star Wars comic. It comes off as trying to do too much. Overall grades: Regular A and Variant C-
The script: John Ostrander provides duties here, from a story he and Jan Duursema collaborated on. The first three pages focus on a never before scene alien race called the Dai Bendu who are waiting for the Tho Yor to speak to them. The Tho Yor are those flying pyramid/ships seen in three episodes of last season’s “Clone Wars” animated series. Once the Tho Yor have spoken, the monks go inside and the Tho Yor takes off to find other races, of which two familiar ones are found on Page 4. The history of the Tho Yor and its (their?) travelers continues through Page 11. On Page 12 the actual story begins. I’m not going to go into details, as I never get specific past Page 4, but to get vaguely detailed: Page 13 had a revelation about a famous Star Wars planet that got my attention quickly. The characters introduced on this planet are very interesting and I’m intrigued to know where they’re going. It’s a foundation laying story that has me curious, and, even better, entertained. Overall grade: A-
The pencils: One artist that can write her own ticket is Jan Duursema. She is a fan favorite for good reason: Her characters look great, her shipwork is excellent, her backgrounds and settings are top notch, and she never takes a shortcut. She is the ideal artist for Star Wars. In this issue alone she has a variety of planets, aliens, and monsters to do, plus a very nice fight scene between two Hunters. What can’t she do? Overall grade: A+
The inks: A long time Duursema inker, Dan Parsons is a perfect fit for his penciler. I don’t know if he smiles at the work he gets or groans at the details he has to maintain. Whichever, he’s good! Overall grade: A
The colors: A blue snowy planet, orange apocalypses, night time farewells, the cloudy aftermath of war, the metallic Rakatan stronghold, and the brilliant reds of Trill (Star Trek doesn’t have this copyrighted?). Wes Dzioba‘s work is as good as the artwork he’s coloring. Overall grade: A
The letters: There’s nothing but narration and dialogue until Page 20, and then Michael Heisler gets to stretch, a little, with three sound effects during a battle. Half the fun of comics are the sounds, so I’m hoping that Heisler has more to do in forthcoming issues. Overall grade: A
The final line: Interesting and promising. This is foundation laying and if you know nothing of Star Wars, this would serve as a fine introduction. If you know something of Wars, this will create many questions, which I look forward to seeing answered. Overall grade: A
