Club Jade

Out now is ‘Winner Lose All,’ Timothy Zahn’s short tie-in to next month’s Scoundrels.

On Wednesday comic fans will find Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #5 and the trade collection of Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm

It’s yet another Sith-heavy week for new releases. Out Tuesday is the latest Old Republic novel, Drew Karpyshyn’s Annihilation. And on Wednesday, Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #4.

And after these, we’re down to just one more book release through the end of the year – Fate of the Jedi: Ascension in paperback on November 27th. Of course, there’s always Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels on January 1st…

There’s nothing new in the bookstores this week (unless you haven’t picked up the new Insider yet) but there’s plenty coming to your local comic shop on Wednesday.

For ongoing fans, there’s Knight Errant: Escape #4 and Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #2. Or, pick your collected poison with Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost in trade paperback, or The Crimson Empire Saga – all three installments – in hardcover.

Beyond that, you can look forward to the paperback of Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Revan on the 24th, and Pablo Hidalgo’s Essential Reader’s Companion on October 2.

Of course this week brings a glut of Star Wars stuff. Of course. First up, on Tuesday, is Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories… All John Jackson Miller’s Fate of the Jedi tie-ins stories that you may have read for free over the course of the series, plus a new one and, I hear, some maps.

It’s also the time to start keeping an eye out for Star Wars Insider #135, which includes Karen Miller’s Myri Antilles story, a tie in to next month’s Mercy Kill.

On Wednesday, get your fill of mostly-silent fanboy-favorite grunters with Blood Ties: Boba Fett Is Dead #4 and Darth Maul: Death Sentence #1.

John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe is expanding it’s reach. In addition to the upcoming paperback collection of (mostly) previously-published stories, there’s a five-issue comic series on the horizon, USA Today has revealed.

Dark Horse will launch The Lost Tribe of the Sith comic on August 8. Written by Miller with art by Andrea Mutti, the series will focus on the Lost Tribe “in an age of discovery and optimism.”

The blogside. Over at Tosche Station, Brian has a two-part retrospective of Fate of the Jedi. The series has garnered some mixed reviews, but overall I have to agree with some of Brian on this one, particularly regarding Luke/the Jedi, the arc-welding in Abeloth’s backstory, and the overall issues with Denning. Brian’s also revised his review of Apocalypse.

Warfare fallout. Jason Fry has posted his endnotes for The Essential Guide to Warfare in three parts, while his co-author Paul Urquhart writes (naturally) about the wackier side of the book at Suvudu.

Interviews. EU Cantina talks to comic writer Tom Taylor about his upcoming Darth Maul mini-series, Invasion, and Boba Fett is Dead. Meanwhile, Newsarama has John Ostrander to discuss Dawn of the Jedi in some detail.

Whoops! I caught the release date change for Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories last week, but not that it had changed formats from paperback to trade paperback. Guess someone likes the Sith…

WTF of the week. Kevin J. Anderson invented the Killiks. Of course he did.

Reviews. James enjoys the unexpected trickery in Knights of the Old Republic – War #4 and is satisfied (sort of) by the big ending of Agent of the Empire – Iron Eclipse #5.

Of course. There’s a Darth Maul comic coming. Darth Maul: Death Sentence #1 will launch July 25 and feature Maul and his brother Savage Opress roaming the galaxy in a beat-up light freighter and solving mysteries. Well, I made up the bit about the freighter. And the mysteries. Everything else is true! Sort of.

Confirmation, non-fiction. It’s not available yet, but Rancho Obi-wan has added the new Steve Sansweet book, Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection: 35 Years of Characters. It’s co-authored by Anne Neumann and noted fan photographer Dan Curto.

Confirmation, fiction. Looks like they’re moving ahead with a third character guide. Expect a totally new different-looking Ben Skywalker!

Street date shuffle. Feel like some super minor schedule news? Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories has moved up a week, from July 31 to the 24th. Exciting!

Pretty. Knights Archive spotted the cover for Star Wars Art: Illustration on Amazon. There’s a Yoda on it: Bitches love Yoda.

Kids. Snark aside, Darth Vader and Son looks kind of cute. Sadly, we will never see a ‘Mommy and Me’ version of this, unless you count The Phantom Menace, and I wouldn’t. It’ll be out any minute now.

The final free installment of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith, Secrets is avaliable now. It also contains an excerpt from Fate of the Jedi: Apocalpse, which will be out on March 13.

A ninth Lost Tribe of the Sith tale will be avaliable in June, when the whole series is published as a paperback. For now, Miller has posed his notes to several past installments.

Covers. Knight’s Archive found the new cover to The Phantom Menace novelization earlier this week. Shockingly, it looks just like the poster. Like the last TPM-centric rerelease, Shadow Hunter, this one contains a new James Luceno short story and may be a bit difficult to find because both editions share the same ISBN. It’s due out on the 31st.

In other cover reveals, StarWars.com has the covers for eighth Lost Tribe of the Sith installment and the paperback compilation. They look pretty much the same as all the Lost Tribe of the Sith stuff.

Fate of the Jedi. The mini-excerpts for Denning’s Apocalypse begin with – who else? – Saba.

Interviews. In a two-parter, James Luceno talks Darth Plagueis at TFN and Suvudu, while John Jackson Miller chats with CBR’s Tim O’Shea.

Friday is traditionally Star Wars day at Comic-Con, and we had a full slate of Star Wars-related panels, and Seth Green returned to crash another one of them. While there was no Star Wars Spectacular, attendees in San Diego got their fill from different Star Wars licensees.

Del Rey’s Star Wars book panel was minimally staffed this year – only editor Shelly Shapiro and Choices of One author Timothy Zahn were up on stage. Shapiro gave a quick overview of upcoming titles (both novels and reference guides) and release dates from Del Rey, with no new title announcements. She did mention that in X-Wing: Mercy Kill there will be two Wraith Squadrons, and neither knows about the other. The original novella being written for Lost Tribe of the Sith print edition was described as a “big chunk” by John Jackson Miller, lurking in the audience.

Tim answered questions about Thrawn’s characteristics. Shelly responded that the canceled Blood Oath is essentially erased and overwritten in the timeline, while Imperial Commando 2 isn’t being pursued for the near future, though they do want to finish the series. Tim talked about having his bits of his EU works overwritten by George Lucas by using Bill Slavicsek’s analogy of working in Star Wars: playing on George Lucas’ driveway when he could back up the truck at any moment. He also gave his views of how the Force works: for power or guidance, with Yoda focusing more on listening to the Force for guidance over using it for power. More questions focused on Tim’s response to Mara Jade’s death (and how Tim would have written Serenity), Shelley’s views on character death and the anecdotal revelation that George Lucas gave the approval to kill off Han Solo when they were developing Vector Prime for NJO (only Luke and Leia were declared no-kill). And, of course, some of the usual questions about continuity and such.

You can check out the Del Rey panel for yourself: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Randy Stradley, in his Imperial officer uniform, started off Dark Horse’s Star Wars panel with some minor announcements (apparently New York Comic Con will get the official announcements): Star Wars comics being finally available digitally (some even for free), a new John Ostrander and Jan Duursema project, a new John Jackson Miller project, and a new Tom Taylor project. He then got all the panelists to reveal their favorite Star Wars comics moments, which led to hoojibs. Some further announcements include the opportunity for The Clone Wars comic story between seasons 4 and 5, and that one The Clone Wars comic story will be adapted an story arc for the show, and a new Vader project by Haden Blackman. Most of the Q&A was directed at Holocron keeper, Leland Chee, but then later went to hoojib zombies, constantly making the galaxy bigger, and another new series – Agent of the Empire, with a focus away from the Jedi or Sith. And Seth Green took the podium in this panel to relate his favorite Star Wars comics: Tag and Bink, and mentioned that his upcoming animated Star Wars comedy series may “smell like Robot Chicken”.

Watch the Dark Horse panel: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

The LEGO Star Wars panel started off Friday morning as a one-stop shop for all things LEGO Star Wars: a little look at the most recent LEGO Star Wars video games, some of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars building sets, including a new TIE Fighter set, and the new Queen Amidala figure, and ending with a few clips of the LEGO Star Wars animated special, The Padawan Menace, which aired last night on Cartoon Network (and will be running a few more times over the weekend). My recommendation: watch this hilarious animated special. While it takes place in the Clone Wars and focuses on C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels) as he manages a group of unruly padawans, while Yoda and a youngling named Ian (or is it really someone else we know that’s just one letter off?) try to keep Asajj Ventress from stealing some plans. Written by Michael Price (from The Simpsons), there is a lot of fun and comedy here for all Star Wars fans. It was revealed after the panel that The Padawan Menace will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 16, to coincide with Blu-ray release of the Star Wars saga.