Today saw the release of the second issue in Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures – Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone miniseries, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
The High Republic Adventures – Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone #2 takes place on the planet Eriadu, where a second Republic EX droid has crash-landed on the surface and is immediately intercepted by the Nihil operative named Driggit, who we have known from several previous High Republic stories. She takes the droid back to her boss the Warden, who is on his way to Valo (we’ve been seeing that story play out in the pages of writer Daniel José Older’s main Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures comic)– but Driggit insists that she stay behind on Eriadu to try and hack into the EX. Meanwhile, at Alys “Crash” Ongwa’s headquarters, Crash and her current gang have detected the droid’s arrival, but that means they’ll have to break into the Warden’s stronghold to retrieve it.
So Crash and the former Jedi called Ruu disguise themselves as a Nihil and a prisoner, respectively, using that ruse to infiltrate the old factory compound in Eriadu City. But the Nihil guards working the entrance there are smarter than expected and see through our heroes’ trickery pretty quickly. Consequently a fight breaks out and Ruu and Crash split up in search of the EX droid. Crash soon finds herself overwhelmed by Nihil forces, but Ruu comes upon Driggit, who is attempting to unlock the droid. Driggit and Ruu had previously encountered each other in a Star Wars Insider short story called “Chronicles of Corellia: Cracking the Mask,” which was written by Alyssa Wrong, who also penned this issue of Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone. There’s a scuffle between these two enemies, but it ends with Driggit begging Ruu to let her send a message back across the Nihil Stormwall to Republic Chancellor Lina Soh.
Driggit confesses to Ruu that while she still doesn’t care whether the Republic wins or loses the war against the Nihil, she does want Soh to start paying closer attention to what’s going on in the Outer Rim and the planets that need help but are so often ignored in that part of the galaxy. This issue concludes with Ruu and Crash reuniting and a brief flashback to show Driggit recording her message for the chancellor. I thought this was a touching story that gave some hope to the idea that Driggit still has some compassion left in her after serving the Nihil for some time, and I also enjoyed the team-up between the two protagonists. As an anthology miniseries, Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone is going a long way in helping to flesh out the Star Wars universe during the High Republic era, and I’m looking forward to the other two issues yet to come.
Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures – Dispatches from the Occlusion Zone #1 is available now wherever comic books are sold.