Legacy's End Week, Day Five

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2010-11)
Acquired January 2012
Read February 2012

Star Wars: Legacy, Volume Eleven: War

Story: John Ostrander and Jan Duursema

Script: John Ostrander

Pencils: Jan Duursema
Inks: Dan Parsons
Colors: Brad Anderson
Lettering: Michael Heisler

The final volume of Legacy sees Cade Skywalker speeding to a confrontation with a revived Darth Krayt, on which the fate of the galaxy rests-- of course.  Cade finally chooses his side... again, in what feels like a slight relapse given the events of Monsters.  At the same time, Nyna Calixte makes her move, the Sith attack the Jedi's Hidden Temple, Roan Fel invades Coruscant, and more.  It's decent, even exciting sometimes, but is somehow less than the sum of its parts; flipping back through it to write this review, I am struggling to find things to say about it.  It brings Legacy to a nice conclusion, but that is all it does, perhaps because it ultimately had too much it had to try to do.  It was okay, but I wanted it to be better than it was, given what it was about.

I will say that 1) the Antares Draco plotline was still lame and 2) I really appreciated the return appearance by Joker Squad.  Joker Squad is a Sith Imperial stormtrooper squad that was the focus of a story in Shards, the second Legacy collection, and though they've never been a focus again, I always appreciate their brief reappearances when stormtroopers bear down on our heroes; it personalizes the bad guys in a small but effective way.

On the whole, I enjoyed Legacy more than I didn't, but it definitely peaked with its first few volumes; Broken, Shards, and Alliance are still the best.  Cade Skywalker was never quite interesting enough, and I always felt like the best parts of the story were happening where he was not.  The first volume clicked perfectly, but after that, Cade's storyline span its wheels a lot while we got tantalizing glimpses of the wider universe.  Broken remains my favorite for having revealed a world full of possibilities while also telling a good story, in a way the series never quite managed again.  I don't think the best overall story that could have been told in this world was told, though the one that was got was usually decent, sometimes good, and occasionally great.