Star Wars

The other week I picked up one of the Tales of the Jedi omnibuses from the library, on a whim, and it's got me fully drawn back into the Star Wars universe. As part of that I've decided to become more familiar with the era before the films, as it's something I've been mostly ignorant about. This volume, set 25,000 years before the saga of the Skywalkers, is about as far back as you can go.

This volume is mostly just introduction, but at this point I almost feel like that's expected from a mainstream longform comic series; other Star Wars comics might be able to get away with piggybacking off of other media that readers already know, but in this case the creators don't have the luxury. They're set far enough in the past that there is no connection to any other Star Wars material, and have to create a universe whole cloth. They do it well, though, and by the end it feels like all of the pieces are in place for a crackerjack followup.

What I think is interesting about both this and the TOTJ series is how far apart their depiction of the jedi (or je'daii, in this case) are from the vision that Lucasfilm presented in the prequel trilogy. If I were feeling generous I would say that this was intentional, and that the unspoken truth of the prequels is that Count Dooku was right - the Jedi had strayed from their path and philosophy, becoming a venal and corrupted group of hermits and ascetics who needed to be brought down. There's a good chance that's not what they intended, but I think it's a fascinating reading of the world and saga.