Book Description: Get ready for some electrifying light-saber battle action! Aurra Sing arrives on Coruscant with a mean streak, killing Jedi within the very shadows of the Temple. The Jedi Council must now decide how to deal with the infamous bounty hunter. Several Jedi Knights volunteer for the honor of bringing Sing to justice. But do they want justice or vengeance? It's going to take more than a grudge to bring down an assassin with a reputation for killing Jedi.
Same ol', same ol' The Hunt for Aurra Sing was an excellent graphic novel, but it had some glaring flaws. I'll start with the plot, though. While hunting Aurra Sing in the Coruscant undercity, two Jedi Knights are killed along with a Republic Security Patrol. Escaping her dead Master's fate, the Padawan with them escapes to tell the Jedi Council what had happened. The Council agrees on one thing: Aurra Sing must not escape to kill more Jedi. This TPB had very good art (far better than the rest in the Star Wars Ongoing series- Outlander, Prelude to Rebellion, etc.) but it still wasn't up to the level of the Republic series(or the Clone Wars TPB's). The story was very good, and so was the binding (for once) but the main problem of The Hunt for Aurra Sing was the character development. This graphic novel focuses on Ki-Adi-Mundi, who is usually a very boring character. A'Sharad Hett is as well, as he was trained by Ki and never does ANYTHING interesting. Fortunately, characters like the Dark Woman and Aurra Sing improve the overall quality of the story by adding more variety, instead of just loyal, humble Jedi who are completely by-the-book and uninteresting. Overall, The Hunt for Aurra Sing was a good read, and despite the problems, I'd tell any Star Wars fan to pick it up immediately.
Descent Story Arc I like the idea of incorporating other characters in the expanded universe, such as Hett, The Dark Woman, and Aurra Sing. However, where is this story going?
The art was descent and the writing was kind of abbreviated. This story was kind of short as well.
An Aurra Sing-a-long for fans The Hunt for Aurra Sing is another commendable comic in this Ongoing series, one that has little substance aside from the fun read it is. With the primary storyline hunting down the Jedi killer like the animal she is, this comic lacks any other plots that could have made it more interesting.
This comic is closure for the Ki-Ad-Mundi, A'Sharad and Sing characters. Next up you have Twilight, and the focus under new artist teams shifts to Quinlin Vos and his peers.
Quality of art is comparable to Emissaries to Malastare---or at least its first half, before the art went out the airlock. Here, texture and illustrations are not of Twilight's superb quality but still stand out well. Aside from the saber blades, which are little more than single-colour sticks, shadowing and resolution is actually not so bad. All cover arts here, however, issue and TPB fronts, were terrible.
The dialogue varies between the cast, which incorporates the simple-minded Jedi hunters, the Quarren political retinue, and of course Sing's delightful self-indulgent lines. Cocky, sarcastic, brazen, you just gotta love her.
The prologue scene is typical of what you'd expect from this sort of comic, but being long enough it doesn't end too quickly and had enough emotional support to see it through. Sing taking out a Jedi team after her trail---an Anx and Kerestian (8 cheek noses) Jedi Master, starts the ball rolling. Interesting to see her reluctant to kill apprentices until they're old enough to face her; the little Twi'lek girl, now orphaned, appears back in the later Aayla Secura comic, a nice continuity touch by that team indeed.
The Jedi party after her hide acts like all Jedi of that era do: predictably naive and persistently outsmarted. But hey, if they weren't shot down, the plot couldn't progress, could it? For young A'Sharad, it's to account for the murderess that killed his father; for Ki-Ad-Mundi, it's concern for his master's welfare, the enigmatic Dark Woman; and Adi Gallia's lacklustre role here has her little more than a figurehead.
Did I say Dark Woman? You bet I did. She's back again, grinning in looks, with her own issue cover in the third. If Vader only slays her just before Episode 4, there's still two decades of timeline to have more of her. Hint hint wink nudge . . .
Overall, The Hunt for Aurra Sing will appeal to her fanbase, and particularly if you've already invested in Outlander and Emissaries to Malastare.
3.5 STARS - SEQUEL TO OUTLANDER This is a review of ISBN 156971651X, called Star wars: Republic - The Hunt for Aurra Sing issues 28 to 31, released as a TPB by Dark Horse comics July, 2002.
This is a very good comic, but a step backward from the three that preceded it. The story by Truman is good, but the artwork is a step backward. The style is more cartoonish than what we have been getting in the REPUBLIC run of issues. The cover art is very dark and frankly, not very good.
The Jedi are out to hunt down Bounty Hunter - force sensitive killer Aurra Sing. Aurra is a rouge in the worst sense. She slaughters others cruelly and senselessly, and in fact she murdered Padawan A Sharad's father (see OUTLANDER).
The production quality, even if you don't care for the artwork itself, is awesome. Dark horse as of early 2002, even late 2001 has had great strides in producing great comic. They also seem to have been sensitive to the tradition of poor editing in the past, and they seem to do a much better job of helping the reader now who is who and who is speaking. My biggest complaint concerning the lazy editing was UNION. I see that Chris Warner edited that one. He is still editor-and-chief of HUNT but had an assist from David Land. Thanks for being more attentive for the fanatics like me.
The lightsabers. Some have criticized that the lightsabers in some comics were drawn to small. Looks like they may have overadjusted here because they look larger and I would say, more cartoonish.
I assume that the person who does the pencils is in effect the artist. I did not that a different person did the pencils here from the previous TPB's that I liked a lot. Lets just say that I really like the work of Jan Duursema, Magyar and McCaig, and am less a fan of the work of Robinson and Fabbri (though Robinson's art in Twilight as great).
The Ultimate Match If Fett and Sing were to do battle it would likely make for one of the more interesting face offs in the Star Wars series. Like Fett there appears to be almost no way of stopping this huntress who collects the lightsabers of the Jedi that she has vanquished. And as far as deep seated hatred of other Jedi her anger can only be matched by the Dark Lord Vader himself.
In this graphic novel Aurra Sing has a posse of Jedi Masters, and even members of the council sent to finally take her out. One Padawan learner, a former Sandperson whose father was killed by Aurra is also included in the hunt. As these collections of graphic episodes go, this one is quite good, and will be especially appreciated for fans whose favorite sound is the snap hiss of a lightsaber and the mayhem that follows. Duels in this book even include opponents both fighting with a ligtsaber in each hand. This was shown briefly in Episode II, and I for one wish there had been more.
This series also featured some of the most haunting dark art that has ever appeared on the covers of the individual issues prior to there being collected in to this graphic novel format.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
