The Saga of Nomi Sunrider

Tales of the Jedi #3–5: The Saga of Nomi Sunrider

Author: Tom Veitch

Artist: Janine Johnston (Issue 3), David Roach (Issues 4-5)

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: December 1993 – February 1994

Timeline Placement: 3,999 BBY

Series: Tales of the Jedi

Nomi Sunrider is the wife of Jedi Knight Andur Sunrider and the mother of little Vima, but more importantly she is a hot redhead with “blue-green” eyes so add another hash mark to that tally. Actually in the first issue of this comic she looks like a living skeleton losing a battle with male pattern baldness, but Janine Johnston’s art is so poor that I assume the author’s intention was for her to look like the MILF she becomes in David Roach’s issues.

That’s right, honeypie, work that business.

Now that we’ve spent the opening paragraph of this review degrading women, let’s jump into the plot.

Andur Sunrider is taking his family to the planet Ambria to learn from the great Jedi Master Thon. As a gift for his new teacher, Andur has brought a box of Adegan crystals for manufacturing lightsabers. While the Sunrider family stops for food at a nearby spaceport, however, some thugs in the employ of Bogga the Hutt overhear Andur running his mouth about the crystals.

Bogga orders them to obtain these precious gems and the goons move against the Sunriders by threatening their androgynous protocol droid, A-3DO. When Andur draws his lightsaber to defend the droid, one of the thugs, Gudb, sends his pet gorm-worm Skritch to attack him from behind. The small reptile-like creature sinks its fangs into Andur’s neck, killing him almost instantly.

As Nomi weeps over her husband’s dead body, Andur’s ghost appears, telling her to take up his lightsaber and defend herself against the gangsters. Prior to The Phantom Menace, in which Liam Neeson’s body did not disappear into the Force when he died, most EU stories featuring Jedi ghosts took their cue from A New Hope and Return of the Jedi and had the Jedi’s bodies fade away upon death. I think this is the only time it didn’t happen and I have no idea why. Maybe Janine Johnston had never seen a Star Wars movie.

Nomi cuts down two of her husband’s murderers with the lightsaber (“She halved Quanto!” Gudb exclaims realistically), but Gudb and Skritch escape. Andur’s ghost appears again and tells Nomi to go to the Ambria system, where she will meet Thon, the Jedi Master who would have instructed him. This sounds awfully familiar. Nomi and A-3DO pilot their ship, the Lightside Explorer, to Ambria, arriving to find that the planet is a desolate wasteland. Leaving Threedee to practice the mandolin (what the hell?), Nomi takes Vima and goes in search of Master Thon. On the way she passes an evil lake filled with voices that shout mean things at her.

Nomi and Vima come across a yellow man with weird tentacle hair riding what is clearly a Triceratops with a beard. Nomi knows instinctively that the man is a Jedi. He takes them back to his home and Nomi tells him about what happened to her husband and why she has come to meet him, but they are interrupted by Bogga the Hutt and his men stealing the Jedi’s herd of green sheep-things. The Jedi tries to fight them off but gets his ass kicked, and Nomi is shocked to see the dinosaur he’d been riding drive off their attackers with the Force. The yellow dude was just some schmuck named Oss Wilum; the dumb beast of burden was Master Thon all along! Boy this whole plot sounds awfully familiar!

“Judge me by my quadrupedalism, do you?”

Months pass as Master Thon trains Nomi in the ways of the Jedi, but she continually refuses to construct a lightsaber, forswearing the weapon as penance for killing two of her husband’s killers. Baby Vima is playing near the evil lake where Thon banished the dark energies on the planet (what?) when she is attacked by two hssiss, also known as “dark side dragons” or “basically iguanas.” Nomi uses the Force to turn them against one another, revealing her innate talent for Jedi Battle Meditation.

Meanwhile, Bogga the Hutt strong-arms pirate captain Finhead Stonebone into retrieving Nomi’s Adegan crystals for him as retribution for ripping off ore transports under Hutt protection. The only things noteworthy about this subplot are Bogga’s adorable pet hssiss lizard, Ktriss, and the fact that the ships Finhead Stonebone has been robbing are made from the hollowed-out corpses of kilometer-long Ithullian colossus wasps.

This seems wholly unnecessary in every way.

Back on Ambria, the Twi’lek Jedi Tott Doneeta (yes, he is still referred to as such in this story) pays Master Thon a visit, looking for Jedi to return to Onderon with him to help quell the Freedon Nadd Uprising, whatever that is. Master Thon is too busy training Nomi and Vima to waste his time on this nonsense, so he sends the utterly useless Oss Wilum in his place.

Thon shows Nomi a Jedi holocron with the gatekeeper avatar of Master Ood Bnar, a talking tree who is Thon’s BFF. Ood Bnar reveals to Nomi the history of the dark side in the most unspecific terms imaginable. “Sometimes people fall to the dark side and do bad things! It’s happened a lot!”

[Continuity Note: The holocron displays a succession of images of nameless dark-side conquerors, concluding with a figure in black armor hefting a red lightsaber as Ood laments that some of history’s fallen warlords were Jedi. Naturally, later EU adopted this character as King Adas, the monarch of the Sith species in a time before they ever encountered the Jedi or had lightsaber technology. One of the few things we actually knew about Adas prior to his visual depiction was that he was renowned for fighting with a giant battle ax. It’s like why even bother? Were fans clamoring that much for an identity for this one-panel flashback character from a 20-year-old comic?]

Yeah just make it the same guy, why not?

Anyway then Finhead Stonebone (Tales of the Jedi Companion reassures us that this is just one of his many aliases, because “Finhead Stonebone” is too silly a name to exist alongside such classics as Ephant Mon, Yarael Poof, Sha’a Gi, Hannah Ding, Jedi Master Baytes, and Rick McCallum) and his posse arrive on Ambria to steal the crystals. Thon gives Nomi his own lightsaber and tells her to help him fight off the pirates, but she refuses. Why the hell does a giant four-legged dinosaur have a lightsaber? Even if there was a way for him to use it without trundling around awkwardly on three legs, how is Nomi supposed to use a weapon designed to be held by giant dinosaur claws?

In frustration, Thon tells Nomi to run away and save herself, and that at least her daughter will be a great Jedi one day (oh snap!). He lumbers over to the pirates to surrender and is handcuffed with Mandalorian manacles and led away. Forced to finally get over her issues, Nomi uses Battle Meditation to turn the pirates against one another. Somehow this convinces her that killing is okay and she wades into battle with Thon’s lightsaber. She frees him and together they drive the pirates from the planet. Having finally accepted her fate as a Jedi, Nomi surrenders to Thon’s tutelage, and the narrative textbox assures us that she will have a part to play against the looming darkness that threatens to destroy the Jedi. I just hope it destroys Arca Jeth.

Meditations

This was a step up from Ulic and the Beast Wars but, while not overtly terrible, still not that great. It’s rather slow-paced and boring, which is fine, but in Star Wars there should always be sufficient excitement and adventure to counterbalance the philosophy and introspection. On that front, all The Saga of Nomi Sunrider has to offer is a series of repetitive confrontations between the Sunriders and Bogga the Hutt’s boring henchmen. The art in the first issue is terrible but becomes quite lovely with the change in pencillers for issues 2 and 3. I think these are the only two issues David Roach drew for Star Wars, which is a shame.

It’s easy to make fun of Master Thon for being a stupid dinosaur with a beard, but as with Master Ooroo, the weird-alien-Jedi-Master character is one of my favorite parts of the story. The Tchuukthai are a cool-looking alien species and are no more ridiculous as Jedi Masters than jellyfish, trees, blobs, or disembodied heads with prehensile tongues. Thon is a much more enjoyable mentor character than Arca Jeth, because when he acts like a dick to his students it’s for the purpose of actually teaching them something, not just for the sake of being a dick. Unfortunately, his role in the series will only diminish from this point, while Arca’s continues to expand.

Nomi herself has the potential to be an interesting protagonist, but I can’t help feeling that allowing her to overcome her lightsaber-phobia so early was a missed opportunity. A lot more could have been done with a lead Jedi character who refuses to wield a lightsaber and must rely solely on the Force. Still a stronger female lead than stupid Shae Koda, however.

3/5 Death Stars.

Tales of the Jedi

A Tale from the Dark Side

A female Jedi named Vara Nreem infiltrates an ancient Sith “library-temple” on the planet Krayiss Two. She tries to trick the Sith spirits guarding the temple into revealing their secrets by claiming she has come to augment her Jedi training with knowledge of the dark side, but they see through her ruse. She is immediately killed and her spirit will be tortured for the rest of eternity.

What the hell was the point of this?

1/5 Death Stars.

Tales of the Jedi #1–2: Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon

Author: Tom Veitch

Artist: Chris Gossett

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: October – November 1993

Timeline Placement: 4,000 BBY

Series: Tales of the Jedi

We pick up with Tales of the Jedi again an even 1,000 years since the previous entry in the series (the EU loves setting major events and story arcs at nice round-numbered years relative to A New Hope). This was actually the first TotJ story written, years before Kevin J. Anderson became involved with the series. When published, it was by far the earliest Star Wars story ever told, so while it feels a bit dated and slow, it still deserves credit for trying something new and actually expanding the universe in huge ways, something that much of the modern EU had given up on.

The comic opens with an introduction to our main character, Ulic Qel-Droma, and his two fellow Jedi trainees: his brother, Cay Qel-Droma, and the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta. Everyone in this story refers to him as “the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta,” like they constantly feel the need to point out that he’s an inhuman freak with tails for hair. Arca Jeth, their Jedi Master, tells them that it’s time to stop dicking around with their training and go out into the galaxy and do Jedi stuff. Their first assignment is to end the 300-year Beast Wars in the Onderon system.

No, not those Beast Wars. I wish though.

In the distant past, the atmospheres of Onderon and its moon Dxun would periodically overlap. This allowed giant winged monsters to travel from the moon and prey on the planet’s indigenous human population. I’m not sure how scientifically feasible that is but it’s a cool idea. As a result of moon monster attacks, civilization on Onderon developed inside a single, massive, walled city called Iziz. Long ago, Iziz developed the practice of casting its criminals out into the wilderness, where they eventually banded together and learned to tame and ride the Dxun beasts. These Beast Riders have been at war with Iziz ever since. Master Arca has been assigned by the senior Jedi Masters to resolve this conflict, but out of sheer laziness he’s sending his three half-trained students instead.

Ulic, Cay, and the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta arrive in the Onderon system aboard their ship, the Nebulon Ranger. Upon entering the planet’s atmosphere they are immediately attacked by Beast Riders, who try to make their space pterodactyls bite through the hull of a spaceship. Following the least tense chase scene in history, in which our heroes are in absolutely no peril at any point, the Jedi land their ship safely inside the walls of Iziz. They disembark and introduce themselves to the Onderonian welcoming committee, and the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta is promptly brutalized by the police because of space racism.

The Jedi are summoned before Queen Amanoa, seventy-year-old wife of King Ommin, who does not appear in this story because he is practicing evil sorceries in the basement. The queen introduces her eighteen-year-old daughter, Galia, heir to the throne. Suddenly a giant monster flies through the window and Galia is kidnapped right in front of the Jedi by Beast Warrior Commandos (the comic is so excited to use this term that I assume it must be capitalized).

The Jedi leave the city in pursuit of the kidnappers but their ship is immediately shot down by a seeker-torpedo and crashes in the jungle. Upon attempting to exit the ship, they find themselves surrounded by fearsome, adorable boma beasts. Fortunately, the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta possesses the rare Force talent of Beast Language, and he communicates their mission to the ravenous monsters in a series of grunts and snarls. These bloodthirsty killing machines are easily swayed by a well-reasoned argument, and they make the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta an honorary member of their tribe and allow the Jedi to ride them to the Beast Riders’ lair.

He’s surprisingly erudite for a dumb animal.

The Jedi and bomas burst in to find Galia being wedded to Oron Kira, son of reigning Beast Lord Moron Kira. Ulic tries to re-kidnap her but she claims that she wants to marry Oron. The Jedi discover that the princess’s abduction was staged because she knew she would never be allowed to marry a Beast Lord. So instead of just running away, she arranged for an invasion of her own city in which several Iziz soldiers and Beast Riders were killed. It’s like that scene in Aladdin where instead of climbing over the palace wall Princess Jasmine just has her tiger maul all the guards so she can walk out the front gate.

Princess Galia explains that she dearly loves her sweet old parents but they also happen to be evil devil-worshipping practitioners of dark-side witchcraft. Ulic is shocked to hear that the dark side of the Force is active on a world that only recently developed space travel, because I guess he thought negative emotions needed a starship to get around. Moron Kira tells the tale of how, four centuries ago, Jedi Knight Freedon Nadd, the most ludicrously named Star Wars villain since Ludo Kressh, fell to the dark side and brought the evil of the Sith to Onderon. In an unforeseen twist, it turns out that all the so-called criminals banished from Iziz, rather than being rapists and murderers, were in fact just political dissidents trying to resist the dark side!

Moron Kira has united all the Beast Riders on the planet into a giant army under his command, but Ulic makes him promise not to attack the city unless the Jedi fail to fulfill their mission and negotiate peace. They return to the city with Galia and Oron but at the sight of the Beast Lord Queen Amanoa tries to kill them immediately. “It would seem . . . I have failed Master Arca,” Ulic admits to the Beast Riders. “Do what you must. We will fight beside you. Arca would want it.” I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you on that last part, Ulic, since it’s actually the exact opposite of what he told you he wanted.

A huge battle commences, with Queen Amanoa using the dark side to sap the Beast Riders of their will to fight. During the melee, Cay Qel-Droma gets his arm cut off at the shoulder. “Unnh— My ARM!” Cay screams, adding thoughtfully, “ULLIIIIICCC! They cut off my ARRRMM!” Which to be fair is what I think most people would say in that situation. Not to worry, though, because Cay just unscrews an arm off an old droid and gets busy attaching it to his cauterized shoulder. It’s not every day that you see the two dumbest things you’ve ever seen back to back.

At that moment, a new ship appears in the sky. Jedi Master Arca Jeth has gotten off his lazy ass at last and come to save the day. Using the Jedi Battle Meditation technique popularized by Odan-Urr in the previous comic, he gives the Beast Riders the confidence to win and they instantly do. He takes his three apprentices to task for failing to resolve this conflict without his aid. The way to win was through the method that he just employed, he says, to which Ulic protests that Arca never even taught them Battle Meditation. Arca admits that this is true; there was never any way the three of them could have done anything here and hundreds of people have died because he was too lazy to do his job earlier.

What an asshole.

Arca Jeth then leads Ulic, Cay, the Twi’lek Tott Doneeta, and Princess Galia into the queen’s inner sanctum, where they find Amanoa channeling the dark energies of Freedon Nadd’s sarcophagus. Arca projects an aura of light that dispels Nadd’s lingering darkness, cutting off the queen from the power sustaining her life. She immediately collapses and dies. “You killed her,” weeps Galia. “I don’t care how evil she was . . . she was my mother . . . I loved her.” Arca claims that he didn’t kill her, he merely removed the force keeping her alive . . . which means that he killed her.

What an asshole!

Galia seems to buy this however and they all have a big party to celebrate overthrowing the dark side. Ulic asks Arca how a Jedi like Freedon Nadd, trained in the light side, could ever fall to the dark. “It has happened more than once,” Arca replies. “Fortunately it does not happen often— Ulic, my son . . . pray that it never happens to you.” And then there is a close-up panel of half of Ulic’s face looking all sinister OH MY GOD I WONDER WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

Meditations

Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon is on the “meh” side of all right. It was drawn by Chris Gossett, the same guy who did The Golden Age of the Sith #0, but his artwork is much better here. Not as good as it will get by the end of the series, but the comic has a certain visual style to it that you can appreciate for actually being a visual style.

Tom Veitch is a better writer than KJA but that’s saying nothing; for the most part the writing is kind of boring and the plot is pretty basic and unmemorable, with the exception of giant monsters flying down from the moon. That detail aside, Onderon is just a boring planet with a boring culture and boring fashion. Even in Knights of the Old Republic II, the missions set there are some of the more tedious in the game.

The characters have the barest frameworks of personalities, but since Ulic is the main protagonist of this series I’m hoping he gets a little more development as we move along. The only character who really stands out so far is Arca Jeth, and that’s just because of what a colossal douche he is, but I don’t think that was the writer’s intention.

Overall, ho-hum. I don’t hate it but it’s just not that interesting. I could probably just copy that sentence and use it for 99% of these reviews.

2.5/5 Death Stars.