While writer Cavan Scott is doing an excellent job of making Star Wars: The High Republic appeal to adults over at Marvel Comics, his fellow Lucasfilm Publishing contributor Daniel José Older is making a respectable go of drawing younger audiences into the project with IDW’s Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures.
Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures issue #3 opens with a young Mikkian Force-user named Zeen Mrala having been taken to the Starlight Beacon space station by the Jedi, though she is “too old to begin the training”– a familiar phrase, but we’ve certainly seen that particular rule broken before.
Zeen’s friend Krix Kamerat has similarly been taken from his home on the planet Trymant IV, but by the far more insidious band of marauders known as the Nihil. We see a holo-communication between the two younglings across the galaxy as they compare their respective lives with their new families. Naturally the Jedi are kind and patient with Zeen, while the Nihil are demanding and threatening to Krix, putting him to work in a dangerous gladiator arena with Trymant’s also-captive Elder Tromak as the creature-riding combatant. When the Nihil’s leader Marchion Ro discovers the secret holoprojector given to Krix by Master Yoda, the boy attempts to exonerate himself by betraying Tromak, demonstrating that he is capable of dark deeds even without the villains’ direct influence. The gambit doesn’t pay off as planned, however, with Marchion deducing the truth and finding a transponder beacon hidden within the holoprojector. At this point the pressure is applied on Krix to help the Nihil trick the Jedi into responding to a trap, so the ravagers can eliminate their enemy once and for all.
On the Starlight Beacon, the Jedi discuss how to handle Zeen though she’s aged past the point of beginning training to join the Order. Mirroring the Nihil’s actions with Krix, the warrior monks decide that her connections to the Jedi’s adversaries could be useful, though admittedly their efforts in convincing Zeen to help their cause come off as much less intimidating than what we saw happen aboard the Gaze Electric. With two former best friends going head-to-head as key players in an escalating galactic conflict, the interpersonal drama in Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures is sure to be at least moderately engaging as the title continues. Though it is obviously intended for younger audiences than Marvel’s Star Wars comics and the artwork by Harvey Tolibao feels a little outside-the-box from what we’ve seen before in this franchise via visual media, The High Republic Adventures is entertaining enough to hold older readers’ attentions and does enough work in filling in the gaps in this multi-platform initiative to make it worth picking up– especially for those curious to know what Yoda is up to in all of this.
Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #3 is available now wherever comic books are sold.