Episode 14: (22 BBY) Age of Republic: Anakin Skywalker / Mace Windu Comic #1

You know what? It's a 70. Let's just say it's a 70 now.

Golly! Is it, wait, is this more like a retribution against me or is this an actual judgment of the comic?

Let's go with yes.

Okay.

The Jedi love disobeying orders almost as much as they love cornbread.

Meanwhile, Mace Windu assembles the A-Team to check out trouble in the jungle.

Today we discuss New Republic Anakin Skywalker and Jedi of the Republic Mace Windu on this edition of the 11 Parsecs Podcast.

Hello and welcome to episode 14 of the 11 Parsecs Podcast. My name is Eric. I'm here with my co-host John.

Hello.

Hello. And this is the first podcast after our last movie podcast.

So, last podcast we wrapped up Attack of the Clones, which happened at 22 BBY.

And today we're going to be talking about two comic series that technically were the same year, 22 BBY, but you can definitely tell that they were after the movie.

So, in chronological order, they're definitely going to be coming after Attack of the Clones.

So, if you're new to this podcast, this podcast is John and I and William going through, in chronological order, all Star Wars New Canon, including movies, books, audio dramas, everything.

We're reading everything. We're watching everything. We're going to go through the whole shebang.

And we're up to 22 BBY right now.

Another thing you should know about this podcast is that we are completely spoiler-full.

We do not... we talk about everything. We do not cut corners. We sometimes give you the ending at the very beginning of the podcast.

So, if you're planning on reading either of these two comics, again, the Anakin Skywalker one-off from Age of Republic and the Mace Windu comic book series,

and do not want to know anything about them, you want to be surprised, which I kind of understand because there's some good stuff in here.

Please stop the podcast now because, fair warning, we're about to drink some beer and talk spoilers.

So, in saying that, John, what are you drinking tonight?

Tonight? It's chilly. It's chilly out there.

It is.

Be careful, kids. So, I am enjoying a festive ale by Sweetwater Brewing.

Oh, nice. Nice. So, is this... so, festive ales always go either way with me.

Sometimes you get that really heavy Guinness that I like, and then sometimes you get cinnamon.

And I cannot stand cinnamon in my beer.

Cinnamon, you say?

Yeah. Does this one have cinnamon in it?

Well, I can't taste it right now because we have the Bonaire beers.

Oh, because we didn't pop it.

All right. Well, let's... yeah, let's do that, and then you can tell me how cinnamony this beer tastes.

Okay. Let me get the bottle opener.

Yeah, get your bottle opener. I'm cavemanning it with a can tonight.

In a glass, right? You are pouring it in a glass.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to pour it in a glass. Yeah.

Please, John. I'm educated. I mean, gosh.

We know all about you, mister.

Three, two, one.

Mine's actually coming out hard enough. That's weird.

Wait. Here comes the pour.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to pour it out right now.

Maybe a little too fast.

Yeah, it's close.

Okay. So, we're looking for cinnamon.

Take your first taste. Tell me if you got some cinnamon.

I get a lot of caramel. I don't know about cinnamon.

Oh, okay. That's not bad. I can do with a caramel beer.

Chocolate, too. I'm fine with that.

I would not say cinnamon at all.

Well, maybe it's usual.

I don't know what you're thinking. You've had this before, right?

Yeah, I think I have. Well, they change it every year, don't they?

No. No, they don't.

No, they don't? Sweetwater, don't they?

Not that I know of. It's always the same to me.

I have had some festive ales. I don't want to blame Sweetwater.

I think they would have had cinnamon.

One of them I remember being brewed with orange something and nutmeg.

That I thought was horrible.

Maybe that was a variation.

Since then, I don't know if it was Sweetwater.

I don't want to blame those guys.

Since then, I tend to shy away from it unless I know exactly what I'm getting on those guys.

Or unless I can read the description.

Good beer for a cold night.

So, I'm drinking another Atlanta beer, New Realm.

Now, I remember you drank a New Realm, but I think it was the Hot Topia or something.

I don't know if it was the last podcast.

I don't think it was during the movie podcast.

The past is a blur. I have no idea.

Yeah, I think it was like podcast 12.

This is the New Realm Quadruple Threat.

Is it a quad?

It is a quad.

I love a quad.

It is a 10% quad.

And I'm going to tell you right now, it is pretty solid.

Yeah, it tastes very imperial.

Yeah, very hoppy.

That was not exactly a ringing endorsement.

No, I mean it was solid.

Okay.

It's beer.

Yeah, it was good.

Anytime I'm drinking a quad or something, I expect a big hit of hops.

And I didn't get that with this.

I'm not saying it's bad.

I mean, it actually tastes pretty good.

But, yeah.

What is the beer called?

I'll let you know as the podcast goes on how it feels.

New Realm.

Yeah, New Realm Quadruple Threat.

It only comes in, I think, their 12-pack mixed cases.

Oh.

I hate that.

Well, they've got to sell some beer, John.

They've got to make some money.

I know.

Okay.

So, you read, and I read.

Age of Republic, Anakin Skywalker, before we did The Clone Wars movie.

And you distinctly got on the phone with me, or distinctly,

immediately got on the phone with me and were like, hey, hey, hey.

It actually wasn't a phone, it was a Discord message.

But you said, hey, we can't talk about this because this happens after Attack of the Clones.

I'm extremely glad you did that because I had not read this comic.

Yes, it is way, I almost would say so.

If you look at the chronological order, this puts it at 22 BBY.

I feel like this is in the middle of The Clone Wars, maybe.

I couldn't find any reference to an exact year or anything like the battle or anything.

So I think maybe people may have just said it's 22 BBY because it happened

after The Clone Wars, for sure, but not maybe before any of this other stuff

that we're about to get into.

So it was a good comic.

I just felt like Anakin had grown a pretty good bit

as a maybe tactician in this, to where he

he wasn't, you know, being brought over to a darker point yet.

However, he also was trying to look for the brighter side of things, I think.

I know I had to take issue with that.

You think he's showing his skills as a tactician in this?

Quite the opposite.

Well, that's one of the major points is he does what is tactically stupid.

You mean in the in the original dogfight?

He's doing pretty well.

I mean, I don't know.

When he decides to just go by himself

and possibly ruin the element of surprise on the attack.

OK, OK.

OK, I see what you're saying.

So you're saying just going you're saying he makes that or the admiral.

Sorry, the admiral explicitly makes that point.

Admiral Ularan, who had not heard of either.

That was that was the first.

And maybe we'll get to learn more about him later on.

So for those that don't know, just a really quick summary of this comic.

Basically, Admiral Ularan

commands Anakin to pretty much destroy the droid factory.

And Anakin senses that something's not right.

He visits this factory.

The factory is actually a bunch of slaves

that the droids have put the native population to work pretty much.

And he knows that destroying this factory or nuking it from orbit

would kill all these people, which not only would kill the droids,

but also may give

the Federation Army a little bit of

a little bit of example to show, hey, look, you have propaganda.

Yeah, propaganda.

You know, these guys are killing these guys.

Just a little bit of a trap there.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, it still shows that he has good Jedi traits at heart.

I mean, when he's sitting there talking,

of course, I'm one.

Yeah. What he's talking with Obi-Wan, he's sitting there saying,

no, I can't let this happen.

You know, there's innocent people down there.

I know war gets ugly.

And I think even Admiral Ularan says that at one point, he's like,

there's going to be some ugly parts of this war.

But still, I don't know.

I felt like he was he was still on a

there was no giving up anything with him.

He was either going to do this or he wasn't.

He decided to do it and he fell through with it.

So but you're saying that you're saying that he was a terrible

tactical mistake because he. Yes.

Almost gets everything blown up, including himself.

Yeah, well, it's it's an interesting story because he does

the thing that is tactically stupid.

And yet, as it turns out to kind of leap forward a little bit,

their intelligence was horrible.

It was awful, terribly wrong.

The intelligence was all totally wrong.

And if they had gone forward with the attack, as you said,

they would have given this propaganda opportunity to the enemy.

So all he had to do was fly in by himself and see,

OK, there's really nobody here is being untactical to a point

where you're correct, actually tactical.

Like, what's that?

You're still stupid.

No, no, it was a bad idea.

OK, well, I OK, unless he knows that their intelligence can be that off.

And maybe maybe there's some experience.

Yeah, that's true. That's that's actually a good point.

Yeah. And they don't in the comic doesn't touch on that at all.

It's yeah, he he he believes that what the admiral is saying,

he understands what the admiral say.

Maybe that's best way to say it.

Mm hmm.

And he's going to say, I can't do this.

Yeah, he wants to save people, which is which even at the end of attack

of the clones, I kind of felt like maybe he was starting to get a little bit

to where he didn't want to. But I don't know.

I should I should have mentioned this was this comic came out in

February of 2019 against Jody Houser.

Jody Houser has been writing pretty much all the Edge Republic.

So we like them all. We've I think we've talked about.

All but two of the age republics, I think we get Grievous coming up still.

But we've enjoyed these comics.

I think they're good one offs again. Hard to tell a story when issue.

I don't know. This this was a mediocre comic for me.

Yeah, mediocre. Yeah, it's a little window into a moment of time.

You get a little bit of character development

and it's up to us to decide whether it makes sense

in what we know is the arc of the character.

I think that you could debate that here.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's debatable.

Like like this is the point.

This is the point in The Clone Wars or during The Clone Wars

where we start to see him not caring as much about the Jedi Order.

And well, I don't know. I take that back.

This is a little bit of rebellion.

This is a little bit of a Qui-Gon Jinn in there.

It's a it's a rebellion in the.

The well established, I don't care what you say, I'm going to do what I think is the right thing.

Which is what a lot of Jedi do.

Yeah.

It seems.

Yeah.

Like where you're live or else.

I'm just kidding.

I had to bring him up.

He has to make an appearance at every single podcast.

Does he really?

He does.

For now, for the rest of the time, we're going to hear about Mr. Cowboy Jedi guy.

So, yeah, the drawings are pretty good.

I felt like the story continued, continued the, I felt like the story continued the high expectations of the art.

I thought the art was pretty good.

I really enjoyed seeing the starships.

We hadn't seen that many starships in these comics.

We saw Qui-Gon Jinn fly off to Tree World in a Jedi starfighter.

But other than that, we really haven't seen any space battles in the comics up until now for Age of the Republic series.

So I really enjoyed that part.

I don't know.

I'm going to give this comic like out of 100.

I should ask you this at the beginning.

It just occurred to me.

You didn't ask me the number question.

I forgot.

I forgot to ask you.

I was ready for it this time.

I know.

That's the best part is you're never ready for it and then finally, you know, when you are.

Exactly.

I'm going to give this one like a 70.

Are you going that high?

A 70.

Not like I thought you were waiting.

Oh, 70.

Yeah, 70.

70.

That's pretty harsh.

That's pretty.

It is.

It is.

Okay.

Wow.

I'm going to give it a better grade than that.

I think it was pretty good.

And so I want to say somewhere in the 80s.

I'm trying to decide if it's low 80s or mid 80s.

So are you sure you didn't love this novel?

I mean, this comic.

You sure you didn't love the story?

You're good in the high 80s.

Let me tell you why.

No, he does a stupid thing.

It's fine for characters to do, you know, make stupid choices.

That actually is usually interesting.

But I just took issue when you said he's showing his skills as a tactician.

One of the reasons I give this story pretty high marks is if you go to the page where he and Obi-Wan are having dinner, whatever it is.

Yeah, they're eating.

Oh, dinner.

This is dinner.

Yeah.

So it turns out that I didn't know this.

The Jedi eat cornbread.

Yeah, why wouldn't they?

Why wouldn't they eat cornbread?

Yeah, I'm sure it was probably cornbread and collards, wasn't it?

No, it was just cornbread.

I'd say that two nights ago.

Yeah, put some butter on it and collard greens and a piece of ham and you're good to go.

I don't know why that would be so surprising.

Why would I be surprised that the Jedi eat cornbread?

It's a galaxy far, far away, but yet they probably have some different breads.

They've got corn.

Yeah, they've got corn.

It's funny you say cornbread specifically.

That's cornbread.

It is kind of weird that it's maize.

I mean, it is literally corn.

And it's like, okay, well, where does that corn come from?

Where are you growing that from?

Where did you get that original seeds from?

Force corn.

Force corn.

There's always one Jedi with a weird superpower and it's his force of corn.

He vomits corn kernels.

That's all he does.

They keep him high in the castle.

They don't talk about him.

Henry the Corn Barfer.

Okay, so, yeah, it's a 70.

It's a 70.

I love Jodie Eilers.

That's harsh.

I'm sorry.

No, it's not that harsh.

That's pretty darn low.

He's done amazing work on the series.

I just think this story is a little bit off or bland.

I don't know.

Well, it is very simple.

Again, it's a little window.

You're supposed to see him make this choice to choose to save people and possibly ruin the mission and get more people killed, right?

Yeah.

But he's really risking himself.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

He's only risking himself because they're going to get nuke from orbit anyways, right?

That's not the point the Admiral makes.

It is if you blow this and try to evacuate people, then more of our people will die.

That's what he says.

So I take him at his word.

Okay.

Interesting.

Who am I to make the choice?

No, who am I to second guess what the Admiral is telling me?

What is up with all these young kids suddenly becoming generals?

So from the Jedi point of view, or are you just talking about the Admiral and this guy?

No, the Admiral is the Admiral.

He's got a mustache.

That is a seasoned soldier.

Oh, okay.

That is agreed.

You've seen some sh** when you have that little bitty brow.

Don't question the staff, Ken.

Or you've been in some movies.

So you mean the Jedi being generals?

Yeah.

Why are they just being a general?

I think when we get to The Clone Wars episodes, and that's why, again, I think this comic feels maybe a little out of place coming right after Attack of the Clones.

But, yeah, you can just get a generalship.

If you're a Jedi, you get a generalship.

I mean, is it like in the old South where if you were a lawyer, you were automatically a colonel?

I don't know.

That was your honorary rank.

Well, I was I was thinking more along the lines of like,

I think that if you go into the army

and you have an Eagle Scout from Boy Scouts,

you automatically like jump a rank or something.

But the Jedi Eagle Scouts,

they're Eagle Scouts with laser swords.

And that's and that's that's that's I mean, they all just get it.

I mean, I'm pretty sure and I don't know

because I have not watched all The Clone Wars

and I'm excited about watching them coming up.

But I believe that every Jedi

that leads any type of section of the troops,

the clone troopers is a is a general.

I think they all become generals, if I remember right.

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

We'll discover that as we as we go.

But. I'd have to understand more about that.

I can understand that.

I can maybe and maybe we will.

And again and again, maybe this is maybe this is maybe a little too early

that we should be reading this and we can discuss that, you know, being 22 BBY.

But yeah, and maybe that does get into.

You know, in the beginning of The Clone Wars episodes,

they explain that and explain why.

OK. Still a kid, general kid.

Yeah. Think about Liam. Liam's going to be a general.

Lee. Liam.

Yeah, the shades guy from the.

Technical.

Liam, get the shades.

Yeah, generally.

And he's going to be running people in the walls and doing his own thing.

And that's the way Liam rolls.

All right. Let's get out of the Mace.

We do. This is this is one that I really like to.

Wait, we're just leaving it like that.

We're leaving it like that. That's it. Yeah, we're leaving it.

Did you have any more you want to talk about on the comic?

I just I did look at my notes because I had a feeling

you were about to ditch this thing because you hate it so much.

I don't hate it. I just gave it a 70 a 70s like a D or C.

No, I don't know. Whatever.

That's close to fairly great.

It's close, but it's not.

I have in my notes here that where they talk about the Jedi

being emotional and.

Are they supposed to avoid emotions?

They are, and I missed that part.

You remember what page that was on?

No, I don't. It's in my notes. I don't know where it is.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm staring right at it.

It's it's the it's where the admiral says, you know,

talking to Anakin.

Anakin says they aren't soldiers, they're workers.

Can't just go and kill them.

He says an emotional approach, but not a tactical one.

Man, just you just you just rebutted two arguments

with reading that one bubble, my tactical argument.

Yeah. And then and then the Jedi's emotional argument.

Yeah. The Jedi can't be ambushed.

That's good. That was a good

I mean, to say they're the Jedi, the Jedi, right?

Reach out with your feelings.

How is that not you're supposed to be emotional?

Well, wait, wait, wait, wait.

So do they preach not to have feelings

or do they preach not to be emotional attachment to other people?

It's it's really both.

They're they're supposed to feel The Force and feel their way

through or through the universe. Sorry.

And yet at the same time.

Don't feel bad thoughts.

Don't feel anger, don't feel hate.

So you just really need to be emotionally in a good state.

You need to be high.

I mean, pretty I mean, that's what they're trying to get at.

Is you need to be buzzed off off your own work.

High on life. That's right.

Not worried about anybody else.

I mean, you that the feeling of The Force, the light side of The Force

anyway, is literally, as we saw with Qui-Gon, getting high on life.

Yeah, because life generates The Force.

Interesting.

Interesting development. I yeah.

With that said, I don't have a rebuttal of that.

I mean, it does sound like that.

I feel like there's a lot more intricacies to it.

They will probably learn coming up.

But that's your apprentice.

Toss a good deal that Claudia Gray book about attachment, though,

because I mean, you know, you can tell definitely that Qui-Gon

Jenin and them and Rey Laveros learned a lot under Doku

and that they were attached emotionally.

You know what I mean?

So you can preach all day, don't have emotional attachments,

but you definitely foster that with a Master and Apprentice relationship.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

And I will, I think, always look back on the fact that that book started.

That was Episode one, right?

That was our first episode of this podcast.

That was we really could not.

I think we've said this before.

We could not have asked for a better kickoff.

I totally agree.

And to this point, it's, in my opinion, the best book we've read so far.

And I wonder how long that streak's going to happen because because that was exactly

that was a great book.

Do you know, are there other books by that author?

Yes. Yes, there are. OK.

Well, yes. And and and

at the end of the podcast, I'm going to spring his present.

So we'll get to that.

OK, are we ready to move on from this?

This issue?

Fine. You hated it. I got it.

Moving on now.

It's a 70, John. It's a 70.

It's trash, you know. Yeah.

So Mace Windu, Mace Windu, Jeddah, the Republic series.

This was written by Matt Owens.

It was drawn by Cameron Salazar.

It was five issues and came out in 2017.

I have read this series.

us doing the podcast and I really enjoy the series. Me and

you read issue one this podcast and we're gonna review the last

four issues on the next podcast. What did you think of? I'm not

I'm not asking you for a number. But I'm going to ask you for a

number one through 100. What do you got?

Mace Windu just off the first off the first issue. Yeah, off

the first issue. It's not gonna which is good. You know, you

know, what's really bothering me more than anything else. I

want to get past it. The art sucks. I like the art. I mean,

to the back. They're drawn. There's some panels, they're

drawn differently from one panel to the next. They never look the

same. But you're gonna have to get used to that with the

comics. No, you can't. Everybody draws the same. There's no art

to it.

What is it? No, I'm not criticizing like without a

moot like Samuel L. Jackson. That is not my criticism. Just it

should be a character. He's not a shape shifter. He's on one set

of panels. 123456. He appears seven times he has seven seven

different looks.

Oh, you're saying that there's not a consistency.

It's totally horribly inconsistent. That's what's

bothering me.

I didn't I didn't catch on to that. I can be convinced of that

though. There are there's there is one panel on I think it's

page six or seven that Yoda is in the middle of it.

Yeah, he looks like crap. Yeah, that's that that yo I don't like

the way Yoda is the the artistic impression of Yoda in this comic.

But I don't necessarily paint it either. I mean, I and that could

just be me reading comics for years to where I'm used to other

people drawing characters differently. And that's that

that that looks like Yoda as like an idiot Bouncer at a bar.

He does. He does. He looks like he's guarding the door. He's

like, you're not going in. And right above your girl could go

in. But you can't go in. See the panel above that he looks like

Yoda there. That's fine. But that's it. Anyways, my point is

this is just a complete lack of consistency. That just I can't

Oh, and what's her face the pink girl? What's her name again?

Pink girl.

You're talking about Risa Mono?

That one of the Jedi that goes down to the planet with him?

Risa Mono. Did you just say that? Risa Mono?

Yeah, Risa Mono. That's what I just said.

Okay. Yes. She has the same changeitis syndrome. She's

looks different from one panel to the next. I mean, terribly

just not even close.

Yeah, yeah, I'd say that there's part of that there. I agree with

that. So your problem, your problem with this is the art

though. The reason that you kind of grown whenever I asked you

about your score was the art.

Yes. As I said that that's what I'm having trouble getting

passed.

It's not really that bad. Is it? Is it really that bad to you?

Yeah, it is. I'm not kidding.

I'm trying to think about the comic series that we've read

thus far. We had Anakin and Obi Wan, which is very X-Men-ish

drawing. We've had all the Age of Republic series, which have

had different artists, but they've all had a pretty

consistent look to them.

Yeah, they have. This one, I'm telling you, it jumps out at me.

It bothers me.

Okay, that's interesting. It did not even catch my radar.

Yeah, not at all.

Some of us have higher standards.

Yeah, or some of us have read a lot of comic books and just kind

of accept the fact that it's going to change from panel to

panel, people.

Yeah, that's a little...

Look at what page am I on?

I want you to go to 18. Let's see here.

18. I can't remember her name again. Something mono.

Oh, Risa Mono.

Risa. Thank you. There are three panels. One, two, three. Three

different looks. She looks one way on the left. I don't know

what that is on the right, that she looks like the Joker.

One of my favorite panels is, you know that I'm a huge Kit

Fisto fan, right? We've talked about Kit Fisto.

Yes.

Do you mind jumping in?

I don't know why that name craps me up.

It does. Yeah, but that's the best part about it. Can you go

to page 11 for me? It shows Kit Fisto on the top left corner of

the page.

Yes.

I love the fact that Mace Windu's second text bubble

covers up the crotch of Kit Fisto's woman. I don't know why

I saw that, but I was just like, that's pretty good. That's a

good way to not show it, but yet Mace is still talking about how

BA he is.

Yeah, that's a good catch. I noticed what was going on in the

background, but I didn't think about the fact that the bubble

covers.

I will say also the bottom right panel of Risa Maso is a

little weird looking. The cheekbone structure.

Yeah, yet again.

Again, it does look a little odd. I'm not going to argue with

you there.

That face, that bone structure does not remotely match the one

I just pointed out on page 18.

Yeah, I agree with that.

She looks much more girlish. Like, I don't know, brown facey.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Maybe you're right. Maybe you should

expect a little bit more consistency within the same

comic book.

Consistency. I don't know who that is.

I don't know what Risa Mono is supposed to look like. That's not my criticism.

It's just make her look, make her a character.

Make her an insistent character.

That said, okay, let's put all of that aside.

Because that's probably to some people nitpicking on steroids.

Of course it is, but that's the podcast.

That's what we do here.

So the story, we're only in Episode one, issue one.

It's a good story.

It is a good story. I like the A-Team aspect of it.

Sure.

Assembling all these different Jedi.

You have Mace, Kit Fisto, Prasa Dibs, Risa Mono.

All of them are going on this mission together.

Which again is putting a lot of eggs in one basket again.

You know, during The Clone Wars.

So the first panel of course was the end of Geonosis.

So we're past Geonosis. We're now in The Clone Wars.

Yoda again knows that he's going to have to put people where he needs to put them.

As generals.

To lead these clone armies.

And putting four Jedi on a random planet was kind of weird to me.

Not weird to me, but just kind of like, what do you really think is going on here?

You don't really explain it that well that you want to send these people down there.

You gave them a mission, but why are you sending four really good Jedi down there?

You know what I mean?

That is odd. We've seen that happen so many times.

That's what the Jedi do. In fact, I think he says it at some point.

This is what we do. We're Jedi.

We've trained our whole lives to do this.

Yeah, I guess it's just putting a lot...

It just feels like the introduction of the story didn't feel like it needed four Jedi.

But Mace is just like, yeah, I'm taking Kid Fisto with me.

And then it's like the next panel, you're like, I'm taking Prostitubes with me.

I'm taking Bruce Amano with me.

That one page with the crew assembly is good.

I like that one page.

See, I like where they assemble the crew.

I kind of like that part of movies and stuff.

Oh, no, I completely agree.

Like I said, I enjoy the A-team aspect of this comic.

And it gets better as it goes along.

What do you think?

So you've only read the first issue.

I'm stuck on this A-team thing.

I want to know, is Kim Fisto the B.A. Baracus?

You got him a badass.

I mean, Mace is going to be the badass.

He's going to be the Baracus for sure.

Well, then what's Squid Boy? What is he?

Is he the crazy one?

Kid Fisto is... he could be wild card.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, he's sweat and naked in water.

I'm not going to sign them architects.

Architects. Damn it. Hold on.

Archetypes.

Yeah, sorry. Hold on.

Yeah, whose face? I guess she's face.

Yeah, I guess.

I can't think of the name of the crazy one.

What's the mechanic guy from the A-team?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Yeah, what's... oh, man.

It's on the tip of my tongue.

He was. He was. Oh, man.

Murdoch! Howling Mad Murdoch.

It's Murdoch.

And the cool thing about podcasting is that we did not edit out any time for us looking that up.

Nope, just came to me in a dream.

Like I came to you in a dream on a flaming pie.

His name's Murdoch.

Flaming pie.

Yeah, this is the people.

Then there's this other guy, right?

The blind, the blind jackass. The guy's a jerk.

Cross the dibs?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He is a little bit.

He's a jerk.

He is a little bit.

I mean, he can't see anybody, but yeah, he does.

He seems like a little bit of a jerk.

You're saying he's blind to how bad of a friend he's made.

Okay.

Hang on.

Yeah, it's a good issue of getting everybody together.

Okay, so the big finale page.

And of course, this is definitely a comic to hook you into this series to get you to all five issues.

Okay, I don't know if you really want to jump to the end like that.

Hold on.

Hold your horses here, Ted.

Okay, okay.

What you got?

I got issues.

I got things to discuss here.

First of all, when they land on the planet, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually, as they're landing on the planet, does the droid really say, it's beautiful here.

Too bad.

That is the droid talking, right?

Too bad I have no one to share it with.

The droid is saying this.

Yeah, there's a little bit of humor injected into the life of the story.

That's not humor.

That's stupid.

Well, wait, wait, wait, wait.

We just got over attacking the clones where, what is it?

C-3PO's head gets lobbed off and he's like, I'm beside myself.

Is this C-3PO?

Is that what we're saying?

This is C-3PO?

I'm just saying it's a tagging me.

It's the pair of crazies that you're supposed to be like, ha, ha, ha, that was pretty good.

That's just distracting and dumb.

I'm sorry.

It's beautiful here to have too bad I have no one to share it with.

And then they land.

I mean, it's like, oh, guess what?

It doesn't make any sense.

If anything, you're trying to make me think, oh, poor little battle droid.

Don't kill him.

Well, so I think he's giving us a little bit of description of the area.

Because we see in those panels, you know, those weird looking light glowy things.

You could have any one of the characters say that.

No, they're about to get off the ship.

They're not off the ship yet.

It's got to be something from this planet.

You got to establish that there are droids right where they're landing.

The droid can be standing there as a droid would saying nothing.

And why not throw a little humor into it?

That's not humorous is my point.

You laughed out loud at that.

For like an hour.

Your face is like a flower.

Who would he share it with?

Number one.

And number two, it's just kind of like, you know, he's got emotions.

Yep, nope, not buying it.

So anyway, then they land in the plane and she immediately puts on basically a red shirt.

Yeah, I agree with that.

That's just awful.

You're talking about...

I can't believe I'm on a mission with Master Windu himself.

Yeah, yeah.

You're gonna die, lady.

I'm not talking about this comic arc at all yet, but yeah, this is gonna be good.

I'm eager to see your last four issues.

I'm eager to see your issues with the last four issues.

Right.

So, wait, one more thing.

So, these are droids, right?

They're mechanical devices.

Yep.

Okay, so as soon as something happens, why wouldn't they like electronically notify HQ?

Yeah, that's a comic...

Conceit?

Yeah, conceit.

It's crap.

It's definitely conceit.

But I guess if they're busy pining for the Fjords, I guess they're too busy to pick up a radio.

Yeah, I mean, what are they even talking about?

They're like, oh, I hate patrol duty.

It's so boring.

Nothing ever happens, like right before they get chopped up.

Yes.

So, yeah, there's...

And one of them's got the radio.

They have a little radio thing on the back of the thing, so you're right.

They could totally call it in, but they kind of do.

No, he like flies physically.

He flies to the place to report.

Physically.

Yeah, but...

Because, you know, transmissions don't exist here.

He's got an antenna on his back.

I can see it.

So, wait, can we talk about the ending yet?

Sure, go ahead.

I'm ready.

So, you get, at the very end, the last splash page is you get WD-40, who is this like crazy...

He even sounds emotional.

So, it's actually ADW4.

I was going to say, not really WD-40.

I'm going with it, but...

No.

So, I called him WD-40 throughout the whole comic.

So, he's this like assassin droid that has, in some ways, some humor.

I don't want to get too much into it, because we're going to get into the second issue in the next episode.

But, if you want to start talking about human characteristics on droids now, just buckle up, John.

Buckle up.

Because ADW4 is going to be like...

It's a weird...

Yeah.

It's giving me that look.

I mean, the whole panel there, that last panel, where he's got the glowing eyes and the glowing chest eyes.

Yeah, very menacing looking.

He's crushing the thing.

You're making me like this comic less and less.

I don't want you to, because it's good.

Think about the droid, IG-88, or whatever his name was, in Mandalorian.

Yep.

That made perfect sense, how they did that.

Yeah, I agree.

He's a droid.

Yeah.

Like, his only mission...

So, you're going to see a little bit more emotion out of this droid.

Like, ID-88 was more like...

I don't know how to describe it.

Programmatic, logical, driven?

Yeah, I don't want to say logical, but yeah, programmatic is a way better word to say it.

ADW4 is like an assassin.

I don't know how to describe it.

I'm trying to think of something that we've seen up until now that would be on parody with him.

Because he is fully mechanical, correct?

He is not Cyborg.

So, I have not read this comic since it came out in 2017.

To the best of my memory, no, there is no human component to him.

He is an actual full robot.

He's got the robot name, so he's got to be a robot.

Well, I mean, he could have an ADW3 mom.

Who's just like, we'll call him Junior ADW4.

Yeah, but...

And a heart of gold.

A heart of gold he will have.

He will be a mercenary droid for hire that crushes robot souls.

Um, yeah, it's a good setup for the baddie.

And I like the fact that the last thing he says, or the last thing you see on that page is, credits.

Mm, okay. He's wrong, but alright.

He's a mercenary droid for hire.

No, I get his point. I'm not...

He is the embodiment of capitalism.

Oh my god.

He is ready to work.

Anything for money.

Anything for money.

Mm-hmm.

Anything for money.

He would sell ADW3, his own mother droid, for a buck.

It's all about the Benjamins, baby.

See, you're asking me to make some comments here based on one panel of a comic anyway.

You gotta wait, yeah, you gotta wait for the next war.

They end up landing on this planet.

There is a radio communication that gets back for all the other droids that are getting beat up and destroyed.

Yeah, I don't know.

One thing that I don't know if I liked about this comic was that it makes it seem like all the other robotic droids are of the same level of killability.

Is that the best way to describe it or say that word even?

I know what you're saying.

It just seems like they just chop through all of them.

There's nothing that presents...

I mean, they're Jedi.

I get it.

There's nothing that presents them any type of hindrance to get to wherever they're trying to get to.

But you look at some of the droids and some of these droids like in other Attack of the Clones and other comics and other movies have given them, given Jedi a lot of trouble.

You know what I mean?

And they're all just kind of like, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.

You know, it's not like a...

Even Prostitutes is like hopping through stuff and chopping things in half.

The basic battle droids, they cut through them like, I don't know what the word is, butter cockroaches or something.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Well, they bounce, they're bouncing lasers the whole time.

Right, right.

But even the bigger droids, like you get the super battle attack droids, you get the...

Man, and this is where I need to learn.

What?

The tripod guys.

I forget the names of them.

It says the name and it's a weird word.

Octopura or something.

Do they say it?

Yeah.

All right, I'll find it.

Hold on.

Okay.

Oh, Octopura.

Yeah, you're right.

They do.

Yeah.

Patrol Squadron, a few battle droids and an Octopura.

Sorry, I'm trying to read off my screen.

It's really hard.

Octoputara?

Maybe it's Octoputara.

It's not the word I thought it was when I first saw it and I had to stop and actually read it letter by letter, which always annoys me.

Yeah.

I agree with that, but we've seen this droid other places, so it's not like a new droid.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So it's the Octoputara.

The Octorotorota?

We got to come up with a joke name for this thing.

I'm going to zoom in on this.

Octoputara.

Octoputara.

That is a stupid word.

Octo...

I'm writing this down.

Octoputara.

Octoputara.

Yeah, I can't think of anything funny with this one.

I don't know what that's supposed to...

Is that a...

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm going to see if I can find the lineage to this word.

Was it made up for this issue?

I thought it was the droid from...

It's an attack droid.

Yeah, it's on Geonosis.

It is an attack droid that I know of.

I just don't know.

I just don't know if this is the first reference that I've ever seen of it being named.

I've never seen that name before.

I've never seen that word before.

I don't like it.

It would make me go away.

I would have definitely remembered it, I would think, just because it's such a kind of lame word, really.

I don't know.

It's...

And also, too, it doesn't have eight legs, right?

Like, I'm looking at it right now.

It's got four.

If it has eight legs, it's hiding a bunch of them.

Yeah, it's hiding a bunch.

So it's really like a quadtatarapara.

Parara.

A crocropadudubara.

Yeah, it should be quad.

I'm offended that they would add two times as many legs in the naming of it.

Maybe it started out with eight and then just shed them over its life or something.

You know, like a cricket or something.

But it's very weird.

It's one in an old age trying to crawl across the terrain.

He's just jumping up and down.

Same spot.

Can't move around.

Oh, like a pogo stick.

Oh, I like that much better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like unotatara.

They end up being unotataras whenever they get down.

Yeah, so I have a lot of things to discuss on the next four issues of this comic.

This comic, if I'm just grading comic one, 85 for me?

Yeah, I think it's an 85.

Just this first issue.

Just this first issue.

OK, sure, sure.

I think I had a number something like that until we started discussing it.

And now my number, you know what?

It's a 70.

Let's just say it's a 70.

Let's just say it's a 70 now.

Golly, is it?

Wait, is this is this more like a retribution against me or is this an actual judgment of the comic?

Let's go with yes.

OK, because it's just like if you would have said 71, I would have been like, wow, John's

rating is really low.

The art.

But using my own score against me is that's yeah, I get it.

A lot of the elements of the story are honestly crap.

Well, wait, OK, it's a setup.

It's a setup comic for the rest of the four in the series.

Again, he's got an antenna on his back and he physically flies all the way back to headquarters

to tell the guy, you know, we're getting slaughtered out there.

Maybe there's something to do with this planet.

We don't know.

We simply don't know.

Wait, did they say something about jam?

They did say something about jammers, didn't they?

They did.

But I don't remember whether it was a hold on.

Look, that's when they were coming in on the planet.

And she said, I'm going to like do your favor because I like you.

I'm going to jam stuff.

She does jam it.

You're right. Look at this.

I'll be buggered.

OK, you have been railing against Risa Mono this entire podcast saying the rudest things

about her and about her looks.

And then now you're going to be like, oh, wait a minute.

The thing I was wrong about was I was actually or the thing I was.

and something.

that your whole from

you're probably staring at kid Fisto's underwater manhood surrounded by bubbles

and you just forgot you know let's get this to understand so you're really

giving a 70 is the first issue that low wait wait wait wait now now we're in the

70s somewhere that there's a big tranche come up where you got is I enjoyed

Anakin so much more than this one maybe that will change by the time we see the

rest of them but that surprises me that surprises me well of course it would

because you thought Anakin sucked well I'm just not yeah that was a nice little

tight little story it is and this is and this has got and this has got five

issues so you got to have a setup and you've got to have a finale in my

opinion you have to have a setup issue a finale issue and then three you know

just really good story issues so okay somebody so my last question about this

comic book and I mean this because I do it all the time that I've been really

trying to make sure that I understand when I do it and why I do it did you

read Mace Windu's captions and Samuel Jackson's voice honestly at the very

first reading did you read it in his voice no no I didn't okay interesting

okay oh I did not know I I do I literally read it in his voice and and

also there's a little bit of G there's a little bit of James Earl Jones too when

we get the Vader comics like I would read it in his voice like I would hear

the sounds of his voice whenever I read stuff and I think that's that's a really

good actor that's either an actor that I've attached myself to subconsciously

or something but I always find myself doing it and I definitely did it with

this comic read through and I bet that I probably did it 2017 too I just didn't

realize at the time no I would have to work to make his voice Jackson's voice

like you wouldn't just read it subconsciously I'm just reading it it

doesn't really have much of a defined voice in my head yeah it but what's I

think what's interesting to me is maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi I would do that with but

I can't think of anybody else that I would do yeah Obi-Wan yeah yeah I do

yeah yeah I could see myself and I haven't noticed myself doing it but I

could definitely see that happen but other than that Anakin wouldn't Padme

wouldn't none of the characters up until now what I read you know except for

Rey Laverosse but other than that there's nobody else and actually you

know we've never actually I'm only saying Rey Laverosse's voice from the

audiobooks for Master and Apprentice the wrong voice yes we know and and so

that's that's the one that I do read his whatever he does I give it more just a

southern drawl than anything I don't know if it's based on a specific

character or not Qui-Gon maybe you know maybe a little bit of Liam Neeson in there

yeah yeah that's very distinctive Obi-Wan's very distinctive yeah Obi-Wan

for sure that's that's definitely one that I'm gonna try to catch myself the

next time we read a comic which I didn't really care in Master and Anakin

Skywalker so that's what happens so thanks for joining us on episode 14 of

the Ultimate Persons podcast we're gonna be finishing up the Mace Windu series

the last four books of the Mace Windu series and then we are off to the races

on The Clone Wars like we start Clone Wars in earnest I think we have four

episodes and then the movie we'll probably go about two or three a week I

think that's probably a pretty good amount that we can talk about I think

until then stay safe and thanks for listening this is the 11 parsecs podcast

episode 14 if you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to subscribe and

leave us a good review and be sure to check us out at 11 parsecs

com and discord I'm Jonathan Smith with the consistently shaped Eric Thompson

thank you for joining us