Star Wars: Jedi Knights #2 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS No. 2, June 2025

Rather cleverly throwing his audience straight in at the deep-end of this comic’s storyline by utilising its opening scrawl to quickly establish a sense-shattering scene, Marc Guggenheim’s penmanship for Issue Two of “Star Wars: Jedi Knights” certainly imbues the twenty-page periodical with a pulse-pounding pace. In fact, even when the American television producer does decide to step away from the action and flashback to Yoda and Vetna Mooncrest's first steps upon “the remote moon of Veeros”, the diplomatic pleasantries with the majordomo droid Blue-Tark are politely short and succinct; “Thank you for your gracious hospitality. Extend our gratitude, please, to Atha Prime."

Of course, most of the readers’ attention will probably be focused upon the diminutive legendary Jedi Grand Master actually being 'out in the field’ fighting off a horde of seriously-fanged extra-terrestrials. Impressively demonstrating that numbers “matter not” before leaping off for a one-on-one duel with this ongoing series’ leading antagonist, it is hard to take your eyes off of the green-skinned leader of the Jedi Order. However, his female human companion is also very well written, displaying plenty of wit when her comrade-in-arms leaves her alone to face a ton of murderous Xerexi, as well as vulnerability due to her congenital condition’s implants being susceptible to the local radiation.

Similarly as successful as the heroes though, has to be the New York City-born author’s use of “a never-released Kenner action figure.” Atha Prime genuinely comes across as a terrifyingly mad, homicidal maniac, who whilst not up to the Dark Lord of the Sith’s standard, still manages to dominant all of the set-pieces in which he appears. Indeed, desperate to transform the galaxy in his own image by using his deadly creations to cut away its ills, the character appears to have been cut from a similar cloth to that of David 8 – the dangerous android seen in Ridley Scott’s 2012 science fiction film “Prometheus”.

Finally, a huge amount of praise should be heaped upon the shoulders of Madibek Musabekov and color artist Luis Guerrero for bringing this “strange, fantastic and mysterious world” to incredible life. The sense of so many vicious killers encircling this publication’s Jedi is truly palpable, as are the blows poor Yoda suffers at the hands of a clearly formidably trained Atha Prime.

The regular cover art of "STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS" #2 by Rahzzah