Review by Frank Plowright
With Star Wars having a continuity that spans millennia, it’s worth knowing that the Legacy series opens 125 years after the conclusion of Return of the Jedi.
Unfortunately for the galaxy far, far away, much is as it was prior to the intervention of Luke Skywalker and company. There’s a more benign Empire, but allied with the Sith who started a brutal war as a prelude to a power grab. The Jedi are once again scattered, but remain the best hope of preventing total Sith dominance.
The legacy of the title is not just the continuation of Jedi, but one of their number named Cade Skywalker, in training when the Emperor’s forces come to destroy what they believe to be the final Jedi Academy. The creative team of John Ostrander and Jan Duursema plot together, leaving Ostrander to script and Duursema to draw, and their opening chapter sets a fair bit more in motion. Darth Krayt makes his power play, and while he sets himself up as Emperor not all goes as he planned. He also has a secret and a weakness beyond his Mad Max fashion sense. Meanwhile, although he saved the life of one experienced Jedi, Cade fails to save another, and there are concerns that his anger and powerful manifestation of the force could lead him to the dark side.
At that point the narrative leaps forward seven years. The remaining Jedi haven’t been able to track Cade in all that time, yet here’s a bounty hunter with that name, and very effective they are too. Cade’s not exactly a chip off the old block, but he has an apparent destiny, and by half way through the book quite the familiar story appears to be playing out, albeit with the protagonists under different names.
Ostrander, though has always been a superior comic writer, and Duursema had long been very good artist, and what they’ve cooked up is beyond the game they played with the set-up. By the conclusion matters have been complicated to a great degree, and Cade Skywalker is a different man. All in all, very satisfactory. And it should be noted that with a few minor exceptions the Legacy series by Ostrander and Duursema maintains the balance of thrills and adventure throughout, remaining true to the original Star Wars material. Anyone enjoying one volume is pretty well guaranteed to enjoy the remainder.
The story continues in Shards, and both volumes are included the smaller size hardback Star Wars Legacy Omnibus volume one, more recently reprinted as the first volume of Marvel’s Epic Collection: Star Wars Legends – Legacy. Broken was also reprinted in traditional hardback format as volume 12 of the Star Wars 30th Anniversary series.
