Weisman, Greg
About the Author:
Greg Weisman co-created the animated TV series Gargoyles and has worked as a producer on The Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice and Star Wars Rebels.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
4 out of 5
(1 book)
Star Wars: Kanan
(Art by Pepe Larraz, Jacopo Camagni, and Andrea Broccardo)
Set amid the first series of the 'Rebels' TV show (4 BBY), this book flashes back to Jedi exile Kanan Jarrus' adventures during the Clone Wars when he went by the name of Caleb Dume and studied under Jedi Master Depa Billaba.
The framing of this book is a bit forced, crowbarring-in the cast of 'Rebels' for some short and largely meaningless bookends. However, the meat of the story is what I really enjoyed as we're taken back into the Clone Wars and get to see Kanan's experience of the fighting and of Order 66. I never seem to get sick of seeing either Jedi in all out battle mode or Jedi trying to deal with the betrayal by their formerly loyal clones. In this book I also liked seeing Kanan/Caleb actually confront two Clone Troopers about their betrayal and seeing how the clones themselves are coping with the ensuing turmoil.
Interestingly, from a narrative point of view, the story starts with Kanan/Caleb's Order 66 flashback in the first half and then moves on to flash further back to his first mission with Master Billaba. What made this particularly interesting was we see him in the second half of the book bonding with the very Clone Troopers who we already know become his mortal enemies.
As a big fan of the old EU, I was also interested to see that Weisman chooses to keep some of Billaba's backstory, particularly that of her disasterous mission in Matt Stover's 'Shatterpoint', largely intact (although he does feel the need to throw General Grievous into the mix, unfortunately). This reaffirmed by belief that the new (evil) Disney canon can move forward without feeling the need to piss all over the old Expanded Universe. And as a bonus for fans of the new canon, we also get a, sadly brief, callback to 'A New Dawn' by John Jackson Miller.
I will add that at first the very cartoony art style didn't sit well with me but I did eventually settle into it and, I suppose, it's in keeping with Kanan's origins in the animated TV show.
4 out of 5
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