It's really, really hard to say. The High Republic doesn't have convenient measuring sticks like Asajj Ventress, Count Dooku, or General Grievous who have fought almost every prominent character of the era. Right now, duels have been very few and far between.
Elzar Mann, at least, seems pretty powerful. At one point when he gave into the dark side briefly, he threw an entire floating island with the Force. And Ty Yorrick has admitted she basically couldn't hope to beat Elzar Mann, even when he was at his worst (toward the end of The Rising Storm). Ty Yorrick was able to go toe-to-toe with Stellan Gios, a member of the Jedi Council. However, it's also worth noting that during the same fight when Ty Yorrick dueled Gios earlier in the book, Yorrick also nearly bested Elzar. The fight ended with all their lightsabers being disabled by effectively an EMP though, and Elzar used the Force to pin Yorrick to a wall.
Also, while Stellan Gios is a Council member, and has a passion for studying and teaching lightsaber combat, he's not necessarily the most capable Jedi. He's basically the poster-boy of the Jedi Council, but Ty Yorrick managed to headbutt him on the nose during their duel, effectively taking him out of the fight, he lost to his own Padawan in a sparring session when they first met, and during a demonstration of lightsaber combat in front of a journalist, the journalist noticed the other Jedi Master basically let Stellan Gios win. Nothing implies he's a particularly skilled or powerful Jedi. He basically achieved his position through force of personality.
Avar Kriss is the last of the "Big Three," alongside Stellan and Elzar. Power-wise, I'd say she's basically the Bastila of her era. She's capable of creating a "harmony" between all the Jedi in the area, allowing for near instant communication of emotion and ideas through the Force over the scale of an entire star system. Not quite battle meditation, but the coordination her ability allows is pretty dang impressive, even by Legends standards. She's capable enough as a combatant, though honestly most of her fighting is done off-screen, so to speak. She's mostly hype right now, though I suspect the next couple comic issues are going to give her some nice feats.
Another really powerful Jedi Master would be Porter Engle, The Blade of Bardotta. Despite his age, he's got some pretty serious speed feats, precision blaster bolt reflection feats, has taken out entire Nihil strike teams single-handed (something that even other "great" Jedi of the era such as Loden Greastorm were incapable of), and he's even been compared to Yoda by at least one character, iirc. He's probably the most skilled of all the new characters introduced.
There have also been a couple really capable Padawans and Knights introduced in the era as well. Vernestra Rwoh achieved the rank of Knight at the incredibly young age of 14, and is basically described as a prodigy by most Jedi, and she's shown pretty impressive skill with the lightwhip, as well as ingenuity and resourcefulness with the Force. Keeve Trennis, the main Jedi Knight of Marvel's The High Republic comic, is probably more skilled and powerful than her former master, Sskeer (though he's currently dealing with a degenerative brain disorder common to Trandoshans. Basically a more violent version of Alzheimer's for lizard people).
As for Padawans, Qort's species is apparently insanely strong, fast, and durable, and he has some pretty impressive showings against the Nihil. In one of the most recent issues, he was literally leaping from one Nihil ship to the next, taking an entire squadron out single-handed. Lula Talisola, one of the main characters of The High Republic Adventures, is described as the top of her class in all subjects. Skill with the Force, skill with the lightsaber, ect, which puts her above Qort (who is one of her direct peers).
In general, I'd say the Jedi Order of the High Republic is about on par with the Jedi Order of The Phantom Menace, but I can't say with confidence that it's equivalent to the more militaristic Jedi Order of the Clone Wars. Some individual Jedi such as Porter Engle and Elzar Mann, however, I can picture contending with the likes of (canon) Adi Gallia, Depa Billaba, or other low-to-mid tier Council members. Especially as the High Republic goes on and these Jedi get more feats to their names.
It's almost a shame that Phase II of The High Republic is moving back another 150 years in the timeline, putting it about 382 BBY, so most of the characters we've gotten to know in The High Republic won't be around yet in Phase II.
No problem. I've really been enjoying The High Republic so far. Thinking of actually doing some respect threads once I get all my books back out of storage. Been busy moving for the past month, so I haven't really had the opportunity lately.
That'd be much appreciated. I know nothing about all these Jedi, and didn't see many people commenting on them. Guess this new series of books wasn't quite appreciated by the public
I wouldn't say the new series isn't appreciated by the public. It's just targeting a different demographic. I know an absolute ton of people who are greatly enjoying The High Republic content so far (myself included), and it's been pretty critically acclaimed as well. There's just less to talk about as far as the versus community is concerned, since there's no way to really scale most of these characters to the eras we're familiar with, and combat between Force sensitives in this era is largely downplayed due to the conflicts not being between Jedi and Sith.
It's honestly really refreshing to see how a non-Force sensitive group like the Nihil is able to cause such strife for the Jedi, despite not being able to best the Jedi in head-to-head conflict. Their sheer lack of morality and willingness to go to any extreme really exemplifies them as a horrifying villainous force, that feels entirely different from any villains we've had in Star Wars before. It's not a rigidly fascist regime like the Empire or the First Order, nor is it the typical Sith hierarchy of rule by might.
The Nihil would mostly feel like typical marauders with some clever underhanded tricks, if it weren't for their leader, Marchion Ro. His maneuvering and manipulation is just as fun to see unfold as all of Palpatine's machinations. He's probably my favorite villain introduced to Star Wars since Disney purchased it. Definitely more engaging than Snoke or Moff Gideon, or any of the minor villains introduced in the mainline Star Wars comics.
Luke's chat with Elzar(or rather, the imprint of Elzar) was pretty insightful... And at the end, Luke was left with some sort of esoteric book that will presumably help him on his path.
The unfortunate part is that we likely won't get any sort of continuation for Luke's story until at least April, as the solicits for the next two issues are completely unrelated.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
I absolutely loved Luke's chat with Elzar. I knew Elzar would have some great insight to give, and I wasn't disappointed. As for the book, it's one of the sacred Jedi texts from The Last Jedi. It's identical to one of the unnamed props. Since it's one of the unnamed props, that rules out the two volumes of the Aionomicon, as well as the Rammahgon. So, in all likelihood, it's either Poetics of a Jedi or Chronicles of Brus-bu (two of the names we currently have for the sacred texts, but haven't been assigned to specific props from the movie yet). Either that, or we're about to get the name of one of the other sacred texts that we haven't gotten any detail on yet.
If it's Chronicles of Brus-bu, then Luke may learn about Force healing (it's the sacred text that Rey learned the ability from for The Rise of Skywalker). We don't really know what all is in Poetics of a Jedi, but I'd wager it's full of poetic retellings of ancient Jedi events. I guess if it's Poetics of a Jedi, it may give Luke some insight into how the Jedi used to operate. That could provide him with some greater insight into stuff like Jedi philosophy, and other things that Ben and Yoda didn't really tell Luke about being a Jedi. However, I don't see Poetics of a Jedi really doing much to improve his abilities as a fledgling Jedi.
I do have to agree with you about the next couple issues. The unfortunate thing about the mainline Star Wars comics has always been the need to split time between Luke's story and the story of the Rebellion as a whole. Luke's growth as a Jedi always seems to be independent of whatever the Rebellion is up to, and the two stories seldom come together to advance Luke's development and the growth of the Rebellion at the same time. This was true for the 2015 run, and it's held true to the 2020 run as well. Any time we get to explore Luke growing as a Jedi, it's always because he branched off on his own away from the Rebellion for a bit. And any time the events involving the Rebellion become the focus of the comic, Luke always becomes a relatively minor player in the story, just there to swing his lightsaber around a little bit.
At this point I'm really just curious what Luke's "breakthrough" will be. Clearly something major is going to happen during his quest, because as of a few issues ago, Luke came to the realization that trying to directly confront Vader in his current state would be foolish, as he simply lacks the proper training to stand any sort of chance... Yet by RotJ(which is just months away now) he was absolutely confident about confronting Vader again.
That being said, we know Luke already has the raw power/potential to match(or exceed) Vader -- that's why Vader explicitly fears him. So I feel like all Luke really needs at this point is the right sort of mental/emotional 'push' to open his doorway to the Force wider, thereby allowing him to access more of his potential. So perhaps this newfound text will help facilitate that. /shrug
Yeah, a months-long wait to get a status update on Luke's progress will be pretty annoying, imo. I'm not at all invested in Leia and the Rebellion's story right now.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
They definitely aren't. Even if we believe that somehow they didn't die, they literally have the same clothes they were wearing when they got killed. It's definitely some kind of vision
Jan 8th, 2022 10:33 PM
