Dune (1965) Review

 Hey everyone! Did you all have a good weekend? I had a pretty great one. I saw two friends on Saturday, one in person and one virtually, so that was alot of fun. I also ended up finishing Dune by Frank Herbert over the weekend. Naturally that's what I'm here to talk about today. There will be spoilers, so if you haven't read this book yet, please don't read this review, unless you don't care about spoilers. So let's get right into it.

As I talked about in a post that I wrote on this very blog a month ago, I have a very storied history with Dune. I've only read it once all the way through prior to this read through and I attempted to read it once before that, which ended up being an unsuccessful venture. It's complicated without being sophisticated as it doesn't so much try to help the reader understand something about themselves, nor does it try to help the reader understand something about the society around us, as it does present events in a way that sets up future books. Don't get me wrong, alot happens in this book, and it's not actually boring, it's just nothing happens in this book that helps me to understand any of the characters, beyond turning Paul into the figure of an ancient prophecy. Not to mention that alot more happens "offscreen" than it does "onscreen". 

I am a very character oriented reader and all of my favourite books are my favourites because I was able to connect to at least one character in the story on some level. But with Dune there isn't a single character that I can connect to. Our lead character, Paul, is a blank slate at the beginning of the book, waiting to be molded by the Harkonnens, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen. Which makes him extremely difficult to connect to. And that, to me, is the very heart of a story. Without a character to connect to, it's more difficult to understand the world that he, she, or they, live in. Not impossible mind you, just difficult.

Honestly, the more sophisticated parts of this book actually happen in the first few chapters of the book, and by the time Dr. Yueh betrays Duke Leto to the Harkonnens and Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica, are forced to flee to the Fremen, it's actually a pretty simple story. There's still wheels within wheels, within wheels, but not from the Harkonnens or the Emperor. Those wheels within wheels within wheels are more Lady Jessica's doings as a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit than anything else. Herbert lays everything out for us, and while things are still mysteries wrapped in enigmas, the majority of the Harkonnens's plot is laid out for us, even if the main characters don't know about them exactly. I mean they kind of do, but only to the extent that the Harkonnens will attack them and that there is a traitor among them who helps the Harkonnens.

Speaking of the Harkonnens, they are the most cartoonish villains I've read in a novel that isn't a Bantam (1990s) era Star Wars novel. Vladimir Harkonnen is the most cartoonish of them all. It's refreshing to read, even though the book was originally published back in the '60s, because I am so tired of sympathetic villains and villains that people actually like. I've said this a million times on my older blogs that villains are supposed to represent an obstacle for the main character, a.k.a. the hero, to overcome. They aren't meant to be sympathetic or likeable and yet writers, no matter what medium they write for, end up writing them that way. I get that the world isn't black and white, but sometimes a villain has to just be a villain with no middle ground or redeeming qualities.

Dune is a good book. Frank Herbert did a really good job writing it. My biggest problems with it are the time jump that takes place out of nowhere, with so much happening offscreen and the ending. I get that the time jump was done because Paul was only 15 years old at the beginning of the book and wasn't old enough to be a Fremen leader. But it came out of nowhere without any indication that it had actually happened until a conversation between Baron Harkonnen and one of his henchmen. 

The ending is so open ended that it feels like not a whole lot happened in the entire book as a result. According to the afterword by Frank Herbert's son, Brian, which is in the back of my copy of the book, Frank Herbert did not have sequels planned when he wrote Dune. He simply left the story open ended so that people would finish the book, want more and want to reread it to follow another thread he left there. Which is genius to be honest, because many writers wrap their first story up so neatly that sequels end up not being necessary if sequels weren't thought up during the story's development in the first place.

Despite my problems with the book, I do like Dune. I'm just not in love with it. And, again, that's just because I don't have a connection to any of the characters, despite how well written most of them are, and the time jump, along with the ending. I still recommend it if you've never read it though, because it's really good even though I have my problems with it.

Alrighty that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back later this week with a review of Super 8 (2011) but I'm not entirely sure when yet. So until then have a wonderful evening, morning, or afternoon, whenever you're reading this, and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon (2013) Review

 Hey everyone! Welcome back to the Geek Cave. How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be taking a look at the first trade paperback volume of Matt Fraction's run on Hawkeye, My Life as a Weapon, which collects Hawkeye (2012) #'s 1-5 and Young Avengers Presents (2008) #6. So let's get into it.

Even though I did a mini-review of this book in the last Comic Book Wrap-Up that I did over on The Review Basement, I wanted to do a full blown review here because of the new Disney+ series that started yesterday. When I originally read it back in 2017 or 2018, whenever Brad first lent it to me, I didn't like it all that much. It was fine, but I'm not a big Marvel fan, and outside of Jeremy Renner's portrayal of the character in the movies, I was completely unfamiliar with Hawkeye as a character. And even though this book is the first in a series, it has all of the baggage of the character's previous history in the comics, including his time as Ronin and previous Avengers stuff. All of which I'm not familiar with because I haven't read any of it. But when I read it last month for that Comic Book Wrap-Up post, I found myself enjoying it more than I did when I initially read it a few years earlier.

Clint Barton is an absolute mess at the beginning of this book. Like just a straight up mess. Literally, because he falls out of a window or was thrown out of a window, or whatever. The point is, he's falling from a window and even though he tries to save himself with his grappling arrow because that's what heroic archers do when they're falling from a high place like a building or cliff, he fails and lands brutally hard on a car below him. And it's just fun following him and Kate as they go up against someone who was trained by the Swordsman, who isn't actually in the book, but is mentioned.

Speaking of Kate Bishop, there's more about her in the earlier issue of Young Avengers Presents than there is in the five issues of Hawkeye that are collected in this volume. Which is fine, because Fraction was trying to reintroduce the previously established dynamic between Clint and Kate, and he didn't waste Kate Bishop in this book. Far from it, it's just Clint is the character whose head we're in through all five issues, and we mostly follow him while he and Kate fight the Tracksuit Mafia. It's a very different dynamic between Clint and Kate than it is between say Batman and Robin or Batman and Batgirl or Batman, and anyone else in the Bat Family. Clint and Kate are actually partners in pretty much every sense of the word. There's no superiority coming from Clint, and there's no feeling of being intimidated by him from Kate. In a way it's kind of like the partnership between Dick Grayson and Tim Drake when Dick was Batman during the "Prodigal" storyline from the mid '90s. 

The one big negative about these first five issues is that the first three are pretty random in a way because they aren't one large story arc. They're three standalone issues and so they're both easier, yet harder to follow because there's no clear storyline through the first three issues. So it feels more episodic than most comic books even back in 2012 when these issues were coming out. They read okay, and would work best in single issue form, or in an omnibus of Fraction's entire run, but in this singular trade paperback volume, they don't work as well in terms of reading all three issues in one sitting. The fourth and fifth issues were fine though in that regard. I just didn't care about the SHIELD stuff.

If I had to choose my favourite issue in this book it would have to be the last issue to be collected in this volume. 2008's Young Avengers Presents #6, which focuses solely on Kate Bishop and her first encounter with Clint Barton, who is still Ronin at this point. The story doesn't actually require you to have read any Young Avengers before this, because there's a few things here that are completely taken out of context if you've never read the series before. My sister and I have actually been looking for some Young Avengers trades because they do sound interesting and I am a huge fan of the various incarnations of the Teen Titans so Young Avengers feels like it would be right up my alley.

Overall this is a really good volume to start with if you've never read Hawkeye but loved the first two episodes of the show. It's also really good if you want a break from the high stakes stories that you get from the Avengers, the X-Men or the Fantastic Four (to name a few). The artwork is solid for the most part, though I prefer David Aja's art in issues 1-3 than I do Javier Pulido's art in issues 4 and 5. I also love Alan Davis's artwork in Young Avengers Presents #6 as well. 

Alrighty that my friends is going to be it for me for today. I'm probably not going to put out a blog post tomorrow, but you never know. If not have an awesome weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Hawkeye Episodes 1 + 2 Review (Spoilers)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing really well. Welcome to the Geek Cave. It was Josh's Nostalgia Corner, but, well, I was looking through the five posts that I have on here, and all five of them are about geeky subjects, like video games, comic books, and Science Fiction novels. So, I changed the name to better fit that description. Today I'm here to talk about the first two episodes of the new Disney+ series, Hawkeye. Because naturally Marvel decided to drop the first two episodes on the same day. I am going to be going into spoilers because there's alot I want to talk about which I can't do without spoiling anything. So you know what to do by now if you haven't watched the episodes yet. For those of you who have, let's talk about Clint Barton and Kate Bishop and how we're introduced to the newest character in the MCU shall we? Let's get right into it.

My excitement has been extremely high for this show since it was first announced back in 2019. But cautiously high because I didn't know what tone it would have or how grounded the series would be, given I wasn't big on WandaVision, Loki or What If...?. But when the trailer dropped back in September, I was pleasantly surprised that it looked like the series was going to be a low stakes, lighter romp than the previous four Marvel Disney+ shows that we'd had so far. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and think it's one of the best shows I have ever watched, but when every comic book based show and movie, no matter what studio produces it, has high stakes and the deepest of philosophical meanings, it can get exhausting going from one to another with very little downtime between shows and movies. Which is why I appreciated the more down to earth approach that Hawkeye is taking because, apart from Kate Bishop's backstory being tied into the Battle of New York as shown in The Avengers (2012), there is no high concept premise for this show. It's literally Clint helping Kate, while wanting to get back to his family in time for Christmas. That's it. That's the premise of the show. And I freaking love it.

When the trailer dropped back in September, I was amazed at how closely the writers took inspiration from Matt Fraction's 2012 run on Hawkeye. Watching the first two episodes though I've realized that they went all out and introduced even more elements from Fraction's run with Fraction serving as a consulting producer on the show, which is actually really cool, because, having reread the first trade paperback volume of his run a month or two ago, in preparation for this show, I actually like it alot more than I did when I first read it a few years ago. So to see it come to life on my TV screen is pretty awesome.

The best part of this show so far is Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. This is my first encounter with this young performer in live action. She voiced Gwen Stacy/Spider Woman in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and she was incredible in that role. But I've never had the opportunity to see her in a live action movie or on a TV show before now though I've heard wonderful things about her performance in the Apple TV+ series, Dickinson (2019-present) as the titular character, Emily Dickinson. Kate Bishop is my favourite character in Matt Fraction's comic book run and to see Hailee Steinfeld slip right into the role as if she's always played the character was a huge relief, because introducing new characters in a franchise as massive as the MCU can be a tricky thing. Especially when you only have six episodes in which to play around with these characters.

I like that we got so much screentime with Kate in these first two episodes. Mainly because I was afraid that her introduction was going to be Clint unmasking her as Ronin, like we saw in the teaser back in September, and that doesn't happen until the very end of the first episode, "Never Meet Your Heroes". But, she was actually the main focus of these first two episodes. Barton didn't have as much screentime as I thought he would, but that's okay, because we've been with him for ten years, since his cameo in Thor (2011). And Marvel Studios has enough experience introducing brand new characters into their shared cinematic universe that they ended up pulling it off extremely well.  

If it seems like I'm spending alot of time talking about Kate Bishop, that's because I am. She's the main character of this show. Yes, Clint Barton is there, but he's playing more of the mentor role in this show similar to how the elderly Bruce Wayne played mentor to Terry McGinnis's Batman in Batman Beyond (1999-2001). Except, you know, Barton is alot younger in this show than Bruce was in that show. But still, the showrunners have confirmed that Kate will be replacing Barton as Hawkeye by the end of the show, so that's going to be cool.

One of the things that absolutely floored me when I watched these two episodes is that Kate has a personal connection to Jack Duquesne, who is Jacques Duquesne, a.k.a. the Swordsman, the person who adopted Clint when he joined the circus in the comics. Apparently, he's engaged to Kate's mom, Eleanor. So that will be interesting to see how that pans out over the course of the next four episodes. Honestly, I didn't see a cast list for the show on IMDB, or on Wikipedia, so I had no idea that the Swordsman was even going to show up in this show, letalone in the first episode. So that's cool. He's only mentioned in the first trade paperback volume of Fraction's comic book run, so I haven't actually encountered him in the comics before. The amazing part is that in the show he actually looks like the stereotypical moustache twirling villain that most of the classic comic book villains pretend to be. Even if they don't look the part.

The Tracksuit Mafia is even more annoying on the screen than they are in the comic and they're extremely, EXTREMELY, annoying in the comic. They actually kind of remind me of henchmen from Power Rangers. They're supposed to be threatening and intimidating, but they just end up being a complete joke because they're super dumb and make me want to claw my eyes out. And I guess that's the point of them, at least for this show, but if I have to hear "what's that bro?" or "I'm coming after you bro" one more time, I'm going to scream. I kid you not. It's more annoying to hear it on the TV than it is to read it in the comics, and even then, I kept praying that it would be over soon when I read the comic. If it weren't for the fact that I'd miss anything Barton or Kate says, I'd mute the TV every time these guys are on screen. That's how bad they are.

I'm glad that the writers didn't set Kate's backstory during Avengers: Endgame, or in between Infinity War and Endgame. Mainly because every other live action Marvel show this year has done that, since they're the first things we've seen since Spider-Man: Far From Home came out two years ago, which came out right after Endgame. Instead they set it, at the very beginning of episode 1, during the Battle of New York, as I said earlier. Which is basically when the MCU really took off in the real world and we were introduced to Clint Barton after his quick cameo in Thor, as well as the Mark Ruffalo version of the Hulk. So that was really cool. 

It was also interesting to see Clint's family again. They don't have a huge role, but I'd forgotten just how much they know about Clint's life as both Hawkeye and as Ronin. I also completely forgot that Linda Cardellini plays his wife, Laura. Mainly because we haven't actually seen her, apart from her cameo at the beginning of Endgame, since Age of Ultron came out back in 2015. 

As you know from my posts on my old blog, The Review Basement, I'm not a big Marvel fan. And with so much coming out post-Endgame, I decided to bow out of most of the MCU stuff because it's too much and most of it I'm just not interested in. So I've been very selective when it comes to the MCU stuff that I've watched this year. I've sampled all of it, but prior to this, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the only Marvel Disney+ show that I've watched all the way through. I love Science Fiction and I love comic books, but sometimes I need a break from the high stakes and high concept elements of them. Especially since I'm a character guy, so I find myself not connecting to many of the characters being featured in these shows like Wanda and Loki, which leaves me not wanting to watch their shows because I just don't connect to them the way I do characters like Clint Barton, like Kate Bishop, like Clark Kent, like Oliver Queen, like Bruce Wayne. Yes, Clark Kent is Superman and is stronger than most people, but he is more like us than we like to think of him as. While Clint, Kate, Oliver, and Bruce are all superheroes who don't have any powers. All they have are their skills, their ingenuity, and their drive to persevere in the face of adversity. And Hawkeye has alot of good character stuff to latch onto.

I am so excited for next week's episode. I haven't been this excited for a weekly show that isn't Star Trek since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ended back in March. I'm not going to do full reviews of every episode though it is extremely tempting to do so. What I am going to do is if I have something I want to talk about each week then I'll write about it here on the blog. If I don't then I won't. In the meantime though I will be back tomorrow for another review. This time I'll be talking about the comic that this show took inspiration from. Hawkeye #'s 1-5 by Matt Fraction. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care. 

Batman: A Death in the Family (1988-1989) Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I'm back with another comic book review. I realized that I've been doing nothing but comic book reviews, so I'm going to do a movie review for you next week, probably on Tuesday, depending on how things go. For right now though, let's get into one of the most iconic comic book storylines of all time, Batman: A Death in the Family. I've had three different editions over the last 20 years or so, and I'm going to talk about those. But I'm going to do so in the order in which I got them rather than in the more linear way of how they were released. So let's get into it.

Batman: A Death in the Family originally came out as Batman #'s 426-429 in 1988. However, it was one of the first storylines to be immediately published in a trade paperback collected edition, following Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Batman: Year One, Batman: Year Two, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. There might have been one or two others on that list, but those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head. I didn't actually get my first copy until the mid 2000s, probably around 2003 or 2004. I got the 10th printing, which came out in 2000, as a birthday present from my grandparents because I had started going back and trying to find the big major Batman storylines that I hadn't read or hadn't read all of when I was a kid in the '90s. I'd also begun picking up back issues to fill in the gaps in my Batman and Star Trek comic book collections, which were basically the only comic books I owned at the time. So this book represented my growing interest in the Batman comics of the past, beyond what I'd grown up reading when I was a kid.

Only a couple of years ago I came across a much earlier printing of the book at the Ottawa Comic & Card Show, which is the monthly comic book sale that Brad and I would always go to. It's the sixth printing from 1992. It's cover is similar to the original 1988 trade paperback edition, except the title is in grey instead of red. And it has the more standard collected edition paper stock for it's pages, with the more standard '90s trade paperback colours for the artwork. However, there's still one more edition that I got.

On Sunday Brad and I went to the first Ottawa Comic & Card Show to happen since the pandemic hit last year. This was also our first time out together since the pandemic. I got alot of cool comics and movies during this outing. One of them, from our good buddy Ian, who runs Big Belly Comics, which I've talked about before on the blog, was the original 1988 first edition of Batman: A Death in the Family, for $10. Which is really cool, considering most places like eBay would be selling it for $60 or $70 or more. Now Ian did have another copy of it that was more expensive, but the one I got for $10 wasn't in a pristine condition as the other one was, which is why it was cheaper. Regardless, it was a really cool find. The thing this edition has that the other two that I've owned didn't is that in the back of the book is the original ad that ran in DC Comics in 1988 with the numbers for people to call to vote on whether Jason Todd, the second Robin, lived or died. So that's REALLY cool! Mainly because I've never seen the ad before as I don't have any DC Comics that it would've been printed in. And it would have had to have run in the comics of 1988 because the cover date for Batman #426-428 is all December 1988, with #429 having a cover date of January 1989. So the first three issues came out in August and September 1988, and the final issue was probably either late September 1988 or early October 1988. According to the DC Wiki, this trade paperback edition actually came out in March of 1989. Regardless, it's an old book.

I also have the 2020 DC Dollar Comics reprint of Batman #428 in my collection as well. Unlike the Facsimile Edition reprints that both DC and Marvel have done over the last few years, the Dollar Comics editions have modern ads in them pertaining to the story in question or to whatever reason the issue was being reprinted for. Because Batman #428 is an important issue for both Batman and for Robin, and it came out in Robin's 80th Anniversary year, there are ads for various Batman and Robin comics coming out in 2020.

A Death in the Family was a storyline that involved Batman and Robin facing the Joker in the Middle East following his attack on Commissioner Gordon and Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore. Of course Robin (Jason Todd) is dealing with anger and recklessness stemming from the recent deaths of his parents (or not so recent, comic books are confusing) so this leads to a confrontation with the Joker, and Jason's real mother, and results in the Joker killing Robin. And then proceeds to attempt to murder the United Nations, but Batman and Superman stopped him. 

Anyone who was a comic book fan in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s knows this book. Even if they'd never read it. Jason Todd's death had a profound impact on Batman within the DC Universe and he carried the weight of that death, and of Barbara Gordon being crippled by the Joker in The Killing Joke, all through storylines like Knightfall, Year Three, No Man's Land, Hush, and Under the Hood. Jason's death also impacted other characters in the DC Universe such as Dick Grayson, who was Nightwing by that point, some of the other Titans, and Barbara Gordon. It also loomed as a shadow over Tim Drake in his early years as Robin.

Personally, I like this book. Jim Aparo is the artist on the book and I love his work on the various Batman books. Jim Starlin is the writer on this book but I haven't read any other comics written by him. At least none that weren't Batman or Batman related. This, along with The Killing Joke, is the book that made me dislike the Joker. Because it's the first story I read where the Joker actually does something as extreme as he does it here. Now, I've never liked the Joker as a character, because he's a criminal. However, I enjoyed seeing him whenever he showed up in the comics and in the 1966 TV show and the 1966 movie. Mostly because Batman beat him every single time. 

Alright folks that's going to be it for me for today but I will be back soon for that movie review I promised you. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care.

Star Wars Legends Reviews: Star Wars: Legacy Volume 1 - Broken Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week. I did. Actually I had a busy week. I went to do groceries, got my flu shot and I have a video chat with a friend of mine tomorrow morning. Other stuff happened to, but I'm not here to talk about my week. Today I'm going to be looking at the first trade paperback volume of the 2006 comic book series, Star Wars: Legacy, Broken, as the first in a new series of reviews and discussions on Star Wars Legends, which was the original Expanded Universe that ran from 1976 until 2014 and spanned novels, comics, video games, TV shows, and TV movies. I'm going to be focusing more on the novels, because I've read more of them than I have the comics but that medium as well as the TV shows, TV movies, and video games will come into play from time to time. Like right now with Star Wars: Legacy. So let's get into it.

I first heard about Star Wars: Legacy in issue #87 of Star Wars Insider back in 2006. At the time Star Wars was in an interesting place. The prequel trilogy was over, we were just getting news about a potential animated Star Wars TV show, as well as a potential live action Star Wars TV show, but the movies were done and we hadn't found out that the animated TV show was going to launch with an animated theatrical film yet, I don't think. In case you're wondering, when I say "we" I mean all of us in the Star Wars fan community. Novels, comics and video games were still coming out at the time but the movies were done and at that point we knew that George Lucas wasn't going to be making a sequel trilogy with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Billy Dee Williams reprising their iconic roles from the Original Trilogy. He had come right out and said it in interviews in 2005, shortly after Revenge of the Sith had come out.

So where was I in my Star Wars fandom and in life when Legacy started? Honestly, I was just getting out of high school and taking a year off before heading to college in the fall of 2007. However, I didn't start reading new comics again until 2009 and I was only reading Batman content from DC Comics at the time. In terms of my Star Wars fandom, my collecting days were actually kind of coming to an end. I had bought almost all of the Bantam era Legends novels and had just started picking up the books in the New Jedi Order series since all of them were in paperback by that point. But I couldn't keep up with all the novels that Del Rey was publishing however many times a year, which included all the ones outside of the New Jedi Order that I'd missed in the early to mid 2000s while I was in high school, having focused on trying to catch up on the Bantam era books that I'd missed in the '90s.

I also wasn't a big Star Wars comic book guy either. I had a few issues here and there that I'd gotten as gifts for birthdays and Christmas, but I didn't actively collect them. Mainly because I didn't have room for the single issues, most of the '90s trade paperbacks were out of print by then, and Ottawa didn't have anywhere near the amount of geek sales, comic book sales, or conventions that we do now. In fact we didn't have any in the mid to late 2000s. So I didn't have access to any of the older material. I was also borrowing the older Star Wars novels from the library as well, and they didn't have too many of the trade paperback collections either. 

Because of all of this Legacy just kind of passed me by. I kept tabs on it through Star Wars Insider but the magazine wasn't covering the comics issue to issue, so I eventually lost track of it. But then, finally, two years ago, my buddy, Jonathan, let me borrow the first two Legacy trade paperbacks since he had the original editions from 2007. Then the pandemic happened and they've been in my possession ever since. Which is why I decided to start the Star Wars Legends Reviews with volume 1.

When I first read this book, I had a hard time getting into the story and characters. Mostly because it felt like they were just repeating stuff that happened in the prequels, the Original Trilogy, and the novels of the early 2000s, and none of the characters are even remotely likeable. Well, except for the princess, Marasiah Fel. Which is actually my problem with the Legends continuity starting with this comic book series and the novel series that ran concurrently with it, Legacy of the Force, but I'll get into that another time, because it ties in with why I stopped investing in Legends in the early 2010s, just before Disney announced they'd bought Lucasfilm and that they were throwing out the Legends continuity altogether.

Star Wars: Legacy takes place 125 years after Return of the Jedi and once again the Galactic Empire is in control of the galaxy because apparently the Emperor, Roan Fel, decided it would be a good idea to ally himself with the Sith, led by Darth Krayt. Let me repeat that. The Emperor, who isn't a Sith Lord who infiltrated the Imperial Remnant, the way Palpatine infiltrated the Republic, knowingly allied himself with the Sith. What the heck???? At least the Republic didn't know they'd elected Darth Sidious to be the Chancellor until AFTER the Clone Wars. Naturally, the Sith managed to wipe out the Jedi, for the millionth time, and now Emperor Fel and his daughter are on the run from Darth Krayt, who has declared himself Emperor after betraying Fel. See what I mean about things repeating themselves in Legends? Then again the Sequel Trilogy also repeats what happened before in many places, so I can't complain all that much about it.

Oh there's also a Skywalker in this era. His name is Cade and he was once a Jedi Apprentice, but came perilously close to the Dark Side when he attempted to heal his Master, Wolf Sazen during the final battle against the Sith. It scared him so much that he closed himself off from the Force and became a Bounty Hunter, who uses Deathsticks (cigarettes basically) and hallucinates the Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker, or is actually visited by the Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker, it's not actually made all that clear in this volume what is happening in that regard. It's weird.

Despite my disbelief at the fact that the Emperor willingly allied himself with a Sith Lord, because the Empire never learns, I actually like this book alot more than I did when I first read it two years ago. I think that's because as a fan of Star Wars who hasn't delved into very much of the canon material beyond one book, the first twelve issues of the main comic book series, and of course the movies, I'm starting to appreciate what Legends was trying to do. Especially in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when they weren't allowed to kill off Han, Luke or Leia and the post-Return of the Jedi era was winding down with Han, Luke, Leia, and Lando all being elderly people. Legacy was the chance to really step away from the Original Trilogy era, though they still went back and wrote stuff that took place in between movies, and still do to this day. 

Darth Krayt is a fascinating character. If I remember correctly from the articles in Star Wars Insider Krayt has a connection to the Clone Wars era as he was a Jedi Knight who survived Order 66 and turned to the Dark Side. I won't spoil who it is, because his non-Sith name isn't mentioned in this book, nor is it mentioned in Volume 2 (that I can remember anyway). Also, he's not a character I'm familiar with since, again, I haven't read very much of the comics from the 2000s. I'm sure other Legends fans, like the people from Youtini.com, can probably tell you more than I can about the actual lore beyond what I know from the New Jedi Order and the Bantam era, since I only have a passing familiarity with Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi. Hopefully that will be remedied through these reviews. In this book, something is weakening Krayt, possibly similar to how Palpatine used up his clone bodies in Dark Empire II and Empire's End. Or maybe it has something to do with the Yuuzhan Vong from the New Jedi Order? I don't know, but I'm interested in finding out someday.

As for Cade and his crew, Syn, and Deliah Blue, honestly, Deliah is the character I like the most, because she isn't a complete jerk the way Cade and Syn are. Okay, I get that they're bounty hunters, but even Boba Fett has a code, and that code includes not being a jerk unless you've really done something to warrant it. Like Han and Lando did in The Hutt Gambit. Syn is just unbearable for most of this volume, especially when he finds out that Cade was once a Jedi. 

Marasiah Fel is an interesting character. While she's a princess like Leia was, she is very different from Leia. While Leia grew up on Alderaan, with a father who opposed the Empire, Marasiah grew up in the Imperial Court. And yet, unlike Imperials we saw in the Bantam era, like Ysanne Isard, Admiral Daala, and Captain Pellaeon, Marasiah, or Sia as she is referred to, doesn't have that arrogance and swagger that the other Imperials do. She's confident but not over-confident. As a Force user, her skills rival the skills that the Jedi's best warriors had in combat. Which is cool. She also carries alot of guilt due to her father's decision to ally the Empire with the Sith. 

The writer of this series is John Ostrander and the pencil artist is Jan Durrsema, who also created the story along with Ostrander. The artwork is amazing, and they both came up with a great story, even if it does repeat a bunch of things from the movies and previous Legends material.

My problem with this book though is a problem I have with Dark Horse trade paperbacks from the '90s and 2000s. They don't give chapter stops, so unless you bought the issues as they were coming out, you have no idea where one issue ends and the next begins. Volume 2 doesn't have that problem, but everything from Dark Empire to this book has this problem. The only reason I know where Dark Empire #2 ends, #3 begins and ends, and #4 begins is because I had issue #3 when I was a kid. Like I said, Volume 2 fixes that. At least for that volume. Dark Horse is really inconsistent with that. At least in their Star Wars books. 

Overall, I'm glad I was able to re-read this book because like I said, I could not get into Star Wars: Legacy when I read these first two volumes a couple of years ago. I will get around to reviewing Volume 2 eventually, but with these Legends reviews, I'm going to be jumping around alot otherwise it would just end up being too tedious to read and review the novels in chronological order or even publication order. Especially the Bantam stuff and the early Del-Rey stuff from when the movies were first coming out in the '70s and '80s. As I write about each piece of Legends content, I'll try and give you my personal history with them because even though I haven't read or seen or played all of it, I have read, seen, and played a decent chunk of the material. 

That my friends is going to be it for me for today. I will be back soon with another piece on some media from my childhood. Christmas is coming up, so I think I'll be starting the Christmas themed content very soon. I'm also reading Dune so I can talk about it on The Review Basement, along with the 1984 movie, and stay tuned because next week I'll be reviewing the 2011 movie Super 8, directed and written by JJ Abrams, and then in 12 days the premiere of Hawkeye drops, so I'll be talking about that over on The Review Basement as well. Lots of good content coming from me in the next few weeks. January will be when I start with the Legends reviews a little bit more though, because, like I said, I got Dune to review before the end of the year. In the meantime have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

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