I AM YELLING ABOUT THIS COMIC. LOOK AT HOW GOOD ANAKIN IS, LOOK AT WHAT HE’S CAPABLE OF, LOOK AT HOW LOVED HE IS!
In it, Anakin is faced with an incredibly difficult choice–where a world that was formerly neutral seems to have joined the Separatists, but because the droid factory set up there was a rush job, if they bomb the place out of existence, that means a lot of people are going to die, instead of just machines. Anakin doesn’t want to do this, he’d rather take the risk on himself, but it’s not just him, if they warn the people there, gives them the time to evacuate, that runs the risk of their own people dying. Either way, there’s a really high chance of people dying.
But Anakin is a Jedi, that’s not how they do things, so he gets stubborn about it and even a little emotional and then Obi-Wan comes to talk to him, after Yularen sought him out. There are no easy answers here, but Obi-Wan is so supportive of Anakin’s convictions, even when he got wound up about it with Yularen. Obi-Wan doesn’t scold him, but instead talks with him, and praises him, that Anakin’s come a long way, he’s doing so well, “Trust your feelings,” he says to Anakin. Because he trusts Anakin and believes in him.
When it turns out that it was a trap–innocent people forced into being slaves for the Separatists, hoping the Republic would bomb them, so it would look like innocents were getting slaughtered, despite that that’s not what the situation was presented as–Anakin finds a way out and Obi-Wan praises him again, that they avoided this trap was thanks to Anakin, that the people there will have a chance to make their own choices thanks to Anakin.
There are so many fantastic details here, like how it’s Yularen that says Anakin is getting emotional, not anyone else, but also he likes that Anakin challenges him and does and says what he thinks is right. Anakin is ready to believe the worst about what Yularen thinks of him, but listens when Obi-Wan says, no, that’s not what he was getting at, that instead he was looking for more points of view on this situation. The nod to how much of the Republic sees the clones as disposable, not really even as people, that Yularen is one of the probably all-too-few who see them as actual people, that this is the uphill battle they face while in a war. That this is why the Jedi joined the war at all, because they thought they could save lives, that was their goal.
I love it because it’s a chance to see Anakin when he was so good, this is the Anakin that Obi-Wan and Padme and Ahsoka loved, this is the Anakin who was a good man, this is the Anakin that Vader couldn’t murder in himself. ANAKIN SKYWALKER WAS CAPABLE OF SO MUCH GOOD, THERE WAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL IN HIM. And when he listened to the people around him, when he trusted what he was taught as a Jedi, in what he knows is the right thing for the right reason, he rises to the occasion. Even when there’s stirrings of such anger in him when he sees the slaves, he overcomes that, and that’s the Anakin that Obi-Wan is praises, that he found his way through an incredibly difficult situation.
I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS COMIC SO MUCH.