Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Graphic novel by Hayden Blackman, Brian Ching, Bong Dazo and Wayne Nicholas

This graphic novel is based on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game, currently on the shelves at your local electronic games retailer. I haven't played the game, since I don't own a PC or a videogame console (I'm a Mac person, actually). The story concerns a Sith apprentice of Darth Vader named Starkiller, whom Vader has raised from a child. Vader uses Starkiller to hunt down and kill Jedi who survived the Purge of the Jedi. Vader has raised Starkiller to have no loyalty but to him, but when Starkiller is sent to murder a Jedi named Rahm Kota, he is attacked by a droid named PROXY, in the holographic guise of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Starkiller defeats Kenobi, and it is revealed that PROXY has been programmed by Vader to try and kill his apprentice as often as possible to force Starkiller to excel. But somehow, PROXY also has the desire to help Starkiller.

Vader has also given Starkiller a new Pilot, Juno Eclipse, who formerly led the Imperial Forces into battle on a planet named Callos. After a bit of verbal sparring, they leave for the mission along with PROXY. Once there, Starkiller quickly confronts the general and battles him. During the battle, the general tells him that his path will not always be with the Dark Side, and that his future will lie with Kota himself. But Starkiller knows that Kota didn't die, even if he tells Vader that Kota is dead. Afterwards, Vader sends Starkiller on another mission, this one to hunt down Shaak Ti, a member of the Jedi Council, on the planet Felucia.

Felucia was a world of rampant plant life, but it had been infected with the Dark Side of the Force, along with all of its inhabitants. Some of them are not yet infected, like Shaak Ti's apprentice, Maris Brood. Starkiller meets Shaak Ti, who falls into the Belly of a Sarlaak during their battle and is presumably destroyed.

When Starkiller goes to meet Vader once more, Vader says the Emperor's fleet has arrived, when Starkiller asks where they will stand against the Emperor, Vader stabs Starkiller with his lightsaber. PROXY is taken over by the Emperor, who urges Vader to kill his apprentice. Vader throws Starkiller through a window and into the void, satisfying Palpatine, but later has Starkiller brought back and revived and healed. PROXY, in Vader's form, tells Starkiller to gather the Empire's foes, and then, when he has resumed his usual form, tells him that the ship has been set to dive into the sun, removing any sign or trace of Starkiller.

On their way out of the ship, Starkiller finds Juno Eclipse imprisoned and awaiting death as a traitor. Against PROXY's advice, he rescues Juno, then seeks out Rahm Kota in a bar on Cloud City. The Jedi Master has been blinded and become a drunk, but Starkiller convinces the old man to help him. Rahm Kota sends him to the planet of Kasshyk, where he finds a hut that seems familliar. He enters the hut and has a vision of the past. When he comes out again, he has become a merciless killing machine.

Kota sends Starkiller to Leia Organa, who sends him back to Felucia, where Senator Bail Organa has been captured by Shaak Ti's apprentice Maris Brood, now infected and gone to the dark side. Starkiller tracks her down, and kills the Rancor she enslaved to her will. After a battle with Maris herself, Maris surrenders and promises to leave the planet and the dark side behind... as long as he doesn't kill her. Starkiller lets her go, noting that she will still have to remember what she did on Felucia.

Afterwards, Vader gives Starkiller another assignment, to embolden the rebels against the Empire by attacking the starship shipyards at Raxis Prime. Juno overhears and is incensed. How can Starkiller still be Vader's slave after he sentenced her to death? She tells him she already left one old life behind... don't make her leave another.

At Raxis Prime, Starkiller succeeds in taking down the factory and pulling an entire Star Destroyer down on it, causing massive damage. But this same act emboldens the Rebels and brings them into Alliance on the planet Corellia, where Darth Vader shows up to capture the Rebels. PROXY, looking like Obi-Wan Kenobi attacks Vader but is defeated and deactivated until found by Bail Organa and Juno Eclipse. Juno found Starkiller, who had vanished during the fight, and they deduced that Vader set up the plan to make himself more valuable to the Emperor.

He tracks Vader to a place on the outer Rim, where the Death Star is being built, and leaves Juno to fight against Vader and the Emperor, who were in collusion all along. He fights them with the help of Rahm Kota, but holds off both Vader and Palpatine to let the others go to safety while he remains behind to die. But his sacrifice inspires the Rebels, and they adopt his symbol as the symbol of the Rebel Forces. Juno is left behind with her memories of him, and knowing, from Rahm Kota, that she was the one shining, bright thing in Starkiller's life.

This was an interesting graphic novel that, of course, felt more than a little squished, storywise. Not much time is spent on subplots, what with the story of Starkiller to cram in, and the perfidy of Vader and the Emperor. Still, from the reviews of the game I have read and listened to, it seems they hit all the high notes. But the story felt a bit, well, soulless. And that may be because it was taken from a computer game storyline. Although much of the game's storyline was kept in the book, some parts, like the plot about how Starkiller ended up as Vader's apprentice in the first place, was not retained, and the character went from being the son of a Jedi named Marek to being the son of Rahm Kota (as far as I could tell). While it manages to tell the story of the video game well, that's all it remains, and as such, was less successful as a story for me.

For Star Wars completists, you will want to run out and buy this graphic novel. Otherwise, give it a miss. It doesn't really add anything to the Star Wars Canon that you can't find better elsewhere. The story is superficial gloss over a screamingly thin base, and you'll wonder why Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker are supposed to be so great if Starkiller could pull down whole Star Destroyers out of the sky. Budget cuts? In any case, one final interesting note: Starkiller was supposed to be Luke Skywalker's original last name.