Re:cap - Thrawn: Alliances #3; The past and present mysteries start to be revealed on Batuu! Darth Vader and Thrawn have discovered hibernation cylinders. Anakin and Thrawn during the Clone Wars have found out that the Gamorean Janott is leader of smugglers who found Padme’s handmaiden Duja thinking she was a thief. They return to the cantina and Vader uses the Force to take knives. Thrawn has analyzed the blade to find that it is not from their attackers. He questions the bartender, Nodlia, and shows a hologram of a new alien, the Grysk. They are from the Unknown Regions. In the past, Thrawn has worked out the planet, Mokivj, and a duke that brings involvement of the Clone Wars!
On Mokivj, we follow Padme crash lands her escape pod to a river. Padme starts flooding the capsule hoping it will take them to the Separatist base. In the current time, Thrawn tells Vader that the Darshi kept the cylinders, then the Grysk arrived. This was the fear, the disturbance in the Force, detected by the Emperor! Thrawn contacts Commodore Faro to find Grysk soldiers! Rod Reis is the cover artist for the final issues of the adaptation! It has Thrawn looming over the figures of Anakin next to Vader, circles have Padme and a TIE fighter on the other side. Thrawn: Alliances #4 is by writers, Timothy Zahn and Jody Houser, and Pat Oliffe and Andrea DiVito, artists. It is Then on Mokivj, Padme is following, wearing a backpack. She found the coordinates for the base.
Padme sees what looks like workers in the distance so begins climbing the cliffside. I like seeing Padme’s resourceful skills. She sees the base and then gets yanked back! The man, mustached with dark hair, Lebjau sees his colleagues, bearded Huga and short Cimy, walk up. Cimy worries that the metalheads, droids, will trace her back to them. Huga is about to take Padme to the duke and she takes out a corusca gem to keep her in custody. The gems are what gives the planet, Coruscant, it’s name. She wants them to contact her Uncle Anakin (!) to arrive with their ransom. This shifts to Now with a ship, a Corellian XS Light Freighter, more compact than the Falcon, headed to Batuu. It is flown by Commander Kimmund and Commodore Faro in civilian clothes.
She notes the gravity projector that cloaks once it is shut down. Kimmund says that the two systems can’t function at the same time. In his stormtrooper armor, Kimmund waits as there is a hull breach, a reverse of Star Wars (1977). The aliens enter blasting, but they are blinded by the appearance of Darth Vader igniting his lightsaber! In a splash page, we have Vader slashing the first line of invaders with the lightsaber, impressive! The Grysk have skull-like heads almost like stormtrooper helmets with blue, armored bodies. I was actually a little confused there since teh Grysk look like stormtroopers so I thought Vader was taking troopers until I looked back a page. He makes short work of the others using the Force and Kimmund finishes off the last one!
He orders the others to follow Vader to take the second ship! On Mokivj, Then, Padme and the others head toward the base, Lebjau says that they are maintenance workers for the factory. Still, they don’t know what it is the final product since it is finished by droids. They take Padme into a cave that runs through the base. Lebjau says Padme should be safe in the west building without an i.d. bracelet. Otherwise that droids will throw her into “the bins.” Lebjau leaves her in the empty room. Now, at a trophy room of damaged helmets, Thrawn expalins that gravity projectors were used to plunder ships except the Chimaera was too large of a threat. Vader asks about the trophies and Thrawn says they ae a key to the Grysk homeworld. He realizes that Thrawn knows the secret of the disturbance in the Force.
Closeup of Thrawn’s eyes as he tells Vader that the Emperor has confidence in him. Stormtroopers are searching the ship. One mentions Rukh, this is the Noghri bodyguard of Thrawn, he was introduced in Heir to the Empire (1991), EC-TT-1. Rukh was made canon in the Star Wars: Rebels episode, “Kindred”, (2017), FC-SWR-4/7. They suddenly see Grysk who are blasted! Then, Padme looks out the window and is blinded as she sees the landing of the ship. She recognizes Anakin! The part of the past are coming togther! Anakin is under the ship with R2 and Thrawn in pilot uniform. He tells the duke, flanked by super battle droids, about trouble at Black Spire Outpost. The duke has the mustache from “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” song from The Pirates of Penzance (1879). It is also the style of a Rebel geneal, Bob Hudsol, who monitord the Death Star battle. The duke is dressed by Count Dooku in black with a cloak.
Anakin tells Thrawn that he can sense Padme in the Meese Caulf Trade language. This has been a clever way for the two allies to speak privately. Thawn points out switches to floodlights and R2 pops up Anakin’s lightsaber! This is a great call back to Return of the Jedi (1983) with Luke’s move! Now at the ship, the stormtroopers are under heavy fire from the Grysk and can’t call for backup with jammed comlinks. “It’s a trap!”, had to say it. I like the coordination and communication of the stormtroopers; something we haven't really seen in films, animated shows, and othe media. There is the sound of battle and Kimmund sees the short Rukh with is batons over the bodies of the Grysk! It is great to see Rukh written by Zahn and returned to his assassin status! Kimmund orders to continue the attack with Rukh going in low! Then, on Mokivj, Thrawn tries to talk with the duke, but warned by the droids to stop.
The duke is startled as a lightsaber slices a circle cutting through the droids! Anakin sends the lightsaber to hit the floodlights and Thrawn goes to Anakin that they had a stowaway Jedi! Anakin and Thrawn run into the base saying they want to escape the Jedi. They are faced with super battle droids and we get a closeup of the duke’s smile as he is going to put them in the bins, trash compactors? The prisoners have escaped and Thrawn asks Faro if she recorded their conversation. They took the Darkhawk freighte to Mokivj. Thrawn brings up that they were both went to the Separatist factory, but this is corrected by Vader. Underlying this is Thrawn suspecting Vader is Anakin. He has a great sense of mannerisms, but it was a great change of Anakin into Vader. We get Thrawn telling Faro to set the Chimera on a course to Mokivj. It is finished, but the rest of the story has yet to be told, a second limited series? Yes! Also, the adaptation hints that there are scenes that were not in the comic so a reading of the 2018 novel is required! Thrawn: Alliances #4 reveals much about the master villain, Thrawn, and his team ups with Anakin and Darth Vader!
Five Lightsabers out of Five!
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