“Legacy” Issues 11-19 (2007-08) explore Cade Skywalker’s attempt to infiltrate the dark side without being turned, something that had already been chronicled in “Tales of the Jedi” (Ulic Qel-Droma), “Republic” (Quinlan Vos) and “Dark Empire” (Luke Skywalker). So it’s impressive that – despite the way-too-familiar nature of this story – writer John Ostrander ratchets “Legacy” to new heights with this batch of issues.
A big reason why I enjoyed Issues 11-19 is that, while the first 10 issues only flirted with tie-ins to the wider “Star Wars” saga, this batch features a smorgasbord of links. In “Ghosts” (11-12), the suicidal Cade Skywalker is visited by the spirit of his great-great grandmother, Mara Jade, who – having been both an Emperor’s Hand and a Jedi — can sympathize with Cade’s dual nature. (“Fate of the Jedi’s” Vestara Khai, who is possibly Cade’s great-grandmother, would have been an even better candidate for this role. But she wasn’t invented yet at the time these comics came out.)
Then Jedi Master K’Kruhk is among the Jedi who find Cade on Ossus. Around this same time, we were reading about the Whiphid’s struggles with the dark side in “Dark Times,” so while it’s a bit of a spoiler to know he ultimately stays on the side of good, it’s worth it to have a long-lived Jedi provide a foundation of knowledge for Cade. In addition to his own dark-side struggles (which he doesn’t reference here), K’Kruhk had a first-hand look at what Vos went through in the Clone Wars.
Coolest of all, K’Kruhk gives R2-D2 to Cade, thus creating the need for an untold story at some point after “Crucible” where the astromech passes from the Skywalker/Solo family into K’Kruhk’s care. While Artoo doesn’t factor into these issues much, I love the idea that the droid links not only the lives of Anakin and Luke and Ben, but now Cade as well.
“Legacy’s” biggest early mystery was the identity of Emperor Darth Krayt, and it’s finally revealed on the final page of Issue 15, the second part of “Claws of the Dragon” (14-19): Krayt is A’Sharad Hett, the Tusken Raider/Jedi who we last saw in the “Republic” comics. The fact that Ostrander finds a way to continue Hett’s arc is awesome, but even cooler is the backstory in Issues 16-18 that tells us what happened to Hett between “Republic” and “Legacy.”
Hett returned to his Tusken Raider clan, but – after being defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi in a duel – he agreed to leave Tatooine. On Korriban, Hett studied the Holocron of XoXann, one of the initial dozen Dark Lords of the Sith. Then he linked up with the Yuuzhan Vong just before their invasion of the galaxy in “The New Jedi Order” books, and learned about the dark side from Vergere, who soon after this would share the same teachings with Jacen Solo. This marks Dark Horse’s first foray into the Yuuzhan Vong War, something it would later chronicle in the “Invasion” comics.
Issue 19 concludes with a confusing (it had to be confirmed by Ostrander in a “Star Wars” forum post) revelation that Morrigan Corde (Cade’s mother) and Imperial Moff Nyna Calixte are the same person. This is despite the fact that Corde appears to be 40-ish (she could pass for younger, except we know she is the mother of 20-something Cade) and Calixte appears to be 60-ish. Corde/Calixte is not a shapeshifter or a Force-user who specializes in disguise (Luke used the Force to disguise himself on an undercover mission in “The Black Fleet Crisis” trilogy). Rather, she simply uses makeup to switch between her personas.
Corde uses makeup to put on her Calixte disguise, but it’s weird that she does it in front of her lover, Moff Morlish Veed, who doesn’t know of her Corde identity. Still, it makes sense for a young person to make themselves look older rather than vice versa, so we have to assume Corde is her true identity and Calixte is her false persona.
One potential pitfall of “Legacy” is that it’s such a galactic game of Risk that we don’t know what life is like for average citizens. “Ready to Die” (13) goes some way toward alleviating this by showing that the Sith Empire annexes planets the same way Palpatine’s Galactic Empire did: It appeals to the greed or fear of a local politician who is willing to “rule” the planet, so long as he obeys the Empire’s dictates. In addition to giving us a bit of the intrigue between the Sith Empire and Roan Fel’s Empire – which is otherwise set aside in this batch of issues – “Ready to Die” features the Codru-Ji, one of the weirdest “Star Wars” species (which is to be expected, as they were introduced in “The Crystal Star”): As children, they look like dogs, but upon adulthood they transform into four-armed humanoids.
All of these connections to other “Star Wars” stories enrich “Legacy” and push Cade Skywalker’s dark-side journey above its clichés. Plus, I should acknowledge that Cade is different from other Force-users who have taken this path because he does not seek to reshape the galaxy; he might be the first libertarian Jedi. He just wants to carve his own path and live by one central tenet: He doesn’t want anyone to die for him.
Krayt: “Don’t be a fool! If you jump, you die – and you doom the galaxy to chaos!”
Cade: “The galaxy can look after itself.”
After he escapes Krayt’s temple on Coruscant – with an assist from his mother, who then disappears from his life again – Cade has a happy reunion with Jariah Syn and his other allies (although one suspects Deliah Blue is considerably miffed by Cade’s tryst with Darth Talon, something she witnessed via thud-bug remote holocam). Ostrander earns the victorious moment after what had been a rather dark series up to this point. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens as “Legacy” moves further into the light.