Customer Reviews

Clone Wars Adventures, Vol. 1 (Star Wars)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My six year old son is going through the "Star Wars Phase," my mother says I also went through. These books are written on a level he can read on his own with stories that keep him interested enough to read them more than once.
I was glad to find them online as our local bookstores and even comic book shops don't carry them!

The Clone Wars Adventures series is a comic spinoff of the animated show. Those familiar with the cartoon will more or less know what to expect: short, lighthearted action stories. No more, no less.

I'm not a huge fan of the art style, but I feel the cartoon made up for this with its fluid animation. Likewise, the comic features great, stylish action shots and a good sense of movement. However, it lacks the show's visual intensity, which is perfectly understandable given the limitations of the medium.

Writer Haden Blackman has penned some of the darkest (and arguably most powerful) stories in the franchise to date (with Jango Fett: Open Seasons and Clone Wars Volume 2: Last Stand on Jabiim being two brilliant examples). The three stories in Clone Wars Adventures, however, are clearly written with kids in mind. As such, it obviously lacks the darker themes of the Republic series' Clone Wars stories. Older readers looking for a little emotional depth should best look elsewhere, but kids who enjoyed the series should find this a good enough read. CWA is therefore an ideal choice for Star-Wars-obsessed parents keen to share their interest with their children.

However, this is a bit on the expensive side for something that can be finished in 10-15 minutes. Like the show, CWA is fun while it lasts, but is over far too quickly. Furthermore, it simply isn't as compelling as the cartoon - more a fault of the comic book format than the actual writing or art. Casual fans should best steer clear. Younger readers and completists, however, might find this of reasonable interest.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures is an ongoing series from Dark Horse comics that takes its inspiration from the extremely successful Clone Wars cartoon series. This inspiration is visible in both the short, action-packed nature of the stories as well as in the art style itself. Volume One contains three stories as follows:

1) "Blind Force" - Obi-Wan and Anakin journey to Nivek, a planet perpetually shrouded in darkness (earning it the somewhat obvious nickname "The Night Planet"). This story is an enjoyable look at the heroes' Master-Padawan relationship in the early months of the war and showcases Anakin's raw strength in the Force. It uses lighting creatively to illustrate the difference between relying on one's eyes to see and using innate powers within.

2) "Heavy Metal Jedi" - Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin engage in light banter while wiping out hosts of Separatist droids, including one serious boss droid, at the Battle of Iktotch. There's a wonderful three-page vignette mid-story. It depicts the action from the viewpoint of a super battle droid suffering the misfortune of being used as a projectile weapon by the Jedi. I had a little trouble with the art in the last two pages; there seemed to be some scale difficulties regarding just how big the boss super battle droid was, exactly.

3) "Fierce Currents" - Kit Fisto tools around underwater on Mon Calamari looking for the source of a disturbance he feels in the Force. The cartoon episode featuring Kit Fisto was a visual delight and it's terrific to see that built upon in this story. Kit discovers what is causing the unrest in the ocean and manages to leave the Mon Calamari and the reader with a tidy moral lesson at the end to boot.

The first three volumes of this series use lower-quality paper than volumes IV and up and present ads for Dark Horse/Gentle Giant products between each of the stories. The choice to eliminate the ads and improve the book quality for subsequent volumes was a good one and makes the later books feel less disposable.

Clone Wars Adventures Volume One is a quality kickoff to the series featuring three solid and engaging stories.

We purchased these books for our Star-Wars obsessed 4 year old boy. My wife and I enjoy reading the stories to him because they hold his interest, which allows us to keep the t.v. turned off. After a week of moderate use, the pages started falling out. We returned the first book we purchased and ordered a few more volumes in this series. Both the replacement book and the new volumes have the same problem with the pages falling out. If you intend on reading these books more than once, do not purchase them.

I gave this to my five year old for Christmas. I don't have any complaint against the story, I rather enjoyed it. I just feel that for a product that is obviously aimed at kids, they should have made it so it would last beyond two readings. This book fell into pieces (meaning the pages just fell out, and not just some, but the majority) with normal use in the first week. My kids are avid readers and know how to respect books, so that wasn't to blame. I tried to keep the pieces together for a little while but just gave up and recycled the thing.

The binding is better on $.99 coloring books than on this.

This book is in fair contidion in my opinion. Not good condition as I had ordered.

5 star review based on a single criterion: Does my 5 (now 6) year old son love it? Answer: Yes.

Book consists of 3 separate stories. The graphics look like the animated series, so points for consistency. The book does fall apart in short order, as other reviewers note. But this is for my son, not me. If he doesn't care that the pages fall out and then I staple them together, then neither do I.

Not sure why, but often it seems like the animated Clone Wars story line gets reviewed as if it were not just for kids, but for grown-ups, too. Maybe it's because the plot exposition that sets the context for the action is pitched above the heads of young kids. Or maybe it's just that older fans (like young ones) want as much Star/Clone Wars as they can get. Whatever the reason, to me, animated CW seems targeted just for kids. Judging (solely) by my son's response to it, it's a brilliant success.

As other reviews have stated, the stories and art work are exactly what you'd expect and my 6 yr old son and I eagerly devoured the two volumes we had purchased. The second night we read them, however, the pages started falling out. By day three both books were utterly destroyed. Very, very poorly bound books. I would expect the returns on these titles to be extraordinary.

Dark Horse's STAR WARS: CLONE WARS ADVENTURES doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel, but it does a good job of presenting quick, action-packed adventures set in the STAR WARS universe to younger readers, while remaining entertaining and enjoyable to older fans. The art follows the style of Cartoon Network's (Old....) Clone Wars mini-series, NOT the computer-generated look of the current series. Volume 1 features three stories, all very action-oriented, that would be perfect for younger readers....Older fans can probably take a pass, though. CLONE WARS ADVENTURES is fun for what it is, but older fans will have seen it all many times before.

These comic books are great. My son will spend an hour at a time devouring them. He is only 5. The problem I have with them however, is that they are falling apart. At first I thought it was only the one book. We must have broken the spine or soemthing, but no. All of them are loosing their pages. Now I know my son is only five, but believe me when I say he is very careful with his books. He cherishes them. Theya re just made very poorly. We are so diappointed as we have to keep reorganizing the pages and figuring out hwere they belong. Expensive little books to have falling apart. Very disappointed.