Star Wars: The Clone Wars Graphic Novellas #6–8

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap

Published: 2011
Acquired: November 2012
Read: January 2026

Scripts: Mike W. Barr, Ryder Windham, Jeremy Barlow

Art: The Fillbach Brothers, Ben Dewey, Brian Koschak
Colors: Raymund Lee, Mae Hao with Marlon Ilagan

Lettering: Michael Heisler

I used to be a big fan of Dark Horse's Clone Wars Adventures series, which were digest-sized comics containing three or four stories in the style of the 2-D Clone Wars cartoon. A lot of people must have been, because while the show ended in Marsh 2005, the comics lasted all the way until December 2007; in fact, four of its ten volumes came out after the show was over! But the comics did finally come to an end. Once the 3-D The Clone Wars began, Dark Horse replaced them with a series of graphic novellas (some original stories, some reprints of stories originally released serially). These were still digest-sized, but each volume told a single 75-page story, in the style of the new show. Even though I didn't really watch the new show, I liked Clone Wars Adventures enough that I kept collecting these; the last six, however, I never got around to reading until now.

One of my reasons for loving Clone Wars Adventures was the art of the Fillbach Brothers, who I think are cartoonists par excellence; their work on the series was kinetic and delightful. Unfortunately, their style I think suffers a bit when forced to conform to the style of the 3-D cartoon, which is in the case in The Suncrasher Trap, a story of Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, and company trying to stop a Separatist superweapon. It's basically fine; as a big fan of DC in the 1980s, I was glad to see Mike W. Barr on scripting duties (I had no idea he was still writing comics!) but it's a bit staid. I think the flat coloring of the 2-D series suits the Fillbachs' art style much more than the shaded coloring attempting to mimic the 3-D series. (In some later novellas, the artists don't seem to have to conform to the show's art style as much; I wish that had been true here.)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Strange Allies

Published: 2011
Acquired: November 2012
Read: January 2026

Of the six volumes I read across January and February, Strange Allies, scripted by Ryder Windham with art by Ben Dewey, is by far the worst. It focuses on a young Chiss Jedi with a group of loyal clone soldiers and a friend who is a burly swoop bike racer; the story tries to simultaneously tell us he's inexperienced and he's been on all these different adventures. The plot jumps around a lot, like the writer made it up as they went along, and there are threads that don't go anywhere. Only once I finished it did I discover that the main characters originate in a series of YA Clone Wars tie-in novels, which I guess explains some of my issues, but while this may work for someone who has read those stories it didn't work for me.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Enemy Within

Published: 2012
Acquired: November 2012
Read: January 2026

Lastly, there's The Enemy Within, by Star Wars comics stalwart Jeremy Barlow with Brian Koschak on art. This story has no Jedi in it; it focuses on a platoon of clone soldiers on a secret mission. I enjoyed the writing on this one a lot; unlike many of these novellas, which seem content to deliver a frothy action story, Barlow gives us a story of character and complications. It is slightly let down by the art; Koschak does well with action but struggles to draw convincing faces, which is a definitely downside in a story that not only needs to convey a lot of characterization via facial expressions, but needs to differentiate a bunch of characters who have the same face!

Archival Review: Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 9 by the Fillbach Brothers

Comic digest, 80 pages
Published 2007
Acquired October 2007
Read November 2007

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 9

Writers: the Fillbach Brothers

Art: the Fillbach Brothers

Colorists: Ronda Pattinson, Pamela Rambo, Dan Jackson, Tony Avina

Letterer: Michael Heisler

When this series of short comic stories done in the style of Cartoon Network's Clone Wars cartoons started back in 2004, I was pretty tepid-- how much for a book that small? The first volume, by regular Republic writer Haden Blackman, didn't really impress either. But my determination to gather all literary incarnations of the saga of the Clone Wars demanded I go on, and so I did. Fortunately, the series improved with time, as the writers came to understand the kinds of stories the highly visually stylized art was best suited to tell.

And because of that, some of the best stories have been consistently penned by the Fillbach Brothers, who first began serving on the series as artists. This of course made the prospect of Volume 9, as an all-Fillbach spectacular, highly appealing to me. And fortunately, it did not disappoint. It features four stories of the usual types in this series-- a dialogue-light "giant creature" story, a clone trooper story, a spy story, and battling Jedi story-- and pulls them all off with aplomb. Mindless fun, but superbly done mindless fun. Though it probably took me longer to write this review than it did to read the book.