“Star Wars: The High Republic – The Edge of Balance: Premonition” (blimey, enough subtitles for you?!) is a sort of spin-off manga volume in the High Republic series rather than a Volume 3 (or 4 if you include the Phase II “Precedent” one), as it focuses solely on Yoda rather than the Edge of Balance cast (who will return in volumes 3 and 4 to finish the Manga series off). It’s good though, we get to see him take a bit more direct action and come into contact with the Nameless, as throughout most of the era he’s been a voice to council with and that’s about it (which makes sense and is fine by me as I’ve loved the original characters from this era!) So let’s take a look!
After dropping off some Padawans to a Banchii village as requested by Lily which I had no memory of (turns out this is set in between Vols. 3 and 4, so… whoops!) Yoda senses a disturbance in the Force and heads off to investigate, leading him to a seemingly abandoned space station, though he soon finds a pair of young sisters looking for their mum. As Yoda leads them to his ship he senses not just danger, but the Nameless, and not just any Nameless either, the Great Leveller. The Leveller is on loan to a Quarran called Brezark, who despite being a Nihil raider is actually mildly Force sensitive, making him panicked and twitchy around the Leveller but not strong enough to be a snack, something Marchion Ro finds hilarious. It’s an interesting idea, he wasn’t discovered by the Jedi thanks to growing up on the edge of the galaxy, and kind of resents his lot in life and what could’ve been had he been discovered. The two children are also effected by the Nameless to a lesser degree so a lot of the Manga sees Yoda putting his life on the line to protect the kids, not just from the Leveller (which makes Yoda hallucinate all sorts of unpleasant things) but from groups of armed Nihil, who he refuses to straight up kill unless he has literally no other choice.
A classic manga/anime eye zoom, but with Yoda!
While this is going on Marchion watches the security camera feeds, excited to see his family’s favourite pet turn the greatest Jedi alive into stone, and even chimes in via the intercom to taunt him, allowing for Yoda to finally address the leader of the Nihil directly, even if he soon deems it a waste of his time. Eventually Yoda does find the mother but that leads him into direct contact with Brezark and the Leveller…
Great bit of artwork, even if some of the Nihil look like they’re in generic stock poses…
It’s a short read, but the artwork is great and while it feels somewhat like a sidestep it does have one important scene near the end that comes into play for the big finale, sort of like how the previous volume didn’t seem all that important until we found out that Azlin Rel and his maddening exposure to the Nameless is a big part of Phase 3.
Overall Thoughts:
Well, you see… actually, never mind. Best they don’t know…
The Edge of Balance – Premonition is a quick read with not a lot for it in terms of plot (until the very end anyway) but it makes up for it with great art, especially the more horror-based aspects of the Nameless, and a few fun action scenes, plus Yoda and Marchion Ro getting to finally interact, even if only briefly. Recommended for High Republic complitionists, but there isn’t much else in it otherwise.
Although Yoda does his best to save him exposure to the Leveller leads to Brezark making a few mistakes and losing his life, the main mistake being trying to outsmart Yoda in general but there you go. The key thing is though is that Yoda remembers what Burryaga said about his exposure to the Nameless and how he survived it so Yoda stands his ground and tries to communicate and even empathise with the creature through the Force. In doing so Yoda figures out that the creature itself feels fear and dislikes have to feast of people, in fact all it wants to do is go home to its home planet. Yoda soon manages to escape but this new information sets up the Jedi’s mission in the big finale book “Trials of the Jedi”.
Hogan Reviews 