Qui-Gon Jinn Gets His Own Comic
Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 11:37 am Category: Clone Wars, Comics, Dark Horse, News, Star Wars, TopDark House announced yesterday (via MTV’s Splashpage) that Qui-Gon Jinn will be getting his own comic series set in the times before Obi-Wan Kenobi was his padawan.
Count Dooku will be appearing in the book as well.
MTV has a full interview with Scott Allie, the writer, and some preview pages.
Here’s the official solicit and description of the issue:
STAR WARS: JEDI—THE DARK SIDE #1 (of 5)
Scott Allie (W), Mahmud Asrar (A/Cover), Stéphane Roux (Variant Cover)
On sale May 18 (One day before Phantom Menace’s 12th Anniversay)
FC, 40 pages, $2.99, Miniseries
Twenty-one years before the events in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is dispatched to prevent the outbreak of a civil war on the homeworld of his Padawan Xanatos—whose father is king. It is a mission that will lead Qui-Gon into close contact with the dark side and start him on a quest that will have a major impact on the future of the Jedi Order!
But with Qui-Gon returning both to comics and The Clone Wars, and it was announced yesterday that Shmi Skywalker is returning as well, and Darth Maul may be back, lurking in the shadows, is The Phantom Menace having a new Renaissance?
An encounter on Facebook yesterday had me thinking, “If Episode I is so reviled, why are there some people reacting so vehemently in the negative to the inclusion of some of these characters?” Granted, Darth Maul was one of the few things held universally sacred from Phantom Menace, but talking to some fellow Star Wars fans, there was a sense that his death was final and it would be frustrating to them to change that truth in the same way it was frustrating to some of them that Anakin was inserted into the end of Return of the Jedi.
If The Phantom Menace was so hated and despised so universally, why would there be any hint of that outcry of it’s slightly shifting continuity? And why would Dave Filoni and crew (and Dark Horse Comics) be bringing these characters back to the forefront of the expanded universe if they were so shallow and hated? It seems as though if all of your suspicions about Lucasfilm as a whole being as business savvy as it is, wouldn’t forgetting these characters ever existed be a wiser plan if they’re so disgusting to the average fan?
It seems as though now, 12 years later, The Phantom Menace is finally getting a little bit of the good reputation it deserves back.
And history is looking more kindly on it and its characters.
One interesting thing to point out in the interview with Scott Allie proves something I’ve been saying for a long time: Kids love the prequels and 30 years from now, no one will know the difference between the 6 films or care.
I have a 5-year-old son, so I watched the prequel movies way more than a lot of guys my age. My son loves them so much, and we’ve watched Episodes 1-3 over and over. I know them backwards and forwards.
What say you, the devoted readers of Big Shiny Robot!?
Responses to “Qui-Gon Jinn Gets His Own Comic”
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ken, Bryan Young. Bryan Young said: Are the characters from Phantom Menace entering a new Renaissance? http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/reviews/archives/21206 [...]
Yeah, no one will know the difference in 30 years if people just stop caring about quality directing and storytelling…
No, they care. But they’re too invested into what they think the prequels SHOULD have been instead of appreciating them for what they were.
Kids see this, and will love and revere both halves of the saga as guys like you revere the second half.
Because they are good stories, well told.
My feeling is that people don’t actually dislike the characters of The Phantom Menace (except Anakin and Jar-Jar). Maul was badass, QGJ was badass, Padme was acceptable, Panaka was even cool in his way. Where they take exception I think is the story and cheese factor.
I love it myself, but in retrospect I think I wouldn’t mind seeing the strategy reversed. If they covered TPM thru AotC in cartoon form then made the actual war a movie it would have satisfied the older fans and still enteratined the children.
But you are correct, in 30 years no one will care because the remaining fans won’t have to deal with their prior expectations, they’ll have always had them in this way. There were people who didn’t care for Jedi when it came out because they didn’t feel it meshed with the other two. Where are those people now?
This resurgence of TPM characters is great. People – myself specifically – love Qui-Gon, and it sounds like they’ve found a perfect way to bring the character back without disrupting continuity. And I know I’ll read the new comic featuring him, even though I’m not a big fan of comics.
Darth Maul’s always been a popular character, but his death was one of the most permanent-looking in the saga. And since his resurrection hasn’t been verified, I’m excited to see what will happen. Somehow I doubt he’s truly returned, but I have confidence in the Clone Wars team to bring him back believably.
i want poofs!! no, not english gay dudes.. Yarael Poof fool!
What’s ironic about this all is that for YEARS following the Phantom Menace, fans kept saying “oh he’ll be back” “he could have survived that…” “They even did a “what if” about it, why couldn’t they just make that real?” and so on…
Yet, now that it’s (seemingly) happened, those voices have suddenly disappeared.
What’s more, if you’ve read any of the books or comics (and therefore the kind of person who cares about the continuity of things,) characters have survived worse. Explosions, crushings, being burned alive, thrown out into the vaccuum of space… there was even a character once who was willfully animating his own mummified corpse.
Given that, what’s a single, instantly cauterized wound across and possibly just below the vital digestive organs? (And that’s if such systems in an alien character are even the same as in a human)
Funnily enough I was just watching TPM last night, and despite some unneccessary slapstick (from you-know-who) it really stood up. The plot is intriguing, the visuals incredible… maybe now is the time for fans to stop complaining about what the film aren’t and start to appreciate them for what they are.