Star Wars: Dawn Of The Jedi #0
Text by John Ostrander
Art by Jan Duursema
Cover Art by Rodolfo Migliari
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: Febuary 1, 2012
Cover Price: $3.50

“Your Guide to the Dawn Of The Jedi era of Star Wars: It is an era of legend, an era before the discovery of hyperspace travel, before the foundation of the Old Republic, and before the philosophies of the Jedi and the Sith were codified. This is a tale of a great and mythic society, established and nurtured by powers unthinkably ancient and mysterious, on a collision course with an empire founded on darkness and death. These are the true roots of both the Jedi and the Sith Orders . . . the dawn of the Jedi.”

Issue #0 of the brand new Star Wars comic series Dawn Of The Jedi is not really a comic book. Instead, it is more of a text overview and an artistic preview of what is to come – and there is a LOT in this new series that will break a lot of ground in the Star Wars mythos.

Dawn Of The Jedi strides into an era previously unexplored in the Star Wars universe – according to Dark Horse, the events occur 36,000 years to 25,000 years before Episode IV: A New Hope. This ancient epoch is so old that it was believed old by the time of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

To be fair, this era of the Jedi has been acknowledged for quite some time, with not a lot of exploration. There have been hints and tips from the tales of the Rakatan Empire from the first Knights of the Old Republic video game, to the rise of the evil Abeloth and the surreptitious ancient machinations of the enigmatic Celestials explored in the current Fate Of The Jedi novel series.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, it shouldn’t be surprising that after all the cues and tips that we would see the Star Wars franchise bridging back even further into history – into an era BEFORE there was an Old Republic. In fact, before there was even the Jedi Order.

There have been elements of early Force research explored in various different forms of the Expanded Star Wars Universe, where the light side is coined “Ashla,” and the dark as “Bogan.” The Ashla and the Bogan are defined in further depth in the context of this preview issue; along with that of the Je’daii – the earliest manifestation of the Jedi that we know of from this issue.

The issue is a compilation of snippets explaining and highlighting sketched designs and other artwork. There are remnants of the Star Wars universe that will stand out for hardcore Expanded Universe fans. For example, fans of The Clone Wars series will recognize the Tho Yor ships as resembling the mysterious temporal ship that abducted Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, in a shadowy light/dark fairy tale. KOTOR fans will flip when they see Star Forges appear, as well as the artwork of the Rakatan Imperials pop up through the issue.

If I were to hazard some speculation, this series won’t necessarily dictate the origins of how sentient beings discovered and learned of the Force. Rather, it will explain how the religious order who originally researched the Force enter this story being known as the Je’daii, and how the Rakatan Imperial wars fragmented the order into light and dark – namely Jedi and Sith.

So this is just a succinct overview of Star Wars: Dawn Of The Jedi #0 – and I look forward into seeing what the creative team of John Ostrander and Jan Duursema deliver for Dawn of the Jedi. Being a preview issue, I will not offer a rating as I usually do for a traditional comic issue. Instead, I offer you this odd thought of Rodolfo Migliari‘s cover art:

Why do these two mysterious figures look like LaToya Jackson and Axl Rose both circa 1992/1993?