Review by Frank Plowright
An element elevating the Legacy material over other Star Wars tales is the freedom offered co-plotters John Ostrander and Jan Duursema. While other series may have considerable leeway, they still operate within some unalterable parameters. The joy of Legacy is that anything is up for grabs and, as has been aptly displayed in previous collections, the status quo isn’t carved in stone.
There’s a joyful introduction to this volume following the events of Storm, with Cade, Blue and Syn back to piracy, targeting the revived Black Sun criminal organisation and their trades with the Empire, attempting to profit and sow discord. There’s already growing disquiet among some Sith allies as rumours continue to circulate about Darth Krayt, and Nyna Calixte determines the time has come to investigate them.
It appears Cade may have overplayed his hand. The goods he’s been filching have diminished value due to their hot status, leaving him on Tatooine with a craft requiring replacement parts and not enough credit to pay for them. The only solution appears to be to run a scam, but while he knows the Black Sun is looking for him he isn’t aware they’ve sent three assassins to Tatooine, one of them a form of energy vampire very keen to make his acquaintance.
Alliances of one form or another run through the entire ‘Tatooine’ storyline, often among strange bedfellows, and Duursema’s art is what Legacy readers have come to expect: fluid and expressive with dynamic layouts. The story is top-notch page-turning tension, with revelations, a telling guest appearance, and Cade finally meets his mother, as her secret emerges into wider circulation.
The self-contained story concluding the book would inevitably pale in comparison, but the introduction of the Mandalorians to the Legacy storyline is hampered by Kajo Baldisimo’s art, a melange of extraneous lines, shoddy figures and unimaginative layouts. It’s a shame as Ostrander’s story is the usual page-turner throwing in several surprises.
The Tatooine portions of this volume are also found in the hardback Star Wars Legacy volume three, with ‘Rogue’s End’ resequenced to the second volume. This series continues with Monster.
