Star Wars: Outlander
by Tim Truman, various artists (Dark Horse, 2001)

The most interesting aspect of Outlander is the presence of a Jedi among the enigmatic sandpeople of Tatooine.

Not a lot has ever been revealed about those nomadic tribes, known also as Tusken Raiders, who made brief but memorable appearances in several Star Wars films. Appearing as a hybrid of organic and mechanical parts, the sandpeople communicate in a gutteral tongue and spend much of their existence scavenging and killing.

The appearance of a strong leader among them who unites several tribes into an army is cause for grave concern, especially when they start launching bloody assaults on various Tatooine settlements. The Jedi Council gets involved when the leader is observed carrying a lightsaber.

And that's where Ki-Adi-Mundi, newly named to the council in the wake of The Phantom Menace, comes in. He's assigned to seek out this leader and see if, beneath the disguising garb of the Tuskens, the long-missing Jedi Sharad Hett has turned to the dark. Before long, he has bounty hunter/assassin Aurra Sing on his tail, and Jabba the Hutt is his only questionable source of aid.

I know Tim Truman's work mostly as an artist, but for this one he's the writer and lets others handle the pencils. The art isn't entirely consistent, but it proves adequte to the task and moves the story along nicely. The plot is fantastic, with a lot of new exposition on the backgrounds of Ki-Adi-Mundi, Aurra Sing and, of course, the Tusken culture.




Rambles.NET
review by
Tom Knapp

27 October 2007






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