When They Were Brothers (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Vol. 7) Review

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(More customer reviews)What's cool about Obi-Wan Kenobi is that he's so cool. He's the "Negotiator." He's always in control and except for his bickering with Anakin never displays his frustration, annoyance, or anger. In fact the only time he loses it is when Yoda asks him in "Revenge of the Sith" to go after Darth Vader and again when he finally confronts his former Padawan, whom he doesn't have the courage to strike dead as he lies broiling in lava.
So it's a bit odd to see him in this story completely obsessed over Asajj Ventress, the lately deceased bald-headed villainess and student of dark Jedi arts from earlier Dark Horse Star Wars comics and the Clone Wars cartoons. For reasons never made clear, Obi-wan has a bee in his bonnet and her name is Ventress. He's convinced she's alive somewhere and waiting to pounce, so he goes and beats up a Black Sun don (the Black Sun being the mafia in the Star Wars universe), who says "right, you're obviously a better man than me, come have a drink and I'll tell you everything I know about the Confederacy."
Once you get past those two very improbable bits of the story, things get better, and that's do mostly to the fine work of artist Brian Ching, who illustrates some exciting action sequences that owe a great deal in framing and in detail to "The Revenge of the Sith." "Brothers" occurs just prior to the events of the film and was being written and drawn prior to its release. Ching obviously had access to the movie or the developmental artwork because this story features quite a bit of hardware from the film, from the ships to Grievous' Magna Guards. Much of the framing of the action sequences also appear similar in style to Lucas' work in RotS.
But after all the fighting's done, scripter Haden Blackman has to bring the story to conclusion, at which point the characters and events again become rather contrived. [SPOILERS] What we're presented is the Luke/Vader sequence at the end of "Return of the Jedi," with Obi-wan comforting a dying Ventress, searching for a glimmer of the "good" hidden below layers of evil. Any possible sympathy Blackman manages to evoke for the dying Ventress is thrown back in the reader's face two pages later when we find her contrition - and her death - were feigned and that thanks to Sith meditation techniques she is alive and now on the run from the Jedi _and_ the Confederacy, setting up what I'm guessing might be a possible return in the animated Clone Wars series now in production. [END SPOILERS]
Overall, "When They Were Brothers" is not a complete letdown, but it certainly doesn't live up to its hype as a "must read" story leading into "Revenge of the Sith."
The book finishes out with a 22-page story originally published for Free Comic Book Day, an annual marketing campaign by comic book publishers and retailers in the US. Nothing of any significance happens here, just Obi-Wan and Anakin crash landing on a Confederacy controlled planet, riding around on speeder bikes, and hacking and slashing their way through a battalion of droids. Good for what it's worth, but entirely forgettable.

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Many on both sides of the Clone Wars have been wounded or killed. But the war has taken its toll on the survivors, too.Consumed by the belief that the Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress still lives, Obi-Wan Kenobi has temporarily forsaken his duties and recruited Anakin Skywalker in his desperate hunt for Ventress.But Anakin believes that Obi-Wan is chasing a ghost - because he himself killed Ventress. And Anakin's doubts about his former Master's quest are not assuaged when, following the trail of the rumors of Ventress' existence, they walk into a trap set by their old enemies, the bounty hunter Durge and Count Dooku!A tale that tests the strengths of the bonds of brotherhood!

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