Star Wars: Mace Windu (2024) #1
MACE WINDU
In the time before the fall of the Republic and rise of the Galactic Empire, Jedi Knights are keepers of the peace.
Before joining the Jedi Council, one brave Jedi travels the galaxy on a daring mission. He’s known as….
Writer: Marc Bernardin
Penciller: Georges Jeanty
Inker: Dexter Vines
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Andrew Dalhouse
Cover artist: Mateus Manhanini
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Release Date: February 7, 2024
We open the first issue of this 4-part mini series on the ocean moon of Devshi, as the waters bubble and breaking through the surface comes the familiar face of Mace Windu, breaking out of an underwater facility that until now, no one has ever escaped from. He swins to shore in the pelting rain, asking a dockworker if he’d seen any droids, and when the man says yes but refuses to pilot a skiff for Mace, Windu uses a Jedi Mind Trick to convince him otherwise, and into the ocean we go with Mace forward and the dockworker piloting the skiff through the driving wind and rain. They spot the other skiff and using the Force to propel them forward they catch up, with Mace hurling his lightsaber to hit the engine and they circle, finding the droids inopperable due to the steam that plumed out. He check the droids and finds a system-wide skeleton key for the underwater facility, as we cut to Coruscant and the Jedi Temple where Master Yoda is waiting for the returning Windu. The mission complete and the droids restored to their factory settings, Yoda asks if Mace is aware of coaxium, which of course he is.
It’s explained to Mace that a new form of coaxium has been discovered, one far more efficient than usual and thus coveted by the Pykes, the Hutts and any criminal organisations who might wish to outrun a Republic blockade. He sets to travel to the moon of Ro Mira in the Vergara system, but is told someone already has and we see a hologram of Azita Cruuz, someone they know little about but who is willing to trade the coaxium ultra and its formula for credits and an escort off the moon. A seemingly simple task, but she broadcast that request far and wide so a speedy trip to Ro Mira is of the essense. Aboard his Jedi Starfighter he is soon at his hyperspace ring and above the icy moon, and suiting up he navoigates the icy cavenrs only to find a city beneath the ice, with the refinery at its heart.
Mace cautiously walks the streets searching for Azita, but stumbles acorss trouble in a quiet street as he’s stopped by a hulking Trandoshan and his friends. However, they certainly didn’t count on crossing a Jedi and after imagingfing the pain he’ll inflict upon them and somehow ‘sending’ that to the crowd they break and run, leaving Mace to continue his search in a hospital, where he asks after her, offering credits as incentive. he finds her room, but using a makeshift rope out of sheets she is rapelling down the outside of the hospital and speeding away with Mace in pursuit. Suddenly she trips and falls into the snow, a buzzer on her back pack igniting as the chase continues through the streets. She’sd also being chased by a speeder, but won’t shoot – she apears to be carrying the Coaxium Ultra in the backpack, and she hits the street and up into an abandoned building where she checks the backpack which has now settled back down.
That’s when the wall explodes as the speeder smashes through, and as they tell her they only want what’s in the bag she freezes, until the flash of a purple blade and the weapons and the three pursuers are dispatched and we end with Mace Windu offering his hand saying ‘You called. The Jedi have answered‘.
A superb opening salvo from this mini series, as we’re hurled back into the Prequel era with a character we know very well in the years before we first saw him in The Phantom Menace. Great art from the team of penciller Georges Jeanty, inker Dexter Vines and colorist Andrew Dalhouse compliments a spot-on interpretation of Windu from writer Marc Bernardin, wrapped in a delicious Mateus Manhanini cover. We’re being treated to a few Prequel era mini series this year including this and the forthcoming Jango Fett mini, and if everything we get is to this quality then fans of the era – and of Star Wars in general – are in for a treat.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bernardin, Marc (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 23 Pages - 03/13/2024 (Publication Date) - Marvel (Publisher)
