Scott here! Like many of you, I hit my local Barnes & Noble this morning and was pleasantly surprised to find the Dark Horse comic adaptation of Attack of the Clones tucked in among the Batman, Superman, and X-Men graphic novels. And like you, I snatched it up and eagerly read through it.

The pencils are by Jan Duursema and the inks are by Ray Krissing. Duursema’s art is appropriately dark, matching the tone of the movie. Her renditions of the main characters are very faithful and they generally look like the actors. Jango Fett, Yoda, and the Kaminoans look great. The only exception is Jocasta Nu who looks more wrinkled than Yoda, not to mention sporting an unsightly mustache. Duusema also sneaks in a few Dark Horse comic heroes like Vilmarh “Villie” Grahrk on the Coruscant street and Aalya Secura and Quinlan Vos in the final arena battle.

The script is by Henry Gilroy. He does a good job of condensing the story down to the most essential parts. Scenes of political dialogue in the Senate are dramatically reduced to a small amount of narration. Battle scenes are also helpfully annotated with additional narration as well. It translates well into comic form.

The editors at Dark Horse have mentioned that a few scenes that were removed from the film would be included in the comic. If that’s the case, then I have no idea what they would be. It all seems to include essential parts of the film.

What is noticeable, however, are scenes from the trailer that don’t appear in the comic. For example, Obi-Wan and Anakin aren’t shown flying through the electricity fields during the chase. The spider droids from the battle don’t make any appearance beyond the cover. Dooku’s solar sailer is never shown unfurling. Hermione Bagwa is missing. Some fans may be glad to hear that all but one of Jar Jar’s scenes are cut from the comic. His reunion with Anakin and Obi-Wan is totally removed. Spoiler junkies may be surprised to discover that all of the scenes with Padme’s family are removed from the film. Guess we have one of our first DVD features! This comic also confirms the name changes of Kamino Kyberdart to Kamino Saberdart, Sido-Dyas to Sifo Dyas, and other minor changes.

Overall the comic is well worth picking up, though $18 is a bit pricey. It is a collection of 4 comics that will cost about $5 each, so it might be a better value. Those comics should be released shortly with both art and comic covers, so keep your eyes open for them.