The Clone Wars #6 Slaves of the Republic Chapter 6: Escape From Kadavo Script: Henry Gilroy Pencilling: Scott Hepburn Inking: Dan Parsons Coloring: Michael E. Wiggam Lettering: Michael Heisler Cover: Le Tang Released: 05/13/2009 Reviewed by: JF Boivin (10/09/2009) SUMMARY: Anakin and Ahsoka arrive to the planet Kadavo to rescue the Togruta slaves. But the Republic fleet is soon attacked by Separatist forces who send Ventress to destroy the slave facility. Obi-Wan and Rex manage to free themselves in time to meet with Anakin, and they all fight off Ventress with help from Republic reinforcements. Once the Separatists leave the system, the Republic free all the slaves and return them to their homeworld of Kiros.

[final cover] [preview cover]

THE STORY

In the slave labor camp of Kadavo, Togruta slaves owned by the Zygerrian guild are manually turning a giant wheel that controls the atmosphere filtration system. Obi-Wan and Rex are among them, and when they hear one slave complaining that they lost everything including their home it gives Obi-Wan an idea on how to start a rebellion. He reveals to the ones within earshot that their homeworld of Kiros has been liberated from the Separatists (that was issue #1) giving them hope and purpose. But that also makes them work harder, and this is soon noticed by the Zygerrian keeper who calls in Obi-Wan and Rex to the control tower since the Jedi is the only one who could have started this (he must be smarter than he looks to be able to deduce all this).

Last issue, Anakin and Ashoka were fleeing from Dooku and Ventress aboard Ventress' own ship having just learned the location of the slaves from the dying Zygerian queen. This issue must be like an episode of the TV show, skipping some details to speed up the story because at this point Anakin arrives in a Zygerrian transport and is backed up by a fleet of Republic ships. He and Ahsoka quickly start working on the blast door to the control tower, despite the Keeper threatening to drop the slaves into lava. Then the Separatist fleet, led by General Grievous, arrives and engages the Republic ships. As ordered by Dooku last issue, Grievous is here to remove all Separatist ties to the slave guild by destroying the labor colony. Ventress is with them, and now flying a different starfighter she flies to the surface with some droid bombers to carry on the mission.

At first, the Zygerrian keeper thinks the Separatists have sent reinforcements, but he quickly realizes their true intentions when the start shooting the tower. Rex and Obi-Wan (finally) attack the guards and break free from their bonds and go meet with Anakin outside who has been commanding clone troopers to destroy the bombers. Ventress learns from Grievous that more Republic ships arrived and that the General is retreating, leaving her stranded on the planet. So after the Jedi and Rex rescued the slaves from the crubling tower, Ventress attacks their transport. They have trouble holding her off, but when Master Plo Koon arrives with more Republic fighters they manage to drive her off.

Four days later, the Republic manages to load all the slaves and return them to their home on Kiros. Yoda offers Governor Roshti to leave a clone garrison to protect the colony from further attacks, but the Togruta says that his people will instead abandon their peaceful ways and learn how to fight. Meanwhile, Ahsoka discusses with her Master something that has been bothering her, about the Zygerrian queen accusing the Jedi of beings slaves of the Republic and fighting their wars for them. But Anakin says the difference is that the Jedi did it by choice, unlike slaves who are captured against their will. They then vow to end all slavery after the Clone Wars are over. We all know that will never happen, but at that moment Master and Padawan have a rare bonding moment.

While this story has been dragging on, it gets resolved pretty quickly. There's a lot of shifting of who has the upper hand (the Zygerrians, then the Republic arrives, then the Separatists, then more Republic) and Obi-Wan basically saves himself without Anakin's help, but all the story elements and plot points are resolved quite satisfactorily. It's too bad that the story was not that great to begin with. The whole outcome is that Obi-Wan now understands what Anakin went through as a slave and that's supposed to tighten their bond a bit further. But they were both portrayed as pretty weak throughout the series, and mostly out-of-character. I'm glad this is over and now we can move on to another, hopefully better, story.

THE ART

Hepburn's style is not quite up to par with the cartoon show, but he does his best to match it. And this creates sometimes weird facial expressions. The dogfight between the V-19 Torrent fighters of Shadow Squadron and Vulture Droids is pretty intense but too short, as is Grievous' involvment. I just find weird that in the Zygerrian keeper's control chamber on page three, all the monitor screens show exact scenes from the previous two pages! No wonder he suspects Obi-Wan of planting a rebellious seed if he's been following the same story we have. Overall, I think the artwork is average, the coloring is amazing, and the cover is pretty awful.

CONCLUSIONS

The first story arc is now resolved. See how the Jedi manage to free the slaves!

Rating: 6.5 / 10