The Unofficial Clone Wars Site

Obsession #2

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Script: Haden Blackman
Art: Brian Ching

Reviewed by Nathan “Valin Kenobi” O’Keefe

Summary: Still searching for Asajj Ventress, Obi-Wan pays a visit to Anakin at Padmé’s lake retreat to enlist his help. The two depart on Obi-Wan’s “damn fool idealistic crusade” to search for a woman everyone--even Anakin--believes to be dead. Anakin and Obi-Wan run afoul of their old nemesis Durge. Bail Organa and Mace Windu depart for a mission in the Outer Rim.

SPOILERS ahead!

What Worked: Everything from the great cover to the cliffhanger on the final page. The cover is seriously one of the best, and not being cluttered by a melodramatic blurb doesn’t hurt either. (Oh for the olden days pre-2002, when SW comic covers were blessedly free of those dumb things....)

Though conceived as one of many prologues to Revenge of the Sith, Obsession succeeds on its own terms, namely to wrap up the loose ends of Durge and Ventress. I can only guess how much better the series will work after seeing ROTS, enabling us to pick up on references that aren’t yet apparent and gain greater understanding of the ones that are already obvious.

While Republic goes off into its own little world of rehashed Quin and Aayla soap opera, Obsession puts the Clone Wars comics back on track. Obi-Wan. Anakin. Padmé. Artoo. Mace. Palpatine. The welcome return of Durge. And last but most emphatically not least, Bail Organa, in only his second major role (the first being way back in Republic #61). If you ask me, it’s both inconceivable and unreasonable that Bail Organa was left unused for this long, but that’s a whole different story.

And as a “continuity bonus”, in the last two pages we see Durge’s left arm reforming after an injury, as seen in the Animated Microseries.

The art is invariably spectacular. I liked Brian Ching’s art previously, but the muted colors in Battle of Jabiim--while certainly appropriate for a rain-soaked planet--kind of dragged it down. Here, everything is done up in gorgeous bright colors that accentuate the beauty of the lines themselves. Besides that, I like the composition of the panels and angles.

What Didn't Work: My only problem is the near-certainty--which hangs over my head as I read the miniseries--that Asajj Ventress will be brought back to the lightside at the end. What a bogus (and clichéd) end for this villain.

Overall, Stellar. Kudos to all involved. This is what the last several months of Republic should have been, if not for the interminable Quin Vos tangent.

Rating: 9.5/10

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