Star Wars Volume 5: Yoda’s Secret War collects issues 26-30 of Star Wars (as well as the unrelated Star Wars Annual 2). It was written by Jason Aaron with art by Salvador Larroca.
Synopsis (Part I)
SCAR Squad faces its greatest challenge: getting 3PO to shut up.
In the aftermath of the Harbinger jacking, the Empire’s elite SCAR Squad has taken C-3PO captive. Interrogating him, however, turns out to be anticlimactic since all they have to do is ask him one question and he begins droning on endlessly in his usual manner. Unfortunately for the stormtroopers, Threepio seems to have no real useful information to provide them. Vader declares the droid to be useless junk, comments that the same may be the case for SCAR Squad, and orders them to destroy him. Sgt. Kreel decides not to carry out the order immediately. He points out to the rest of the group that these crazy rebels may have come to think of the prattling pile of circuits as a friend. That being the case, it’s possible they may try to rescue him. Well, as a matter of fact, back at the Rebel Fleet--no. Not at all. Han and Leia are both against the idea of further pushing their luck to rescue one droid; and, frankly, they don’t have a very difficult time convincing Luke. All this talk of droids makes Luke realize that Artoo isn’t around. It turns out the little droid has taken it upon himself to rescue his counterpart. Luke catches up to Artoo, who has stolen an X-wing, in his own ship and tries to talk the droid down. Undeterred, Artoo threatens S4, Luke’s replacement astromech, and S4 disables Luke’s hyperdrive. Artoo makes his getaway and Luke is left stranded, waiting for S4 to repair the ship. Luke needs to do something to kill some time, and since his phone is at like 4% with no bars, he pulls out the Journal of Ben Kenobi and cracks it open. Our story within a story opens during a time before the Clone Wars. On an unnamed planet, a Jedi starfighter lands, while some distance away a group of bloodthirsty and savage criminals are holding a young alien boy in a cage. It turns out this kid is Force sensitive, and the gangsters are determined to get paid before the Jedi can make off with him. The doors to their hall part, and before them stands the diminutive Yoda. Turns out Yoda’s rep hasn’t made it as far as this planet, which is weird; you’d think if there was an 800 year old green elf with godlike powers running around the galaxy most people would be in the know at this point. Anyway, they laugh at him, he tears into them, you know the story. With the kid in tow, Yoda meets up with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan just as they arrive on the planet. He turns the kid over to them and tells Qui-Gon that he has felt a disturbance in the Force calling him someplace else. He says he must go alone and winds up at a planet surrounded by an asteroid field. Upon landing on the dreary and apparently lifeless world, Yoda emerges from this ship and is confronted by a group of spear wielding children.
Yoda and the Mudwhackers (band name?).
Yoda assures the children that he is there to help them. Now, like any member of an ancient secretive order that has sworn off marriage and families, I’m sure Yoda is great with most kids. These brats, however, aren’t having any of it; they start throwing their spears at him. Yoda notices that the spearheads are made out of some shiny blue rock that is alive with the Force. Yoda lifts some rocks (that is what Jedi do) to defend himself from their spears. He tells them he is a teacher who is also eager to learn. He is not from this world, he says, but felt a calling from far away. “He heard the skyscream,” one of them says. “He is the deliverer,” another says. They declare Yoda’s “stonepower” to be strong, and take him to their home. They show Yoda the Skyscreamers; a group of children sitting around a blue stone, the same material their spearheads are made out of. They explain that these kids swallow small slivers of the rock and use their minds to “scream across the sky” for help. This stone is all they have left of the great mountain. These kids are at war with another group called the Rockhawkers, and when this stone is gone they will die. Yoda can sense that this stone is strong in the Force. We learn the history of this planet: once, the whole population lived in the shadow of a blue mountain range. The people drew great power from the mountains, but divisions occurred. In the conflict that followed, all but one of the mountains was destroyed. The winning side controlled the mountain and cast their opposition into the mud fields. Exiled from the mountain, they lost their powers and their way. The parents of these children that Yoda has met carried as many mountain stones with them as they could, but now only pebbles remain. The mud-kids show Yoda a Rockhawker scout that they have captured. Yoda senses that the kid is afraid; but not of him, or the others. He’s afraid of the mountain. “Why would anyone fear a mountain,” Yoda asks. The kid tells him that when he goes there, he will realize he was stupid to not be afraid. Yoda gets the mud-kids to free the Rockhawker and let him return him to his people. They come to the shadow of the mountain and Yoda is surprised to learn that the Rockhawkers are also all children. They attack him with their blue rocks. Yoda is unable to defend himself against the onslaught of Force strong rocks. He awakens to find himself bound, the Rockhawkers force him to ascend and find the heart of the mountain.
Yoda in search of the heart of the mountain.
So Yoda makes his way up the mountain, slowly but surely. He is accompanied by the guy he freed from the Mudkid’s captivity. As they go, his unwilling companion tells him that every day they send prisoners into the mountain, and none have ever returned. When they get high enough the other guy prepares to fling himself from the mountainside; he prefers death to facing what is inside the mountain. Yoda tries to use the Force to stop him, but he is holding one of the blue rocks; it’s natural Force powers inhibiting Yoda’s powers. The Jedi master watches helplessly as he plunges to his death, then continues on his way. At the end of his climb, Yoda enters a cave. He explores the inside for days before he is confronted by a group of spear wielding men. At first they think he is “...one of them. One of those little monsters from outside. One of our children.” Yoda has found the missing parents. They say that they were sent into the mountain by the children, but that they are not trapped. They choose to stay inside because all that’s left outside is war. Yoda points out that they have abandoned their children, left them to fight a war that they started. “We may have started the war,” one them says, “but they refused to live without it.” Yoda responds: “From you they were sired. What they are is what you have made of them. What your war has made of them.” They tell Yoda to keep it moving; as he leaves, he remarks that their children deserved better teachers. Yoda continues deeper into the mountain and comes upon a child. He tells Yoda he was exiled because of his weakness, because he could not kill in battle. Yoda shows the boy that he can eat the moss off of the rocks. As his strength returns to him, the kid starts to demonstrate his ability to manipulate the blue rocks. He tells Yoda he is in his debt to him, and Yoda asks the boy to make him his student, to teach him the ways of stonepower. The story then rather abruptly switches time and place: on the streets of Mos Eisley, an exiled Obi-Wan Kenobi surreptitiously uses the Force to stop a gunfight between Greedo and an unnamed Sullustan. He immediately finds himself confronted by a man in a red cloak. “I can see the power in you. As it once was in me so long ago,” the man says. Obi-Wan tries to play it off; but the man goes on to tell him that this power will not last forever. The man pulls back his hood to reveal a spiral symbol on his forehead that Obi-Wan believes he has seen before (the same symbol is sene on the foreheads of the Rockhawker parents and the exiled kid that Yoda meets in the mountain). “Never leave the caves,” he says as he leaves. The scene now switches to Luke in his X-Wing. Luke is looking at a drawing of that same symbol in the journal. He too finds it familiar. He has S-4 run it against known star maps. It appears to be a representation of the Vagadarr system and they set course for it. Luke seems to think that by going there he can find what he’s been looking for. “This is how I finally become a Jedi,” he declares. Back inside the mountain, Yoda continues his “stonepower” training, in the course of which he and the boy make an important discovery. When Yoda moves a large stone to deflect the smaller stones the kid projects toward him, an opening reveals the heart of the mountain. It seems this structure isn’t just alive in the Force, it’s actually alive; and, according to Yoda, “...a mountain...this is not.”
Review (Part I)
Star Wars Issue 27 Cover A
So, Yoda finds himself in a Lord Of The Flies type scenario; eh, it was bound to happen sooner or later. About the art: Salvador Larroca, having wrapped up the Darth Vader series with Gillen, migrates to this series and becomes its regular artist. As of this writing he is still the artist on the series (now paired once again with his Vader mate Kieron Gillen). This was a great choice, and giving this series a regular artist lends it a sense of visual continuity that was lacking before. Now, Larroca’s art isn’t always perfect. I’ve said this before, but his stormtroopers frequently look a little off. It’s like he’s drawing the kind that have removable helmets when he should be drawing them like they don’t have removable helmets (I know you know exactly what I mean). It’s a relatively minor complaint, and his renderings of Yoda are borderline exquisite. Visual distinctions are made between the mud-kids, who are dressed like stereotypical primitives in loincloths and carrying spears, and their Rockhawker adversaries, who look more like something out of a Conan story and are armed with swords and battleaxes. The overall effect is that when Yoda is on this planet, you get the sense that he is in a place removed from the usual Star Wars milieu. Now, that can be a good or bad thing, depending on how far it’s taken. Here, I think it’s taken a little too far. As for the story, when I heard that the next arc would be a Yoda story from before the Clone Wars, this was not what I had in mind. Now, upending expectations is not always a bad thing; but again, it depends on how far you take it. I’ll get into a deeper analysis of the story next week, but for now let’s just say this one didn’t quite click for me. Next week, the conclusion.
