What do you think?
Rate this book
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Graphic Novellas #5
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju
Behind enemy lines, Jedi Knight Aayla Secura's covert mission is threatened by an encounter with Shon-Ju-a former Padawan turned cult leader. Shon-Ju claims to be after the same Separatist warlord that Aayla was sent to capture, but he also has plenty of reasons to hate the Republic and the Jedi. The Force is with Aayla, but she may need more than her lightsaber against The Deadly Hands of Shon-JuA"!
80 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Jeremy Barlow
197 books30 followersEisner Award nominated writer and editor—and your only hope.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 5, 2021
*4.25
I really wish we had more Aayla Secura stuff.
Full RTC
I really wish we had more Aayla Secura stuff.
Full RTC
May 24, 2024
Set in 21BBY
Great read. Aayla Secura sent on a mission on a planet in the midst of the Clone Wars and she loses her whole team, barely alive trying to survive in the wilderness while being hunted down.
We meet Shon-Ju and sadly this is his only appearance in the Star Wars expanded universe, who couldn't make it as a Jedi and so left the order to become something he wanted on his own, and so he made his own "order" of sorts, to make something out of himself and his use of the force and pass it along to others, have students and teach them the ways of the force with no use of the lightsaber, but by fists alone.
Interesting story to bring martial arts into the Star Wars and a very solid one at that, the main villain here is forgettable but the dialogue and the plot is very good, plus, the artwork is amazing.
Great read. Aayla Secura sent on a mission on a planet in the midst of the Clone Wars and she loses her whole team, barely alive trying to survive in the wilderness while being hunted down.
We meet Shon-Ju and sadly this is his only appearance in the Star Wars expanded universe, who couldn't make it as a Jedi and so left the order to become something he wanted on his own, and so he made his own "order" of sorts, to make something out of himself and his use of the force and pass it along to others, have students and teach them the ways of the force with no use of the lightsaber, but by fists alone.
Interesting story to bring martial arts into the Star Wars and a very solid one at that, the main villain here is forgettable but the dialogue and the plot is very good, plus, the artwork is amazing.
September 15, 2025
good character concepts, decent story. poor artwork, and weirdly ending on a confusing cliffhanger? is there a sequel?
very odd ideas as far as the "hand power" thing that never even gets explained? and of course the main antagonist had a terrible twist.
this felt like a very rough first draft between the bad ideas and art. not to mention the odd cliffhanger. the flaws really overshadowed the good concepts that they should have built up.
very odd ideas as far as the "hand power" thing that never even gets explained? and of course the main antagonist had a terrible twist.
this felt like a very rough first draft between the bad ideas and art. not to mention the odd cliffhanger. the flaws really overshadowed the good concepts that they should have built up.
January 28, 2018
Star Wars Legends Project #142
Background: Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju came out in December 2010, the fifth in a series of 11 graphic novellas connected to The Clone Wars animated series. It was written by Jeremy Barlow and pencilled by Brian Koschak. Barlow has written a few dozen issues of various Star Wars comics, but he has edited even more, including the Clone Wars Adventures series and about half of Knights of the Old Republic. Koschak did the art for a few of the other graphic novellas in this series, as well.
Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju is set shortly after the Battle of Geonosis (22 years before the Battle of Yavin). The main character is Aayla Secura, with Yoda and Ki-Adi-Mundi in minor roles.
Summary: Shot down, wounded, hunted, and alone in enemy territory, it seems that Aayla Secura's mission to bring notorious pirate Attuma Duum to justice has failed. But then she is unexpectedly rescued by a group of Force users trained by Shon-Ju, a former Padawan who left the Order years before. Shon-Ju could turn an imminent failure into success, or he could prove to be an even greater threat than Duum himself.
Review: This story is just about exactly as cheesy as you would expect from the title. The idea of an ex-Jedi who becomes a sort of unarmed warrior monk is interesting enough, and this makes good use of Aayla Secura and her backstory to continue her journey as a character, but somehow the totality doesn't work for me.
I think part of it is that I found the art style a bit distracting. There are several moments where it works really well, but in particular the way Koschak draws the faces of his characters was . . . off-putting and weird, I guess? Almost everyone just looks really bizarre and unpleasant and borderline deformed.
More than that, though, is that I felt like most of what's going on in the second half of the comic makes no sense. There's this huge space battle that happens in the background that has no logic to it, and it seems like it just exists as an attempt to raise stakes that don't even need to be raised. But they never focus enough attention on what's happening with the battle to really register it, either, so it's just a total misfire. I'm also particularly confused by Duum's character. It seems like they were going for a certain air of suave sophistication and lavishness to his piratical flair, but that's all a bit at odds with a late revelation about his character that I won't spoil here. I never felt like I understood what his motivations were for anything he was doing, and we were definitely never told, like, who all of the wealthy guests on his ship are who have come to watch his plan unfold.
Plus, at one point Duum informs Aayla that he's been feeding the Republic valuable information about the Separatists for quite some time. Um, okay, so if he's a valuable source of wartime intelligence for the Republic, why was Aayla dispatched to arrest him? And why does he suddenly turn on the Republic? Because they sent someone to arrest him? Except, no, he wouldn't have known that when he started putting this plan into motion.
And speaking of his plan: It's literally to get the Republic and the Separatists to have a battle where he and some friends can watch, and throw in some extra mines so both fleets are destroyed. What's the payoff? How does he benefit from this? And how does he think this is going to work out for him when both sides figure out what he did? Plus . . . your plan is to get two warring enemies to have a fight? Does that even count as a plan? That's like making a plan to get someone to eat their lunch at lunchtime.
Um, anyway, maybe I'm more annoyed at these details than is warranted. But come on, people. Think about these things while you're writing and your stories will suck less, I promise.
C-
Background: Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju came out in December 2010, the fifth in a series of 11 graphic novellas connected to The Clone Wars animated series. It was written by Jeremy Barlow and pencilled by Brian Koschak. Barlow has written a few dozen issues of various Star Wars comics, but he has edited even more, including the Clone Wars Adventures series and about half of Knights of the Old Republic. Koschak did the art for a few of the other graphic novellas in this series, as well.
Deadly Hands of Shon-Ju is set shortly after the Battle of Geonosis (22 years before the Battle of Yavin). The main character is Aayla Secura, with Yoda and Ki-Adi-Mundi in minor roles.
Summary: Shot down, wounded, hunted, and alone in enemy territory, it seems that Aayla Secura's mission to bring notorious pirate Attuma Duum to justice has failed. But then she is unexpectedly rescued by a group of Force users trained by Shon-Ju, a former Padawan who left the Order years before. Shon-Ju could turn an imminent failure into success, or he could prove to be an even greater threat than Duum himself.
Review: This story is just about exactly as cheesy as you would expect from the title. The idea of an ex-Jedi who becomes a sort of unarmed warrior monk is interesting enough, and this makes good use of Aayla Secura and her backstory to continue her journey as a character, but somehow the totality doesn't work for me.
I think part of it is that I found the art style a bit distracting. There are several moments where it works really well, but in particular the way Koschak draws the faces of his characters was . . . off-putting and weird, I guess? Almost everyone just looks really bizarre and unpleasant and borderline deformed.
More than that, though, is that I felt like most of what's going on in the second half of the comic makes no sense. There's this huge space battle that happens in the background that has no logic to it, and it seems like it just exists as an attempt to raise stakes that don't even need to be raised. But they never focus enough attention on what's happening with the battle to really register it, either, so it's just a total misfire. I'm also particularly confused by Duum's character. It seems like they were going for a certain air of suave sophistication and lavishness to his piratical flair, but that's all a bit at odds with a late revelation about his character that I won't spoil here. I never felt like I understood what his motivations were for anything he was doing, and we were definitely never told, like, who all of the wealthy guests on his ship are who have come to watch his plan unfold.
Plus, at one point Duum informs Aayla that he's been feeding the Republic valuable information about the Separatists for quite some time. Um, okay, so if he's a valuable source of wartime intelligence for the Republic, why was Aayla dispatched to arrest him? And why does he suddenly turn on the Republic? Because they sent someone to arrest him? Except, no, he wouldn't have known that when he started putting this plan into motion.
And speaking of his plan: It's literally to get the Republic and the Separatists to have a battle where he and some friends can watch, and throw in some extra mines so both fleets are destroyed. What's the payoff? How does he benefit from this? And how does he think this is going to work out for him when both sides figure out what he did? Plus . . . your plan is to get two warring enemies to have a fight? Does that even count as a plan? That's like making a plan to get someone to eat their lunch at lunchtime.
Um, anyway, maybe I'm more annoyed at these details than is warranted. But come on, people. Think about these things while you're writing and your stories will suck less, I promise.
C-
July 17, 2017
This is the fifth in a line of graphic novellas that take place during The Clone Wars (coinciding with TV series of the same name). THE DEADLY HANDS OF SHON-JU has Quinlen Vos's former Padawan, Aayla Secura, going behind enemy lines to take out a Separatist warlord and instead runs into a Force using cult that hate the Jedi. She must team up with the leader of that cult when they are both captured and held prisoner.
I liked this one because it addresses the idea of the Force being used by people who aren't Jedi or Sith. It seemed a bit at odds with itself because the leader of the cult tells Aayla that she relies to much on a lightsaber and can't fight without it. He's never proven wrong either and it kind of makes the Jedi look a bit weak in that respect (I think at this point I've only read one comic that featured a Jedi who didn't fight with a lightsaber). Other than that, not bad at all, the artwork in this one is better than the previous four novellas
December 21, 2019
Another story that bites off way more than it cares to chew. Do comic writers not realize when they've plotted a novel? Do they not recognize the difference? There are hints of some real introspection for Aayla here, working against Shon-ju as an interesting foil (though he ends up falling into the same "anyone who questions the Jedi ways is headed for evil" trap), with a fairly charismatic villain doing (very slightly) unusual things. If this was a novel, all of that could go somewhere. The themes might get developed in some meaningful way. Or, to be fair to the medium, if it was just a better-written comic I guess. Either way this is disappointingly shallow compared to what some of the other books in this series have achieved, and what it presents as its own ambitions.
November 19, 2020
It was great to read an Aayla centric story and one the touched on everything she's been through. It starts with her talking to Yoda about how lost she feels. Yoda reminds her that her memories were stolen and she was touched by the Dark side. He tells her, "Raw are your emotions. Take time to heal, they will. Give yourself that time, you must. Patience, Aayla, is the best counsel right now." The two continue to talk and Aayla tells him how she was saved and then betrayed by Shon-Ju, a former Jedi student, while trying to capture Attuma Duum.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2021
Slightly derivative? Maybe. Far too much plot, character and potential for a single eighty-page story? Also maybe. But the best installment in the Clone Wars graphic novella series yet? Absolutely. It helps that the art has taken a step forward, and that we're focused on characters outside the main cast so there's more creative freedom. I enjoyed the philosophical debate between Force as weapon and Force as religion, even though Shon Ju never QUITE comes across as "cult leader" the way he was intended. (Honestly, he's just an amalgamation of Shang-Chi and Iron Fist.)
June 3, 2021
Fun Aayla story, with references from her past stories. The side characters are fun enough and left me intrigued for their future. It's a shame that Shon-ju and Attuma Duum stories probably will never have a follow-up.
Attuma forces seems to be using Stormtroopers uniforms that was an odd thing without any mention in the story.
Not the best of The Clone Wars comics but fun enough.
Attuma forces seems to be using Stormtroopers uniforms that was an odd thing without any mention in the story.
Not the best of The Clone Wars comics but fun enough.
July 19, 2025
From the beginning Yoda asked something to be
Returned. He felt fearful about where that person was.
In the middle they were in space. They were fighting.
In the end the person was leaving. He told the other
Man that they said he doesn’t want him there.
I hope everybody is having a good weekend and I will be
Back to update more books. Bye.
Returned. He felt fearful about where that person was.
In the middle they were in space. They were fighting.
In the end the person was leaving. He told the other
Man that they said he doesn’t want him there.
I hope everybody is having a good weekend and I will be
Back to update more books. Bye.
October 25, 2019
I like the comics that delve into the minor alien Jedi and this one was quite good with different approaches to the force, and betrayals. But I am starting to miss Ahsoka.
August 23, 2021
Great read, you won't be disappointed!
September 21, 2023
This was good, but it could have been much better - and the last-second appearance of Dooku (in a flashback, no less) didn't really add much to Shon-Ju's backstory.
February 28, 2011
Yeah, these Clone Wars digests aren't high art, but they are fun. This time around Aayla Secura gets the spotlight as she's trapped in an asteroid belt that's home to a war profiteer and the former Padawan who wants to kill him. Said war profiteer is a pretty generic villain, but Shon-Ju, the former Padawan, is a great new character I hope they do more with. After leaving the Jedi Order because he was never made a Knight, Shon-Ju started honing his Force powers without a lightsaber. Only using his hands and the Force, Shon-Ju now wants to kill war profiteer Atuma Duum. Shon-Ju believes this will embarrass the Jedi Order and thus he'll gain some measure of revenge for them not making him a Knight.
Like I said, it isn't high art. But I liked the idea of Force users training outside the direction of the Jedi or the Sith and I hope they do more with them.
Like I said, it isn't high art. But I liked the idea of Force users training outside the direction of the Jedi or the Sith and I hope they do more with them.
June 15, 2013
So far the best of this series.
April 28, 2016
Kung Fu + The Force = Danger
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews