Star Wars #9 Outlander: The Exile of Sharad Hett Part 3 (of 6) Writing: Tim Truman Pencilling: Rob Pereira Inking: Stephen Hawthorne Coloring: Dave McCaig Lettering: Steve Dutro Cover: Ken Kelly Released: 08/25/1999 Reviewed by: JF Boivin (10/31/1999) SUMMARY: Ki survives a skiff crash, and wanders towards Tusken territory searching for Sharad Hett. Aurra Sing is on the trail of the two Jedi.

THE STORY

This issue reads really fast, as not much happens. Ki is attacked by a Krayt Dragon, and finally meets Sharad Hett in the last panel. Not much to say here, escept that this could have been split up and comibined with issues #8 and #10. If you like fast-paced, this one is for you.

THE ART

The cover: I was a bit disappointed that the Krayt Dragon looks very different than previous versions. I've provided links here so you can compare. The first depiction was by Ralph McQuarrie, a second, similar one was done by Eric J.W. Lee for the cover of Promises, the third Junior Jedi Knight book from Bantam. And another version, very different, was done digitally by Decipher. Now we have a totally different version. Why wasn't artist Ken Kelly shown the previous depictions?

Interior: Whith one of the artists from #7 back, Aurra has the animal skull back on her swoop bike.

But unfortunatley, that's about the only good thing about it. The inker is also a different one than the first two issues. The art is definitely inferior to the previous two issues in the series. And from the very first panel, I wondered if the artist even looked at the art in the previous issue. All of Jabba's henchmen are different than the last panel in the last issue! We were shown that the 6 henchmen aboard the skiff were a Weequay, a Skrilling, a green Nikto, some guy dressed with the outfit Lando wears in Return of the Jedi (nice touch!), some undetermined guy and a Klatooinan maybe. In this issue, nearly all of them are of different species. The Weequay and the Klatooinan are still there, but now there's a Rodian (where'd he come from?), a Vodran, a scaly guy and a pointy-eared guy. Plus, Ki doesn't have his cloak and mask anymore! This will look especially bad if the series comes out in a collected edition.

The Krayt Dragon is the same as on the cover (at least he didn't come up with yet another version.)

On the plus side, the colors by Mr. McCaig are still amazing.

CONCLUSIONS

Fast-paced but doesn't add much to the story. The art is not so good.

Rating: 7 / 10 For Completists Only