The Art: The cover didn't set me on fire at first with its muted colors, but it has grown on me. I actually thought the next-to-last page of the interior might have made a decent cover -- or poster. Speaking of the art inside, this series is definitely eye candy. I like the look of Quinlan Vos, with his Native-American-style face paint and long, dark hair bound with cords. And did anybody but me notice how much Vos's lightsaber looks like Qui-Gon Jinn's? They say a padawan usually crafts his lightsaber to look similar to his master's as a sign of respect. I wonder if Vos might have been Qui-Gon's unnamed first padawan mentioned in the Episode I Insider's Guide CD?

Comments: I enjoyed this issue immensely. Things I found particularly cool -- getting to see how good a Jedi is with a blaster, and getting inside the mind of a Jedi, even a damaged one, as mantra-like thoughts guide him through a seemingly impossible situation: "Do not give in to fear. That will surely lead to death. Steady the breathing. Focus. Question Later. Find another path." The point of view of this series stays very tightly with Vos, only stepping away occasionally to show us what Villie's up to. I found that a refreshing change from the previous series set on Malastare.

Twilight #2 (of 4)

The Story: This issue starts with a vision; Vos is seeing fragments of his past. Chief among the memories is the name Aayla Secura, Vos's Twi'lek padawan. He sees rocks falling on her and hears words such as "Fortuna" and "glitteryll." With a reluctant Villie's help, Vos confronts Bib Fortuna (Jabba the Hutt's Twi'lek majordomo) on Nar Shaddaa and demands answers, using the Force to coerce him in a most un-Jedi-like manner. Fortuna escapes, and Vos manages to help Villie steal his own ship and get away from the planet. Villie's on-board computer scans Vos and tells him he is from the planet Kiffu, of the Kiffar people. The Vos clan has long been associated with the Guardians, a sort of law enforcement group with psychometric abilities. Vos goes to Kifex, Kiffu's sister planet, and meets with his great aunt Sheyf Tinte, the Chief Guardian. She helps him piece together more about his past, telling him that he and Aayla had been heading to Ryloth to investigate a new type of illegal spice. Meanwhile, Villie is cooking up another scheme with his cousin Holmar to collect a huge bounty on the Jedi.

The Art: The colorful cover with multiple layers of action really caught my eye. Unfortunately the goofy bulb-like swelling at the base of the lightsaber blade makes its appearance here, as it does in some of the other Star Wars comics of late. Whoever thought this unsightly blob was a good idea should have his/her logic circuits examined. Inside, I thought the washed-out rendering of the dream sequence at the beginning was very well done. I was interested to see the Jedi "tunics" worn by Aayla -- more like a skin-tight catsuit in rust, with lavender/mauve robes. While her togs are a welcome variation from the standard earth tones, I do think it's a bit ... sexist, shall we say? ... to put the girl in such a revealing outfit (or are Twi'lek women very proud to display themselves in next to nothing, from Jedi Temple to Hutt Palace?) Not that I really mind, I just wish the artists would give us gals equal time and show us a few male Jedi in nothing but loincloths ... but I digress. One other thing that bothered me ... when Villie and Vos confront Fortuna, Vos has both lightsabers powered up, Aayla's pink blade in his right hand. Then, suddenly, Aayla's lightsaber disappears and Vos's own is in his right hand. We never see Aayla's 'saber again, not even hanging on his belt. What happened to it? And if you look on page 22, Quinlan has a different lightsaber hanging from his belt, one with a rounded top, which is neither his nor his padawan's. It magically reverts back to the correct shape on the next page, without ever being touched.

Comments: I find the Quinlan Vos character and the mystery of his past fascinating. Here is a man with immense power and no Code to guide him, yet his innate sense of honor keeps him barely in check. His confusion and uncertainty make him interesting and unpredictable. And while the strange speech and humorous antics of Villie walk the edge between humor and camp, I have not yet grown tired of him. Duursema (along with Magyar and McCaig) have given us lots of different, complex environments fully realized.

Twilight #3 (of 4)

The Story: Vos and Villie arrive at Ryloth, where they are met by Vos's cousin, Asante, who was apparently some sort of girlfriend before he lost his memory. She takes him to Aayla's uncle, Pol Secura, who is one of the Twi'lek chieftains. Meanwhile Holmar meets up with Villie to formulate a plan for collecting the bounty on Vos. Secura reveals that, on a previous visit to Ryloth, Vos and Aayla found nothing and went on to Kessel. Then Villie gives Vos a call, saying he has information, and Vos agrees to meet him, only to be set upon by Holmar. Villie "saves" Vos by killing Holmar. Vos decides to check out the spice mines before he leaves. There he discovers the Twi'leks are feeding their native Ryll spice to huge spiders, imported from Kessel, that usually make glitterstim. The combined product is a potent spice called glitteryll. But before he can do anything about it, the huge spiders show up and attack. Vos and Villie are outnumbered. Suddenly Asante show up with a blaster ... then fires it at Vos! As he lies at her mercy, she explains that there are powerful beings in charge of the spice operation who wanted Vos and Aayla killed when they got too close to the truth, but to save their lives Asante and Pol Secura fed them glitteryll instead to wipe their memories. As Asante is about to pull the trigger and kill Vos, a spider impales her on a claw. Vos and Villie kill it, but they are too late to save her. As Asante dies in his arms, Vos determines to go to Pol Secura for answers ... and maybe revenge.

The Art: Again with the unsightly blob (sigh). This cover, while eye-catching on the newsstand, makes me thing of those little paint-it-yourself statuettes of Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Maul you can get at Kay-Bee Toys. Inside, though, the artists are in fine form. The strange and wondrous images of Ryloth's interiors, such as the serpent creature swimming in Pol Secura's luxury quarters, really made me feel like I was visiting an alien place. And the dark spice mine with its many webs and eggs was truly creepy. Not to mention the spiders! Too bad they are dark and furry instead of being made of crystal, as the Jedi Academy novels first described them.

Comments: The pacing for this part of the story seemed to drag. I don't mind the lack of action when Vos is conducting an investigation, as long as it drives the story forward. But his conversation with Asante takes up three pages and doesn't really tell us anything new. Also, I had a problem with the fact that Asante and Vos had the leisure to have a conversation in the spice mines when only moments before, there had been so many spiders Vos had thought he would be defeated.

The fascination of the Ongoing series for me is that it takes place between Episodes I and II. That means we might be getting clues as to what happens in the next Star Wars movie, who some of the main players are, what some of the conflicts might be. In this issue we find out that Secura, rather than working for the Hutts, is working for an unknown person he calls the Patron. Could this be Darth Sidious? If so, what role will the spice trade play in Episode II, if any? These are the kinds of questions that keep me reading.

Twilight #4 (of 4)

The Story: A lot happens in the conclusion of this four-part series as a complicated series of betrayals peels away like layers of an onion to reveal, if not the truth, at least a bit of enlightenment. As we get back into the story, Vos cuts through the door Qui-Gon style and confronts the Twi'lek chieftain Pol Secura only to find out that his padawan, Aayla, has been kneeling at Secura's feet all along ... but the glitteryll Secura's been feeding her has destroyed her memory. Vos demands to know the Patron's name, and when Secura will not say, Vos fries him with Force lightning. Secura then reveals the name; Chom Frey Kaa. At the sight of her master about to murder her uncle, Aayla recovers her memory. She blasts both of them with the Force, causing her uncle to fall to his death. She flees, and Vos wants to go after her, but Villie persuades Vos to leave the planet. Once off Ryloth, Vos is contacted via hologram by Mace Windu, who orders him to return to Coruscant for retraining. Instead, Vos and Villie go to a hideout deep in Coruscant, where Vos intends to look for Chom Frey Kaa, a representative from Ryloth in the Galactic Senate. I don't want to give away the absolutely brilliant twists and turns of the plot at this point, but eventually Vos ends up with his lightsaber blade at Chom Frey Kaa's throat. Mace Windu shows up at the last second to prevent Kaa's death, and Windu and Vos engage in a deadly lightsaber duel. At last, after a prolonged fight, Mace is able to make Vos understand -- it is not Chom Frey Kaa that Mace is trying to save, but Quinlan Vos's soul. At last Vos makes his decision and submits himself to the Jedi. On the last page we see Sidious, musing about how close he came to turning Quinlan Vos to the dark side, and we are left wondering if the whole complicated scheme was nothing more than a gambit to do that very thing.

The Art: On the cover, Mace and Vos face off in the Batcave! This cover did nothing at all for me, but I am glad to see that the unsightly blobs did not make an appearance this time. As for the interior, the Force-lightning scene and Vos's face as he turns to the Dark were breathtaking. Almost all of this issue happens in dark places, and the muted colors got on my nerves after a while. Still, there's very little to complain about when the artwork is this outstanding. Any complaints I might have are more than compensated for by the brilliant four-page duel at the end.

Comments: I am really liking the Villie character. Every time he opens his mouth, he says something that either amuses me or shocks me in its audacity. Here's one example, as Villie sums up after they are forced to flee Ryloth: "Hokay, everything now hokay, Villie alive, Villie win bets big, everything good. Girly wormhead friend of Jedi alive. Maybe hates Jedi but is imperfect universe at best." In a cosmos where most of the characters are either spectacularly evil or heroically good, it's entertaining to have somebody like Villie whose loyalties are for sale to the highest bidder.

So, we now know that the Corporate Sector is at least nominally behind the development of glitteryll as a way to have more efficient workers. I wonder how this will play into the events of Episode II, if at all? We know from the Jedi Council: Acts of War series that Villie is, or at least was previously, an agent of Sidious. And is Sidious in league with the Corporate Sector, or was he simply using their scheme to try to turn a Jedi Knight to the dark? And how many senators are involved? It's all still a mystery, and one I don't think is going to be cleared up any time soon.

A final comment. At one point in the Ongoing series Hasbro ran a back-page ad with the phrase, "Sith Happens." Now we get one saying, "One Horny Politician." On a product marketed to adolescents or even younger kids, Dark Horse should have a care to be a bit less crude. The world is already full of vulgarity and innuendo; why add to it?

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