Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 8

This is one of my favorite books in the "Clone Wars Adventures" series. There is a new bounty hunter, we get to see Luminara Unduli fight alien creatures and a giant droid, Aurra Sing fighting people who want her dead, and the life of a battle droid. This story is unique because it lets you see what the droids have to go through. The story with the new bounty hunter has an interesting plot because it lets you see her prevous life, and there is a little bit of a twist at the end. (I thought it was suprising but I don't know if anyone else will.) Overall, this is a great book, especially for Star Wars fans.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures is an ongoing series from Dark Horse comics that takes its inspiration from the extremely successful Clone Wars cartoon. This inspiration is visible in both the short, action-packed nature of the stories as well as in the art style itself. The word on the street is that with the debut of the upcoming Clone Wars 3D TV series scheduled for fall of 2008, Lucasfilm is asking licensees to suspend products based on the earlier show to avoid marketplace confusion. Whether this series will be impacted by this edict (assuming it's true!) remains to be seen. A ninth and a tenth volume have already been announced, in any case. The art in this volume is quite nice. The Fillbach Brothers are responsible for the art in three of the four stories, giving it quite a bit of consistency (the work of Ethen Beavers in "One of a Kind" fits solidly too). It seems over time that the styles in these volumes have more and more closely matched the look of the cartoon. Volume Eight contains four stories as follows: "Versus" - Enigmatic Jedi Luminara Unduli is thrown into Mondo-Mod the Hutt's Arena of Doom and forced to battle three fearsome opponents. First comes a Wampa, followed by a dinosaur-like Durkii, and finished with the killer robot subtly named Evil Supreme. Fun story with a twist at the end. The cover art of the book is based on this story, but the actual scene it depicts does not occur. "Old Scores" - Ex-Padawan and current bounty hunter Aurra Sing accepts a job from Urdruua the Hutt, a resident of the Smuggler's Moon Nar Shaddaa. Turns out Aurra's training was funded by Urdruua's family when she left the Jedi Order and he may not be entirely happy with the fruits of his investment. This story has a laugh-out-loud moment with the "smart mines" sent after Aurra. "One of a Kind" - We return to the clones' waterlogged home planet of Kamino as Obi-Wan Kenobi investigates a plot to steal Jango's original genetic material. Dooku has hired the albino Zeltron bounty hunter Vianna D'Pow for the job. One of the virtues of stories depicted graphically is the ability of the art to quickly invest real emotions into the characters and by extension the reader. This story is a prime example, where Vianna acquites quite a bit of pathos just in the span of a few pages. "Pathways" - A damaged battle droid experiences a sudden battlefield awakening and questions his existence. We follow the droid on his quest for new meaning. Getting into a battle droid's head is certainly an original point of view and gives an all-too-infrequent Separtist view of the war (after all, according to the opening scroll of Revenge of the Sith, "There are heroes on both sides.") Clone Wars Adventures Volume Eight is the best volume to date. It is the first one where I have enjoyed each story equally, and considering the fairly simple nature of these tales and the very short format, it does an excellent job of entertaining the reader and breathing life into secon