These days, I'd guess there are about as many former Star Wars fans as there are current ones, thanks to a series of prequel movies that some of us found pretty forgettable. However, the right Star Wars item can still stir the old interest, be it a really fun videogame like Battlefront, animated shorts like Cartoon Network's Clone Wars or the comics being done by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema and others at Dark Horse. While the Star Wars prequels disappointed a lot of folks, few Star Wars fans would deny that there was rich potential in that era or even some neat ideas amidst Lucasfilm's botched execution, and that's potential is the area that Ostrander has been mining for stories.
"Dreadnaughts of Rendili" is a three-part story that stands alone as one battle in the ongoing "Clone Wars" that have driven the post-Episode II stories, but it's also a continuation of the larger story that Ostrander has been telling about undercover Jedi Quinlan Vos and the slow degradation of the republic into the empire Star Wars fans would come to know. With the movies focusing much more on Anakin and Obi-Wan, the two characters we already know to some extent, the comic-books have been free to fill in details on all the other characters that were introduced in the movies, as well as to introduce their own characters. True, this particular story features Obi-Wan, Asajj Ventress and General Grievous, all players in the films, but it also has some of the bit player Jedi in prominent roles as well as featuring Quinlan Vos, Ostrander's own addition to the Star Wars mythos.
The overriding story of Star Wars: Republic has been the advancement of the Clone Wars, but it has also been more tightly focused on the rise and fall of Quinlan Vos, a Jedi with one foot in pulp sensibilities whose role in the story has been as an undercover agent. Rather than a paragon of order and law, Vos has represented the darker side of law enforcement and all the moral ambiguity that comes with infiltrating the bad guys, something that has more ramifications in a world where "the Dark Side" is a quantifiable influence on someone. It's not Sleeper or anything, but the conflict in these three issues, as Obi-Wan (and the reader) wonders whether or not Vos can be trusted and the Jedi Council debates his methods, makes for some very compelling reading. Certainly Vos's contrition and guilt come through loud and clear, and even if he has gone over, it seems pretty clear that he isn't happy about it.
Part of this story features Obi-Wan teaming up out of necessity with Quinlan Vos to battle Asajj Ventress and another dark Jedi working for the Separatist forces. The other part, however, is the story from which the arc draws its name, as a couple of Jedi are sent to negotiate with (and if necessary, destroy) a world's fleet because that world has allied itself with Separatist forces. It's not as involved a political maneuver as some of those Ostrander has dealt with in these pages, but it's an interesting plot, and one that points the way to how Senator Palpatine slowly turned the republic into an empire.
The story works on several levels, and incorporates the style that Lucas favors in the movies, which is staging several inter-linked battles at the same time. Thus we have a story where, for example, Obi-Wan battles Ventress in the interior of a wrecked freighter as Jedi Master Tin and his forces engage the Rendili fleet and their Separatist reinforcements. Ostrander also takes this a step further than physical battles, however, as the rematch between Ventress and Anakin Skywalker takes place while Quinlan Vos fights a battle of sorts for his life and honor with the Jedi Council. Ostrander's storytelling is densely packed but not hard to follow, and while the emotional beats such as the mystery of whether or not Quinlan Vos is on the side of the angels or not could use a little decompression to have more impact, there's a pretty good indication of the emotional toll being taken on those in the midst of this war.
Star Wars: Republic has also teamed John Ostrander with one of his regular artistic collaborators, Jan Duursema. Originally done in a digitally inked style by colorist Brad Anderson, "Dreadnaughts of Rendili" sees the two artists working with inker Dan Parsons, and the results are pretty impressive. Anderson's colors are dark and moody and yet bright and lively, and much of the credit for the amount of story packed into these pages must also go to Duursema for her layouts. On occasion, the layouts get a bit too crowded, as the space battle sequence in #70 is just a bit too chaotic to really follow, but even then, the frenetic pace of the battle is clear enough even if I was wishing for cleaner battle choreography.
"Dreadnaughts of Rendili" is an example of the kind of storytelling going on monthly in the pages of Star Wars: Republic. Ostrander and company have found a nice balance between the storylines of established players like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and the tale of original creation Quinlan Vos, and has also managed to give the Star Wars prequel universe a much-needed kick in the pants in the action and storytelling departments. 8/10
