Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #20 Review *FINAL ISSUE*

by Henry Wood

Written by Daniel José Older

Illustrated by Harvey Tolibao - Colored by Michael Atiyeh

Lettered by Tyler Smith & Jimmy Betancourt

Edited by Spencer Cushing, Joe Cavanagh, Grace Orriss & Robert Simpson

“Every new beginning comes from another beginning’s end.” – Lusius Annaeus Seneca

The Battle of Eriadu is over. The Nihil are defeated. The Galaxy has been saved. Victory is bittersweet. Now it is time for the Jedi to mourn their losses, celebrate their victories and move on to the rest of their lives. It’s a celebration of the series and the characters who starred in it.

This is the epilogue to one of my favorite series from the entire Star Wars: The High Republic initiative, and this, as said above, is a celebration of that series. We get touching moments and flashbacks for several characters, chronicling their trials and triumphs. We see what Zeen and Lula went through to come together and get married, how Ram has grown up through the Nihil crisis, and how Sav blossomed from a child seeking adventure to an adventurer herself. But more than that, it is also a new beginning.

For his part, Harvey Tolibao does a great job of blending the panels together and having the flashbacks slightly greyed out and placed behind the characters who are having these flashbacks. It gives the story that much more personality and enhances the story that Older has written here.

It is a largely silent issue, with a speech at the beginning, and a song carrying through the flashbacks of different characters’ memories. The central theme of this entire book has been watching these padawans grow up, whether in the present timeline, or in Phase II, a century and a half before. We see the padawans embrace their former teachers, both still here and passed on. It is a touching message for a series geared towards younger readers, and Older and co. have done a tremendous job guiding younger readers through it. And because of that, this feels like a graduation for characters like Lula and Ram. 

It is also a new beginning for them. The door remains open for these characters to return and that might be the best part about this finale: there are more stories that can always be told if somebody wants to.

So, as we say goodbye to this era, it’s important to remember that we can (and will) always return to it!