Customer Reviews

The Sith War (Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lucas Books latched on to a brilliant concept for telling the stories from ancient Jedi lore. Instead of telling these stories in book form, which could be a bit much in terms of asking the fan base to learn and empathize with new characters, they contracted with Dark Horse Comics to tell these stories in graphic novel format. The series was called "Tales of the Jedi". "The Sith War" was the first of these graphic novels that I read and it is also one of most compelling, involved, and relevant tales of the old Jedi order. The time of the events in this story takes place some 4000 years before the original trilogy and the events and characters involved will have an impact in the modern Star Wars universe.

"The Sith War" focuses on the evil machinations of a corrupt Jedi named Exar Kun (who will play a major role in the "Jedi Academy Trilogy" books) who has become poisoned by the seductive dark side power of the Sith. Kun used his influence to corrupt a number of good Jedi with this power. One of these Jedi, named Ulic Qel-Droma, was so perverted by Kun's influence that he turned on his family, friends, and the entire Republic and was responsible for actions that thrust the galaxy into a devastating war. Qel-Droma is not an evil man, just a vulnerable man corrupted by the pure evil of Exar Kun. He comes to realize, to his horror, the consequences of his actions and tries to fight back at against Kun at great consequence to himself.

"The Sith War" provides a continuation of earlier "Tales of the Jedi" stories and answers many questions that readers may have from reading the current Star Wars novels. "The Sith War" is notable for showing the culmination of this bloody conflict, while also explaining what happened to Exar Kun. In addition, the warrior who was the inspiration for Boba Fett and the armor he wore is introduced here. A brilliant military strategist named Mandalore (the inspiration of Fett's Mandalorian Armor) allied himself with Kun and Qel-Droma in this war and fought valiantly. This graphic novel is one that the reader will go back to time and time again to read about the events of that war and to try and pick up on additional details they may have missed the first time around. It is definitely worth getting.

This interesting book is the third book in the Knights of the Old Republic series. The series is a collection of graphic novels that takes the reader to the Old Republic, thousands of years before the events of The Phantom Menace.

Events are beginning to pick up speed - Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma are preparing to launch a war against the Republic and the Jedi Knights that protect it. Can they bring about a new golden age of the Sith? And, win or lose, what will the cost be?

My twelve-year-old son is a big Star Wars fan, and he picked up this series so that he could keep on learning about the Star Wars universe. Overall, we found this to be a pretty darn good book. I thought that the illustration work was very good, and found the story to be gripping. We both enjoyed the action and the many different creatures and races that are the hallmark of Star Wars.

Yep, we both enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to you. We highly recommend the entire Tales of the Jedi series!

This Comic can be found listed 3 ways. I am reviewing the first of the 3 that is called: Tales of the Jedi - The Sith War written by Kevin J Anderson and published July, 1996 with ISBN 1569711739. This is a dark Horse TPB comic covering issues 1 through 6 of STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI - THE SITH WAR.

Other editions with the same title and cover art are: Titan ISBN 1840231300 published April, 2000 and

TALES OF THE JEDI 3 - THE SITH WAR published by McMillan march, 1997 under ASIN: 075220369X.

I have assigned the timeline year of -3996 before NH to this comic. As did Exar Kun before him and Luke Skywalker 4,000 years later, Jedi hero Ulic Qel-Droma is tempted by the dark side following the murder of master Arca. Before there was Darth Vader, Dark lord of the Sith, there was Ulic Qel-Droma, Dark lord of the Sith.

This comic was written by KJA who has contributed much of the Old Republic Comics. He also did The JEDI ACADEMY trilogy, one of my favorites. Since Kevin also did the SW Essential Chronology we find few continuity problems here. The art and coloring is a in the old style, cartoon strip style, but some of the drawings and dramatic and inspired. Given what Dark horse is turning out now I grade the art a solid "C" grade, though some pages are stunningly awesome.

The action is tremendous. The story is a little hard to follow. Ulic is in the Empress Teta system (not on the galaxy maps produced in the NJO). Ulic is seduced by the Dark side and by Aleema. At about 150 pages long, the story twists and turns and is generally as unpredictable as an episode of LAW AND ORDER.

Made in Canada, the binding is holding up very well. Some of the new TPB's that are now made in China had awful bindings, where the comic can fall apart in your hands, even when you are being careful.

If you have started reading these Old Republic comic and liked them, you'll like this one.

This story is great! Everything you can expect from a battle against good and evil. You can see was Exar Kun was like before the Jedi Academt trilogy. Good story plot. They got rid of the characters that the fans wanted to get rid of. It portrays a chapter in Ulic-Qel-Droma story and how he was after he turned the dark side and the price he payed for returning to the light side. The art work was pretty good, except the book cover art. A real action triller. A must read for Star Wars fans.

How can you refuse to read the culmination of the events from Knights of the Old Republic to Dark Lords of the Sith? This is an action-packed, exciting read, with that "this is what it's all led up to" feeling to it. It features Exar Kun, the coolest Sith Lord since Darth Sidious (or Darth Maul, or Vader, whoever happens to be your favorite). It also sets up the events in the series' conclusion, Redemption (which will be put out on Amazon.com whenever Dark Horse decides to make a trade paperback out of it). Also, if you are wondering how Exar Kun got sealed in that temple (freed thousands of years later by Luke Skywalker's students), this is the book to read. Don't miss this one, it's a must-read. But I'd make sure to read Dark Lords of the Sith first.

This is deffinately one of the best Star Wars books that i have ever read, and I've read them all. This book really shows what the Jedi Knights were before the fall of the Old Republic. The entire Tales Of The Jedi series is a must read for any person who calls themselves a Star Wars fan.

This is a masterpiece! Though some say that this Sith War has no "Sith" or "war" in it, they are dead wrong. The Sith portion of it is littered all throughout, in Exar Kun's powers and ancient weapons. As for the "war" part, there are several battles: 1. Raid of Foerost Shipyards 2. Assault on Coruscant 3. Destruction of Kemplex Nine 4. Battle of the Cron Drift 5. Evacuation of Ossus 6. Invasion of Onderon 7. Showdown at Yavin 4 . . . not to mention the Jedi assassinations! I think that perhaps Kevin J. Anderson weakened the end, when Exar Kun was defeated; it was only 5 comic book pages long! I rate Exar Kun as the most powerful dark Jedi in the Star Wars universe thus far, for, without any resources but himself, it took 14 Jedi to destroy him in "Star Wars: Champions of the Force", whereas even Emperor Palpatine took only two Jedi to defeat him (Luke and Leia in "Dark Empire"). Exar Kun's personal power, plus his hundreds of darkside-focusing pyramids ("Sith temples") meant that it took ALL the Jedi - thousands upon thousands - to defeat him! Plus, in this book, Anderson adds the story of the Mandalorian warriors, whose armor is also Boba Fett's trademark 4000 years later. This is definitely a MUST-READ!

In my humble opinion I think this is the best part of the Tales of the Jedi stories. While Kevin J. Anderson seems to be the only scriptwriter working on the script now we still see that his script is influenced by his earlier cooperation with fellow scriptwriter Tom Veitch on TOTJ and that he uses characters and places Veitch wrote into existence into the EU and that both of them contributed to fleshing out the expanded universe and giving other scriptwriters more material to work on when they wrote EU stories or made roleplaying games and video games.

What was once considered a golden era of the Jedi, following the destruction and scattering of the Sith Empire (Its remnants were retconned later to be in hiding an reorganized before returning in the TOR era) with the Sith seemingly ceasing to be a major threat and opposition to the Jedi with only isolated pockets of Sith cults to be contained on planets like Onderon and mostly having to deal with small wars and criminals, is abruptly ended with Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma creating their own powerful Sith organization and starting a major war in the galaxies that would affect the galaxy and the Republic for years and setting the stage for new Sith organizations to rise.

One of the main highlights here are the introduction of the Mandalorians, a warrior organization who despite not able to use the Force are nonetheless are force to be reckoned with and that it sets the stage for further use of the Mandalorians in the EU by other scriptwriters like those working on the KOTOR era.

While critics may have a point that the story seems too rushed and chaotic, Veitch and Anderson can only do so much with a few issues and that other scriptwriters may exploit the plotholes in their work.

Hugh Fleming's cover art in TOTJ is still as impressive as earlier cover art I've seen from him while working on TOTJ.

Finally, the ancient Sith War is explored in-depth. Words will not do this volume justice - it is worth your time. The illustrations are all very well done, and the plot is more than engrossing.

If you've read the other entries in the Tales of the Jedi series, you'll be very happy with this one - and if you haven't, you'll be hunting them down.

it's a great comic and insight into the world of star wars. though the drawing by todays standards is pretty poor but i found it to be quite entertaining.