Legacy's End Week, Day One

Once I heard that Star Wars: Legacy was coming to an end, I began stockpiling the trade paperback collections so that I might read them all at once.  This took longer than I thought, because having been cancelled and concluded, Legacy received a temporary reprieve in the form of the miniseries War.  But this past month, the last volume finally came out, I bought it, and so the end of Legacy began...

Comic trade paperback, 122 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 2009)
Acquired April 2010
Read January 2012

Star Wars: Legacy, Volume Seven: Storms

Story: John Ostrander and Jan Duursema

Script: John Ostrander

Pencils: Jan Duursema and Omar Francia
Inks: Dan Parsons and Omar Francia
Colors: Brad Anderson
Letters: Michael Heisler

At the end of the previous volume of Legacy, Vector, Darth Krayt, the Sith Emperor, was killed.  Storms picks up right from that, with Cade Skywalker and his band of fellow adventurers (i.e., pirates and bounty hunters) trying to make it to safety so that the dying Imperial Knight Azlyn Rae can be healed.  What follows hits the notes that Legacy has hit many times over at this point, unfortunately; a galaxy free of Krayt has not changed Cade Skywalker's outlook one jot.  He's angry and purposeless and lashing out at those who know him, yadda yadda yadda.  We do see him go the farthest he's ever gone in his attempts to hold on to someone's life, further even than with Marasiah Fel in Broken; he uses the Dark Side to keep Azlyn alive, but with a terrible cost that will make for some interesting dynamics should they ever be reunited.

As always, it seems as though the most interesting parts of the world Ostrander and Duursema dreamed up are the ones sideways from the main story.  Storms features two side stories.  The first, "Fight Another Day," focuses on the Sith Empire's ongoing attempts to exterminate the Mon Calamari for their betrayal of the Sith; this time they are opposed by a lone Imperial Knight in a decent little story that shows the Imperial Knights at their best.

The second, "Renegade," focuses on the man who is surely Legacy's best character and true hero, Gar Stazi, admiral of the Galactic Alliance Remnant.  Holding fast to the Alliance when even the Jedi have abandoned it, Stazi demonstrates his mettle here in a cool story where the GA takes the first steps in its fledgling alliance with the Imperial rebels against the Sith.  Its characterization of some of the Imperials is a little simplistic, I think, but on the whole, it is a solid story, the best in this volume.