One of the major recurring threats in Lucasfilm Publishing’s ambitious multi-platform initiative Star Wars: The High Republic has been referred to as the Nameless (AKA the Leveler)– a creature that can basically eat the Force, reducing Force-sensitive opponents such as the Jedi to husks of ash upon encountering them.
And now, in Dark Horse Comics’ new miniseries Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures – The Nameless Terror, the Leveler gets the spotlight as a Pathfinder team finds itself stranded on a hostile world with a number of enemies.
Interestingly, The Nameless Terror #1 actually begins in the era of The High Republic’s first phase (set a couple hundred years before the events of the Skywalker Saga) and catches us up with monster hunter– and former Jedi– Ty Yorrick from 2021’s The Monster of Temple Peak, along with her persnickety protocol droid KL-03. We then flash back to even further in the timeline, during the period of Phase II, as Yorrick recounts a story she heard from her old master about the above-mentioned Pathfinders. Traveling through uncharted territory, the team discovers a ship in distress and attempts to help, but that ship then immediately attacks them without call. The confrontation results in both vessels crashing onto the surface of a nearby planet, where the Pathfinders must care for the injured among them while investigating what exactly caused the scuffle in the first place. Little do they know that outside of the enemy’s derelict ship, a brightly colored egg has hatched and… well you can probably guess where this is going from here. The book quickly evolves into a Star Wars take on Ridley Scott’s now-classic 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, with the Pathfinders scrambling to make sense of what’s happening while being attacked from two fronts– and those who are caught up with recent The High Republic output like the novel Path of Deceit and the audio drama The Battle of Jedha can likely guess which faction was occupying the ship containing the eggs.
Writer George Mann (Star Wars: The High Republic – Quest for the Hidden City) has done a really terrific job in carrying over some of the characters and themes he’s helped create in other areas of The High Republic, while building upon those invented by his friend Cavan Scott and the story architects behind this project. Meanwhile, artist Eduardo Mello (Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories) is making a splash as a newcomer to the franchise, delivering kinetic and compelling panels of action and character beats, accentuated skillfully by colorist Ornella Savarese. I love that this miniseries is connecting the dots between Phases I and II via Ty Yorrick’s involvement, and I’m definitely chomping at the bit to spend more time with the Nameless– I just hope the Jedi are able to deduce more about the creature’s origins and its connection to the Force cult called the Path of the Open Hand before this four-issue adventure comes to an end. I think it might feel unnecessarily tragic if this story concludes with the Jedi at hand all meeting the usual Leveler fate without having derived any additional, hopefully useful information from the experience. But either way, I’ve begun to develop enough faith in Mann (like Scott before him) to follow through on keeping things interesting and worth the investment, at the very least.
Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures – The Nameless Terror #1 is available now wherever comic books are sold.