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March 25, 2008
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 Legacy #21, the second entry in a two-part mini-arc called Indomitable, could well be called the Admiral Stazi show in honor of its gruffly inspiring lead. Despite featuring a large cast of characters and a huge space battle set piece, the story revolves around the magnetic personality of the renegade Duros fleet commander, and does it so well that you’ll be wishing the arc wasn’t confined to two issues.
Centered around the spectacularly rendered Battle of Mon Calamari, the story finds Admiral Stazi hell-bent on capturing an advanced Imperial Star Destroyer prototype known as the Imperious, in a bid to move away from the hit-and-fade tactics his forces have been using to peck away at Darth Krayt’s Sith fleet for the past several years.
“We are in danger of becoming just another pirate fleet, raiding for supplies. We need to make military strikes, and for that we need the Imperious,” Stazi says, in a typically eloquent yet hard-edged bit of dialogue from veteran scribe John Ostrander.
The outlaw admiral's backstory is briefly illuminated via flashbacks to the Battle of Caamas, featuring events that eerily parallel the current struggle over the Mon Cal shipyards, a fact that is not lost on the cunning Duros as he leads his forces into the maw of the Sith fleet.
 The Battle of Mon Calamari itself is a glorious affair, basically the comic equivalent of the space combat scenes towards the end of Return of the Jedi. Newer readers may not recognize the various spacecraft as readily as they would X-wings and TIE fighters, but the effects are the same: kinetic action and beautifully realized moments of visual poetry.
When all is said and done, however, the issue succeeds on the merits of its incendiary protagonist. From his domineering presence on Doug Wheatley’s cover art, to his depiction in the issue proper by penciller Omar Francia (who fills his frames with action-packed poses that spill over multiple panels), Stazi looms large over all the proceedings, even as he seemingly falls into a trap laid by the Sith fleet, only to spring a counter-trap of his own.
Ultimately, Legacy #21 is another fine example of why the series is the best thing going in the world of Star Wars comics. The only real problem with issue #21 is its brevity, and that of the two-part story arc which it concludes. One can only hope that the title offers further breaks from the Jedi circus that typifies much of the EU, and continues to dive deep below the surface to explore what can be a truly vast galaxy.
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