Comic Review: 'Marvel Star Wars: Inquisitors (2024)'

Image Source: StarWars.com

While its short run began and ended almost two years ago, Star Wars: Inquisitors (2024) is still an interesting miniseries to consider within the recent releases for Star Wars comics. A story set during the Galactic Empire and featuring the fearsome Inquisitors, the comic has a core message about its focal characters, which makes it a question why they were chosen to headline and provide their name to this storyline. Despite that, there is excellent artwork and enough interesting ideas and connections to keep the series as something fans should consider reading one day, just not at the top of their comic stacks.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Inquisitors (2024).

Summary

Inquisitors explores a focused campaign by the Inquisitorius to hunt down a rogue Jedi, Tensu Run, during the height of the Galactic Empire. Due to actions he committed in the ways of the Jedi, saving those under threat and oppressed by the Empire, his name began to be whispered with hope by those resisting the autocratic government’s rule. That could not stand. Over the four issues of the series, different Inquisitors each make efforts to get to Tensu and fail, though they kill some of his allies along the way. In the end, it is a final fight with Darth Vader that sees Tensu fall, the work of the Inquisitors done for them by Vader, who cuts Tensu down before demanding an Inquisitor bring him Tensu’s head.

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Image Source: Marvel Comics

Pros and Cons

Inquisitors is a mixed bag as a series, initially promising interesting interactions and character insights with the Inquisitors through their encounters with Tensu and his allies, and with each other and the wider galaxy. However, for as fearsome as they present in dynamic panel moments, and as devious and cunning they appear, they are repeatedly bested and humiliated.

It is an interesting choice to reduce the title characters of a series into people who are shown to be failures by the standards of the Empire, and the standards of Vader, who proves to be a constant source of critique and pressure. He is the one to go and face Tensu Run at the end, and while the Inquisitors are there as support, their sidelining at the last moment, as well as Vader’s recriminations, speaks to their role in the Sith hierarchy.

That doesn’t work well within the structure of the miniseries, and we could have easily seen a narrative that allows them proper victories to speak to why and how they survived for nearly two decades as an organization of Jedi hunters. But the messaging, for as jarring as it is, is that the Inquisitors are flawed and expendable, the hunting dogs to Vader and Sidious, sent to chase down lesser prey and targets, and ill-equipped to handle properly prepared Jedi opponents. They aren’t truly the headliners of this story then, Tensu Run is.

Image Source: StarWars.com

Despite those rough edges of the core narrative and main characters, Tensu Run and his allies make for an interesting group. Tensu’s two close allies, fellow Jedi, dispense wisdom and argue with each other, yet both also care for Tensu and the symbol he is becoming. Tensu’s Jedi Master is also still alive, and we surprisingly see that Tensu helped a ship of Jedi retirees, the ship and its purpose introduced in The High Republic, survive for years under the reign of the Empire unless the Inquisitors close in. In one of the more frightful segments of the comic, the Grand Inquisitor brutally kills everyone onboard, in a savage display of pitiless hatred.

That ship, and other smaller elements, also point to the creative flourishes of the comic, and its links to the wider Star Wars canon in fun ways. At the end of the day, Inquisitors (2024) is an okay Inquisitor’s story, but a more interesting exploration into the nature of the Jedi in this era, but also about the struggles of the everyday citizens of the galaxy, from farmers to hardened criminals, caught somewhat in the middle of these two groups. It has several flaws, but still has great artwork and created interesting characters and events we hope future storytelling is able to pick up on.

Rating: 7/10

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Source(s): Inquisitors (2024)

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