Star Wars: Legacy: 18: Claws of the Dragon, Part 5
What is it ? : Deep underneath the Sith Temple, Krayt is torturing Cade on a Yuuzhan Vong Embrace of Pain, trying to focus him against the pain so he will be able to focus his healing ability. As he does this he tells Cade of what happened next in his life, how he hid as a bounty hunter through the Imperial era, until he encountered a Vong Scout ship just before the Vong Invasion.
His ship was captured and he fought the Vong, but their abilities were too alien and they captured him and put him into an Embrace of Pain, where he encountered Vergere a former Jedi. Who explains that the Vong dislike technology, so have replaced Krayts cybernetic arm with something organic. Over the months, Vergere teaches Krayt to embrace the pain and use it to bring out the Dark Side within himself, where he received a vision of his future as Darth Krayt.
The rage and power he felt allowed him to escape, allowing it to be believed that A'Sharad Het had died aboard the Vong Ship, becoming Darth Krayt.
With storytime over he releases Cade, who sneaks out of his quarters to meet with Talon but she betrays him and takes him to Krayt, who demands that he prove his loyalty by killing Hosk Trey'lis. Hosk refuses to allow himself be used to turn Cade to the Dark Side, saying how Cade tried to save him and he will always be thankful for that. So Cade refuses, but Krayt kills Hosk instead, turning to Cade and saying that Cade refuses to let anyone die for him, but Hosk died for him, and his father died for him.
Cade gets angry and reaches out with the force to grab Krayts lightsaber, but he has a vision of his father, and allows the light side to guide his actions, shattering the case where his fathers lightsaber is on display and igniting it. Talon attacks him, but he stabs her through the side, disabling her.
Cade friends see all of this happening so launch their ship and come racing to rescue him, spotting the window of Krayts chambers where they know they must go.
Inside Krayt tells Cade that Darth Nihl killed his father as he attempts to get Cade to act in anger, but Cade takes down Nihl without resorting to the Dark Side and faces off against Krayt alone . . . .
High Points : It's nice to see Krayt pulling out all the old tricks to turn a Jedi to the Dark Side, trying to get Cade angry, but for none of it to work. And that they finally give Cade a vision of his father, when that has been one of the reasons for him being so broken, that since the attack on Ossus he's been thinking that he wasn't worthy of his fathers presence. This might be a massive turning point for Cade, the self destructive actions he took to cut himself off from the force, now behind him and hopefully he'll embrace his status as a Jedi and a Skywalker and become a character and hero we can get behind.
Low Points : The big problem with this issue which kind of broke my brain was when Cade sneaks out to meet Talon. We've been shown that they seem to have been getting close, and while we know this was just a performance from him, and a trap set by her as she didn't trust him, we don't know any motivation behind this planned meeting beyond the continuation of this charade.
But Talon knocks him out and takes him to Krayt, who tells him that he cannot hide his intensions and the pretence is over. But . . . what intentions? We haven't been told any intentions, we have no idea of what Krayt has discovered? Previously, Krayt and Talon had discussed that Cade was probably pretending to be embracing the Dark Side, but his actions would lead him down that path anyway. That just acting as a Sith would eventually make him a Sith! So what's changed? Why this sudden need for Cade to kill Hosk and become a Sith?
So what do you really think ? : So while this might be a jumping off point for the redemption of Cade as a character, with him becoming a hero and fighting the bad guys instead of just going along with everything, which is definitely overdue by this point (36% through the run of the comic). I'm lost to what's going on with the rest of the story, Cade seems to have a master plan we've never been privy to, Krayt seems to be aware of it as well, but it'd be really nice if one of them would let us onto it so we can see motivations for actions.
Final Words : I seem to keep living in hope that this series is going to get it's act together, and we'll get to see an overall storyline. With KotoR and Zayne Carrick, it was clear that the story was him against the Jedi Masters who framed him for killing his fellow students. The story went off on side paths, and continued beyond the resolution of that by picking up on elements which had already been introduced. But Legacy I thought would be about trying to bring down Krayt, building an alliance with the Fel Empire, with Cade and Marisiah being figureheads in the same fashion to Luke and Leia were to the Rebellion. But with this being a monthly magazine originally, she's been missing from the story for about a year at this point, gone for longer than she was in it. Without knowing where the motivations or desires of the characters, I'm really finding it hard to love this series.
Score : 8/10
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