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The High Republic: Fear of the Jedi: 2

What is it ? : Keeve Trennis is aboard the Gios commanding the fleet she now is in charge of as Marshal, when a reporting begins asking her questions. The Reporter is embedded in the Republic Fleet with full authorisation, but Sskeer tells her she is needed on the bridge to give her a break from the questioning.
When suddenly, Orbalin and Cibaba detect that the Stormwall is gone. They launch a probe in case it's a lure, but indeed the Stormseeds creating the wall are gone so Hyperspace travel is once more possible, so the fleet sets course for Naboo to support Lourna Dee's mercenary force.
When Lourna is still fighting the illusion of herself, calling on her allies for help, but they are also caught up in illusions. Lourna smashes the mask of the one she is fighting to see that it is Avar Kriss she is fighting.
The fleet arrives at Naboo, and they launch fighters to engage the Nihil vessels defending the planet, with Orbalin manning multiple vessels by splitting his body into parts, which concerns Keeve. The fighters are attacked by scavenger droids which start trying to disassemble their vessels.
On the surface the news of the fleet has spread, and the people are rising against the Nihil, so Keeve broadcasts the news that they are not alone, the Stormwall has fallen. This gives Lourna the boost she needs to beat her opponent, but before she can pound them too hard, Kelnacca pulls her away and she realises that the opponent is one of her allies also caught in an illusion.
They realise that it is Sister H'Tar controlling the illusions, and they locate and smash the machinery she is using, and the loss of their illusions causes the Nihil fleet to retreat from Naboo. They quickly realise that Naboo is just the start, and prepare to head to Eriadu where the bulk of the Nihil forces await, as Naboo burns from the fighting, we see the cities of Eriadu in total revolt against the Nihil. . . .

High Points : So apart from Cerit and Teric, the gang is mainly all back together, facing the Nihil as the Republic finally gets a chance to bring it's forces to bear. Sister H'Tar turning Lourna Dee's forces against one another is a good moment, where they are aware they are fighting illusions, but don't stop to think it's actually their allies inside those illusions.

Low Points : But, the Stormwall has fallen? It was made from lots of little satellites blocking Hyperspace travel, so where have they all gone? Why have they disappeared? I know this is probably all told elsewhere, but it would be nice for us to be caught up! Back in the old Marvel comics, if something happened in another comic or story, they'd put a little "See Issue 12 of xxx" in so you'd know that you needed to catch up with that. But we get none of that. Perhaps we'll see the reason in a future issue, perhaps it's part of the mystery we'll have solved soon enough. But it just adds at this moment the feeling that everything is just being rushed through, I would rather have had Keeve and her force (as they have access to a Path Drive so can travel through the Stormwall unhindered) to attack some kind of central control and take down the Stormwall, rather than just have them involved in the liberation of Naboo. Naboo is important because it's in the prequels, but it's not featured in the High Republic series I've seen, so just serves as a "Oh look it's that place you recognise from that thing you like."

So what do you really think ? : The amount of times the heroes have gone up against the Nameless and their fear effects, they were beginning to show some resistance, but alas this time all that is forgotten. Perhaps the experiments of Baron Boolan boosted the effectiveness of the effect, especially when Sister H'Tar is guiding it, but it just feels like forward progress is being lost.

Final Words : When the Nihil were first introduced, after the Drengir were thrown aside, I commented how The High Republic series has some interesting ideas, but casts them aside to move onto the next thing. Well this time the next thing is the Finale. They're throwing aside all the interesting ideas they developed for the High Republic series, because it's time to tidy up the galaxy and put everything back in it's place for the end of this era, and to be set up for the next era much later on. I continue to think that the Drengir were a more interesting threat than the Nihil, but we've got all this set up, the Nihil having technology no-one else has access to, and we've had the leadership of the Nihil all set up, but we're not seeing any of that addressed, we're just having plotlines tidied up to be put aside and forgotten about in the future.
I'm not the biggest fan of The High Republic era, but it deserved better than this, and with 4 issues to go before the end, I hope it does get some satisfying resolutions rather than what it looks like it's going to get.

Score : 7.5/10

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