Ignoring the overly long title I enjoyed reading this one-off volume of Star Wars High Republic Manga, which focuses on the Phase 2 battle with the Path of the Open Hand as well as featuring scenes set in the “present”, or Phases 1/3 era, thanks to the book focusing on Arkoff and Wookie’s having such a long life span. So let’s take a look!
The framing device is that a Hath bounty hunter called Vol Garat has been hired by Machion Ro to find buried documents that were hidden by now Jedi Master Arkoff back during the Phase 2 era 150 or so years ago. Garat finds it and it’s hidden along with Arkoff’s old Master’s droid ZZ, which sparks the Hath’s memories of when he last encountered the Wookie Jedi…
Vol Garat makes sure his current employers know to kill him when he outlives his usefulness.
It starts during the “Night of Sorrow” on Dalna, where Arkoff and his Master Ravna (a small innocent looking old woman who can hold her own in a fight, always a fun character type!) took part in the battle against the Path of the Open Hand, which at that point included Vol Garat amongst its numbers. The Wookie and the Hath did battle but the latter was washed away during the cave flooding (seen during the finale of the book “Cataclysm”) At this point though Arkoff is frozen in fear as a Nameless arrives, but he lives because Ravna manages to overcome the fear just enough to lead it away, but she’s never seen again. Shortly after this Arkoff recovers enough to find fellow Jedi Azlin Rell in a state of shock, having encountered a Nameless himself.
Awwwww, it’s like if Granny from Tweety Bird became a kick-ass Jedi.
A short while later Arkoff decides to head to the Gravan Monastery sanatorium where Rell is being kept, having crazy hallucinations and scribbling “Shrii ka rai ka rai” and more down in a notebook. Meanwhile Vol Garat was injured but awake back on Dalna when he saw the Jedi crippled with fear and wishes to know what weapon had that kind of effect on his enemies, so he too seeks out Rell and heads to the sanatorium.
I’ll get to the rest in the spoiler section but for a one-off story it was a fun one with good artwork, especially with Rell’s hallucinations. It had cameos from other characters (including from the comics, which kind of spoiled two character’s fates for me a bit given I’m a few months behind on them…) and tied nicely into the current and future of the High Republic line without being required reading.
Overall Thoughts:
Padawan Arkoff takes out some Path members via the ancient art of “Grawargg”.
*Deep breath* Star Wars: The High Republic – The Edge of Balance: Precedent is a fun short story focusing on two long-lived enemies reuniting in the Phase 1/3 era of the High Republic after a couple of confrontations during the Phase 2 era. Not a “must read” part of the High Republic, but it also won’t take you long to read anyway. Good fun.
Arkoff arrives in time to save Rell from Garat and once again take out the giant spider-like fighter, with a little help from Rell, though he still struggles with hallucinations (and would eventually leave the order due to them, for the record) Arkoff takes his friend’s journal and information on the nameless and decides to bury them so they can be deciphered and later used by the right people to combat the Nameless, and his master’s droid ZZ comes up with a plan to be buried with them so he can protect them.
Poor guy, might have been better if he had been turned to stone…
That takes us to back to the “present” with Garat looming over the unearthed ZZ triumphantly but the droid defends itself long enough for Arkoff to arrive and put a stop to the Hath for good (seemingly, anyway) ZZ is happy that his Master’s old apprentice is now a Master himself as they look towards the future conflict.
Hogan Reviews 