General Grievous #4 (of 4) Story: Chuck Dixon Art: Rick Leonardi Inking: Mark Pennington Coloring: Lucas Marangon Lettering: Dave Lanphear Cover: Rick Leonardi, Mark Pennington, Lucas Marangon Released: 08/17/2005 Reviewed by: JF Boivin (08/21/2005) SUMMARY: The group of Jedi traitors and their Banvhar miners allies succesfully landed on Gentes. They are now aware of the presence of Padawan children figure it would be a bonus if they managed to rescue them while accomplishing their mission of killing Grievous. While the miners fight off battle droids near their ship, the three Jedi, Flynn Kybo, Codi Ty and Master B'dar Tone, duel with the droid General in the core of the Ugnaught geothermal plant. Only Codi makes it out alive, bringing the children back to the safety of the ship and leaving Grievous for dead in an underground explosion. Back on Coruscant, Codi is expelled from the Jedi Order despite her brave actions.

[final cover] [preview cover]

THE STORY

I had a dilemma with this issue: I couldn't wait to put this awful series behind me as soon as possible, yet I couldn't bring myself to read it. Now that I've read it, I'm glad it's over and am ready to move on.

Like I said last issue, the series doesn't feel like it belongs in the Star Wars universe; it really feels almost like fan fiction. Like he did last issue, Grievous once again seems to be using the Force to levitate a lightsaber on page 9. But this is only an example, the series has to be read as a whole to understand what I mean. On second thought, don't bother.

I must admit I was a bit surprised. Not only was the sub-plot of Grievous creating armored bodies for the Pawawan kids completely abandoned as I predicted, the character of Captain Vulpus introduced last issue is never even mentionned in this one. What happened to him? Does anyone really care?

Grievous' constant goading and empty threats become annoying really quick and he doesn't act or talk as the dangerous evil character he is supposed to be. He's almost a caricature of the real Grievous that we see in the cartoon series and in Revenge of the Sith. Plus, if he killed so many Jedi Knights (as he keeps reminding us several times), why does he have such a hard time killing a bunch of Jedi kids? I mean he had two whole issues to do it before the Jedi showed up.

This issue (and the series in general) feels like such a waste, and the final duel with Flynn Kybo hardly makes up for it. And why bother ending the series with the Jedi believing Grievous is dead? First of all, his supposed death is set up in such a way that it makes it highly illogical that he would survive. And secondly, everybody knows he doesn't die so why even bother? The final scene is such a downer too; after such a bad story, I would have hoped at least that Yoda and Mace Windu would not act out of character and ban the surviving Jedi from the Order after rescuing the Padawans. But no such luck.

One good thing is that Dark Horse will collect this series with its original title, and not goad readers into buying it as part of the Clone Wars series of trade paperbacks.

THE ART

See my comments for issue #3.

CONCLUSIONS

This is so far the worst series I've read set in the Prequel period.

Rating: 2 / 10 Not Recommended