Sithty Review - Edge of Balance Premonition

Alrighty folks, so for this week's Around the Galaxy with Premonition being the volume that we're going to be looking at, it's kind of like Precedence in the way that it touches on the main story, but it also has its own separate thing going on.

Precedence was used to kind of be the Phase 2 book, whereas Premonition is really trying to tie up some odds and ends.

Phase 3 kind of goes all over the place and is trying to kind of finish up a lot of different plot threads all at the same time.

So whereas Precedence was kind of the only Phase 2... novel to give us the necessary background for the story to continue.

Premonition is really more of like a setup for what phase three needs to do and what the final volume needs to handle or talk about.

And it's a little bit reflected in the stories that kind of matter as far as Premonition is concerned.

But in terms of raw data information, and who's who for this volume of the manga.

The release date itself was April 8th, 2025.

If you remember from the last episode where we reviewed Volume 3, it was in 2024, so we're almost in that multi-month, almost a year before everything finishes, and a lot of that just has to do with both all of the writing that is going on for phase three and at the same time just kind of the the wind down of the high republic initiative so A little bit more time.

This one was a bummer for me when I remember when I was reading through the manga initially because I'd be someone who was buying everything kind of day of when it was releasing.

So to go from volume three and then I believe that was like March or August.

Sorry, that's that's a spread.

But yeah, to go from like a. early summer of 2024 to early spring of 2025. is quite a bit of a wait, so I was very much looking forward to getting this issue in my hands, and I think I remember reading Volume 3 kind of multiple times, knowing that Phase 3 was on the other side of everything, and that we were kind of barreling towards the end.

In terms of the creatives behind this issue, you've got Daniel José Older doing all of the writing, and then the artistry is done by Heining.

I am probably mispronouncing that, and I apologize.

But it continues this trend that I've been noticing as I've been looking through all of the different covers and doing these around the galaxies of precedence and premonition, like if you're not a main volume.

issue you get a different artist the writing may or may not change in terms of who's in charge of it or maybe there's more cooks in the kitchen but for the most part the artist always changes which is interesting because it does add a little bit of a different kind of flair in terms of the artistry and the style of the artwork that you're looking out which is really kind of refreshing and To have something, the same kind of subject matter drawn slightly different.

Of course, there's still consistency because the High Republic Initiative has like a luminous author group, as well as this is now the Disney that has kind of a lore council, if you will.

So nothing is like too far off of the mark in terms of a image changing between issues because there's a different artist behind it.

But there is definitely a different style in terms of layout, in terms of how often you get like a full page spread.

I mean, I remember with There was the way that they drew the nameless effect and kind of that gooey, deathy kind of look versus Premonition, which we'll get into it when we're actually talking about the story.

There is a much more... nuanced look at the way the fighting happens as well as because we're dealing with Yoda there's more emphasis on visions or the way that he's like able to use the force and navigate using the force so that kind of shows off in that art style and maybe that's a big part of why they had different artists in Premonition and in Precedence because there is a lot more emphasis on the force and the way that Jedi perceive it.

With Precedence, we saw how Aslan Rel, as well as other Jedi impacted by the Nameless, saw the Nameless.

And then with Premonition, you're getting someone who has a lot of depth and time spent in the Jedi Order in the form of Yoda.

So maybe that has a lot to do with it, to have artists that are better at this kind of more nebulous style of drawing, where you have to find a way to make a vision look different than what you're seeing in the real world, quote-unquote.