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Star Wars Dark Times: The Path to Nowhere TPB
Volume 1
Posted 27 Feb 2008
Writer: Welles Hartley, Mick Harrison
Artist: Douglas Wheatley
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Publisher: Dark Horse
4.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Tim Janson
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I don’t think that I have ever led off a review by talking
about the colors but I suppose there is a first time for everything.
I think the biggest change to the look of comics over the past thirty
plus years has been the coloring process. Long gone are the days of
the dotted, newsprint style comics. Today’s comics are brighter
and bolder with an enormous color palette. Many average artists have
been saved by a good colorist.
“None of the well-known Star Wars
characters are in this story and yet it doesn’t lose an ounce of
excitement or credibility.”
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This all brings me to Star Wars Dark Times: The Path to
Nowhere, a trade paperback release from Dark Horse Comics. A
technique among filmmakers and photographers is to use various types
of filters over their camera lenses to create degrees of shading and
texture. These filters can often determine the mood of the image no
matter what the image may be. Ronda Pattison’s colors are some
of the most unique I’ve seen in a long time. While her colors
are certainly bold she delivers them with a filter that slightly
waters them down. And I think that’s the best term. You know
how colors get a bit darker when they are wet? That’s the same
idea with this book. It helps achieve the look one would think is
appropriate for a book called “Dark Times.”
This trade paperback reprints the first five issues of the comic
series and is set in the Star Wars universe approximately nineteen
years before the events in Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope.
The “Dark Times” comes from a line uttered by Ben Kenobi
in that film, “For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were
the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republish. Before the
Dark Times, before the Empire.” These ARE the Dark Times. The Emperor
has issued Order #66 which called for Jedi Knights to be hunted down
and killed throughout the galaxy. On the distant world of New Plymto,
a lone Jedi has allied himself with the native Nosaurians, a bipedal,
dinosaur-like race. Jedi Master Dass Jennir is helping them try to
fight off the forces of the empire but realizes that their resistance
is pointless and soon calls for retreat.
The Empire’s soldiers round up all of the Nosaurian females and
children and remove them from the planet where they will be sold into
slavery on the world of Orvax IV. Allying with a group of smugglers,
Jennir and the Nosaurian soldier Bomo will try a rescue attempt of
Bomo’s family from the slavers.
Dark Horse continues to do a masterful job in handling the expanded
Star Wars universe. Outside of Darth Vader and the Emperor, none of
the well-known Star Wars characters are in this story and yet it
doesn’t lose an ounce of excitement or credibility. Jennir is an
exceedingly brave and resourceful Jedi, every bit as heroic as Luke
Skywalker or Han Solo. One of the more interesting subplots of the
story is Vader’s reaction to hearing the Nosaurians were sold into
slavery. A slave himself when he was a boy, Vader clearly is not
pleased with the Emperor’s decision but does not question his master.
Wheatley’s art is very strong. The story called for him to illustrate
a lot of different alien races and he succeeded in making each one
unique, both in look and in personality traits.
Star Wars Dark Times: The Path to Nowhere is strong
addition to the Expanded Universe line.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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