General Grievous is a graphic novel set in the Star Wars universe, and it first appeared as a four-part comic book series from Dark Horse comics. It is set two years before the events in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Unless you are a die-hard Star Wars comic book fan, I wouldn't bother reading this because you won't get much out of it.

The biggest flaw of this story is that it's not really about General Grievous at all. He's just the villain in it. The story never goes into his background or portrays him in any more detail than what you can see during his scene in Episode III. I read this book hoping to learn a little more about this particularly nasty villain, but I finished the story with nothing new. It only confirms that he is still evil and still a tough opponent, but the author never injects the character with any kind of personality other than a few dumb one-liners.

The plot involves the continued slaughter of the Jedi, so the story fits in between Episodes II and III. With this going on, Grievous manages to capture a bunch of young padawan - Jedi children in training - and plans to assimilate them into the Dark Side. Much of the story takes place on the planet Gentes, which is heavily populated with ugnaughts. It all basically just plays out like your basic rescue story with a little bit of Jedi woo-hoo thrown in, but not much.

Chuck Dixon is credited as the main author on this story, and he's written lots of other comic stories in the past. Most of his work has been involved around the character of Batman. From what I've been able to find, this appears to be his first attempt at a story in the Star Wars universe. The main artwork is done by Rick Leonardi, who has also done a lot of work on Spider-Man and X-Men comics. His work has a very nice look and appears to be entirely hand drawn, as opposed to the mix of computer generated imagery often seen in modern comics.

I found the writing in this story to be of the lame action story variety. Whenever Grievous makes an entrance, pretty much all he does is strike a pose and deliver some kind of one-liner to the tune of ‘And now you must die’, then he bulldozes down whoever is in the way. Since we know he ends up in Episode III two years later, there’s not much hinging on him actually being defeated in this story.

If you really want to get a little treat about General Grievous, then you should check out the Clone Wars cartoons on DVD. I believe it is in the 2nd volume where there is an extensive sequence featuring Grievous where it explains how he got the cough that he had in Episode III. That little tidbit was far more interesting than anything you might find in this graphic novel.


Recommended: No