The Jedi Knights are the cornerstone of the Star Wars saga. They are what makes the franchise stand out from other sci-fi properties, and their weaponry, code, and look are iconic. There have been a few standout solo titles for the Jedi under Marvel’s Star Wars comic stewardship, but it wasn’t until last year’s Jedi Knights series that we got a proper book detailing their adventures in a pre-Phantom Menace galaxy. The first collection, Guardians of the Republic, was an extremely fun anthology series that had a recurring through line of a mysterious assassin trailing Qui-Gon Jinn. With the second (and final) volume Star Wars: Jedi Knights: A Higher Path, that take is flipped, putting the Qui-Gon mystery front and center and the anthology in the background, with one surprisingly moving exception. While that change of format initially had me worried at the beginning of this collection, what followed was a surprisingly human and moving story from Marc Guggenheim and artist Madibek Musabekov, and one of the best Star Wars titles in recent memory.
Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, and Aayla Secura arrive on the farming planet Mina-Rau to gather the remains of fallen Jedi Fondar Etzis. Poisoned by a mysterious toxin, the Jedi attempt to bring their fallen comrade’s remains back to Coruscant for a proper burial. While there, the three Jedi believe more menacing motives for killing Etzis, and as they explore the planet they’re attacked by Corlis Rath, the assassin who has been tailing Qui-Gon since the first issue. As Qui-Gon takes the battle to Rath, he himself is poisoned by the same toxin that killed Etzis, leaving Mace and Aayla to locate the antidote and revive their friend before it’s too late.
That’s the running plot throughout a majority of the issues collected in A Higher Path, and that framing device is used to great effect in Marc Guggenheim’s scripts for these issues. One of my few qualms with the first collection of Jedi Knights was how the subplot for the Qui-Gon stalker felt like an afterthought in many of the issues. But by making it the focal point of this collection with the anthology portions working around it, the series works even better than it did before. While there’s a connective arc of Mace and Aayla traveling to the mysterious planet of Sinsara, that’s used to give us the same variety of stories that the previous Jedi volume had, but with a stronger central focus. The adventures are still varied here, but benefit from a stronger character connection than the previous collection.
Marvel
Central to that character work is Guggenheim’s take on Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the many prequel era characters that has become a favorite of mine thanks to the vast network of ancillary material outside of the Star Wars films. The maverick of the Jedi, Jinn has always been an interesting member as a Jedi Master who refuses to sit on the council, and Guggenheim’s revelations into his past tutelage under Count Dooku shed some light into why that may be the case. The backstory given here is simply fantastic, giving us a lot of meaty character work that casts the relationship of Qui-Gon and Dooku (and their place in the Jedi Order) into an interesting light if you plan on going back to revisit the prequel trilogy or the Clone Wars cartoon after reading this. Guggenheim isn’t afraid to look at the larger Jedi Order and question some of their motives, but he also knows that the Jedi kicking ass is just as fun to witness, and that balance is pretty perfect here, despite the scripts having a similar format when read in one collection. As great as they are, the “exposition into mystery into action” format of the issues could use a little more variety..
However, that action looks INCREDIBLE under Madibek Musabekov’s pencils. The previous volume was a showcase for the artist’s variety for different types of comic stories, and A Higher Path is Musabekov taking the action ball and running with it. Guggenheim knows this and lets Musabekov’s strong line work and fluid motion do a lot of the heavy lifting in the action scenes, many of which made my jaw drop numerous times. Musabekov is also able to match the Jedi’s looks with their live action counterparts really well, but no so much that it’s distracting from the art you’re looking at or feels stiff.
Marvel
The only real dip back into the anthology nature of the first volume is in the eight issue. “Through Youngling Eyes” is a surprisingly emotional story of Sonna Taj, a young force-sensitive girl and the day she meets the Jedi who will train her. Told entirely in first person in dialogue and perspective, it’s a truly immersive and engaging mid way break between the four issue Qui-Gon story, and shows that there’s still a lot of great and emotional work that can be mined from the Star Wars IP. I’ve always found Marc Guggenheim to be a very consistent writer when it comes to crafting solid comic stories, but this script, paired with Musabekov’s excellent layouts and line work, really hit me emotionally in a way I wasn’t expecting.
With so many Marvel Star Wars titles out there, it’s hard to make an impact, but Jedi Knights really carves a fun little corner of the publishing stable for itself, so much so that I’m genuinely bummed that this is the final collection. These two volumes have been some of the most pure fun Marvel Star Wars comics in a long time, and the initial hook of “Jedi traveling the galaxy on adventures” is one that should able to run a long time. But even if we just have these two collections, I’ll take them, as it gives a showcase to characters that there wasn’t enough space for in the movies, and still shows that there’s a lot of life left in the galaxy far, far away.
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