WHAT THE QEL?
Review by Chad Clark

Falling to the Dark Side... Battling the most evil Dark Jedi of his time... Redemption to the Light Side...  
...sound familiar?  We thought so too!

Tales of the Jedi: The Redemption of Ulic Qel-Droma #1-3 (of 5) 
published by Dark Horse Comics 

NO NEW "TALE" TO TELL? 
Ah, the "Tales of the Jedi." Not exactly one of the more popular Dark Horse series but it does tell of some interesting history in the Star Wars universe. There have been two separate storylines, told over seven separate mini-series. The first two mini-series were on the Rise and Fall of the Sith Empire. And they were terrible. The story was ho-hum and not one single interesting character was created. The second storyline takes place 1,000 years after the first and has been focusing on the life of Ulic Qel-Droma. There a couple interesting characters created in this series but Ulic is the tragic character. A Jedi who rose to great heights, only to fall prey to the "dark side" and betray all those around him. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. 

Ulic's story differs from Anakin/Vader's though. See, he turned to the dark side to defeat Exar Kun, a powerful Dark Jedi. Yeah, yeah, I know. Luke did the same thing against the clone-Emperor in the "Dark Empire" comics. Now you're starting to see the Kevin Anderson trend. He raids the themes George Lucas and others have used previously. I say "trend" because this seems standard to anyone who has read other Star Wars works by Anderson. But lets see what he can do with this one. 

 Issue One had Ulic flying across the galaxies looking for a place he can escape from his past. Now blinded to the Force and incapable of accessing its power, he is instead haunted by the ghosts he has left behind. A great convocation of Jedi has been called by Ulic's lost love Nomi Sunrider. (Sunrider is a famous Jedi of this period, featured in several other "Tales of the Jedi" comic series.) Unfortunately it is never clear why this is done. Nomi has become a great leader of the Jedi, Master Thon says so, but has neglected her daughter Vima, who frets over her lack of Jedi training. 

Issues Two and Three take a lot of space to tell very little actual story. Nomi finds the "spacer" who flew Ulic to the place of isolation and convinces him to take her to this same planet. An odd point here is that the spacer, Haggon, is a "Jedi-phile" or fanatic about the Jedi. Yet he didn't recognize Ulic and he didn't recognize Vima, the daughter of Nomi Sunrider, two of the most well-known Jedi in the Universe. Suffice it to say that Vima goes in search of Ulic to train her as a Jedi and her mother discovers her missing. End of book three. 

The saving grace of this fifth series in the life and times Ulic Qel-Droma is Chris Gossett, the penciller. He has really created some beautiful imagery set in the times of the Old Republic. He takes us to the luscious landscapes of Yavin 4, to the barren rocky terrain of Ryloth. And the sweeping plains of snow and ice on Rhen Var are majestic. The characters' emotions are portrayed vividly on their faces, especially the worn and craggy look Ulic wears throughout the series. Very powerful. 

The characters are simplistic and inconsistent, with dialogue seemingly thrown together at the last minute. There is almost no compatibility between the dialogue and art, something very disrupting to the reader. One panel may have two or three word balloons while the next may have none. And a lot of the dialogue is unnecessary due to the fantastic art job. It's as if the dialogue was written without any reference to the art at all. And that's a shame because simple writing consistently would made this series enjoyable.

(Chad Clark is an aspiring actor and fanatic devotee of Rogue Squadron. When he isn't practicing his heart-melting smile, he writes reviews of the comics he reads while basking in the California sunshine. His agent answers his fan mail at chad@echostation.com)

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