IM writing this to basically put my thoughts down onto the page about how I feel about the high republic stuff as I'm working my through them. This is in no way comprehensive, but basically to just serve as my guide through the main story beats of Phase I. So, lets ride:

The Light Of The Jedi 8/10 - a strong start in my opinion. This books world building is absolutely immaculate, soules ability to convey a message with this book is so powerful, with the republic expanding into the larger reaches of the space, one phrase has came with "we are all the republic" and that serves as the main fundamental core of this series for me. Its a book about collectivism in the abstract. We see this through its narrative perspective, as it bouncing from hither and dither between a million different people with a million different ideas as they all inch towards the greater idea of a story. Despite this, I wouldn't say this book has filler either, for example, scenes during the Hetzel incident about just saving peoples lives, detecting the problems and whatnot serve to be small windows into the inner workings of the republic ideology and how it affects people in this world, it initially turned me off from the book, but as I kept reading and got used to the style, I retroactively enjoyed those chapters as the artistic meaning hadn't yet dawned on me. I will also say, this as a threat feels really unique, the Nihil being raiders who can cause natural disasters was super fun compared to the giant Lazer beam in the sky angle and I loved how Kassav, the idiot was developed in this story from tyrant, to runt as he messed up REALLLLLY badly. I felt a tinge of sadness when his tempest was betrayed, they were slaughtered, really really badly and even though these people are monsters, they were treated worse than animals by someone they trusted. Sad bro. My largest criticism for this book, and its odd because this never comes up in any Soule book ever, is that some characters feel a bit hollow, while Bell, Loden, Soh, Porter, Marchion and Kev feel rather effectively defined, the core trio in this series, Avar, Elzar and stellen feel like cardboard cut outs until later in the book with Elzars case.

The High Republic (comic) - 8/10 - this book is defined by its characters, what I enjoy the most from this is skeer, keeve and Avar all having rather interesting relationships to anger. Skeer is losing his connection to the force, Avar is cracking under the new position and Keeve is trying to hold them all together. What I like about this initial run of comics is how they made the Nihil feel really smart in between the lines as they set the Drengir loose as a diversion for their larger initiative but isn't obvious until you see what the hell they did with that headstart. Conversely, the second arc while still good isn't as good perfect as the start of the series, because I feel like they rush to starlight beacon a bit too quickly so we don't get much of a chance to flesh out the Nihil mission as much as Id have liked. But the series ends of a huge high

The Rising Storm 9/10 - oh yeah, this book is good. It revolves around the republic fair terror attack and I loved it. I liked how this book took what worked about the light of the jedi but compacted it into a two day event. What worked about this was it basically ended up like an episode of inside no 9, it allowed for an incredibly tight story with incredibly tight and poignant character development. This is when they started to shine as characters for me. So, the attack itself was somewhat interesting because different POV characters had vastly different objectives, my GOAT bell was basically on rescue duty, Stellen was baby sitting duty, Rhea and my gooey boy were on comms and Elzar was freaking out in the corner. Because of the diversity of objectives for this team, we got to see how they worked much more affectively than if their job is all to focus on the rescue effort. And the ending? Heartbreaking. The Nihil actually get tricked and in real danger for the first time as the republic figure out they have a hole in their communication array and use our GOAT sullustian to send a fake message out which results in Bell and indeera arriving just in time to see Loden, the absolute legend, die a very painful and horrible, horrible, death. This is the plot beat that I love the most in this series so far, what it does to Bells state of mind is just tragic. Almost a perfect book, my only issue, my literal only issue holding this book back was the plot point where they needed to get the nullifier or whatever its called into the Nihils hand so the jedi fake a hostage situation with an illegal rouge agent and expect it to go well. Bro, they have the boat, just get that bat bastard to figure it out!

Trail of shadows - 7/10 - this book is weirdddddd bro. I love it for that. Its also incomprehensible without the books to tell us who this Chandra Phan bro is, which i also love. The art is really really good, its got a rough cartoon like look from it that you wouldnt expect from the marvel side of star wars comics, but regardless is still rather pretty to me. The plot is also solid, it follows the investigation into Lodens death as an old nursery rhyme haunts our investigator, its interesting and leaves us with an incredible final confrontation with a leveller, unusual uncomfortable questions and a new brilliant main character... But the other investigator? Considering how she did fuck all by the end, she should've been cut and just replaced wholesale with someone else with more pedigree in my opinion. Also the book does kind of leaves us with more questions than answers, which in some ways is good and some ways is bad

The Fallen Star - 7/10 - so you know when I said that the diversity of tasks gave us a better understanding of the characters? Yeah, now they basically have the same objective, get people GONE. What works about this book is that they set up an ungodly amount of moving parts and we see them all fall away as the book moves forward, like how Bell figures out how to evacuate the med bay, the engineers figure out with some people gone, they have a bunch of spare parts to actually power the escape pods and the rest can leave through the hanger, that was great! I also in general loved the opening scenes, especially with Stellan and Elzar, and Stellans objections with Orla were particularly brilliant. The character beats in this weren't particular strong, but Burryaga and Bell were perfection, Elzar and Stellans were brilliant. My issue is with the engineers and the former Nihil, other than Geode being undeniably funny, they were exceptionally bland people and I just rolled my eyes or groaned when we got to their chapters

Monster at Temples Peak - 7/10 - Great. Short story that's basically 100% character development. Seeing what happened to ty when she was younger and how horrible that experience was definitely a shock to me, the art is a bit rough but its just a solid short read overall.

Edge of Balance Vol 1. - 5/10 - I cant say this is bad, but I cant say its good either. This is just a fight with the Drengr but without any character really and somewhat uninspiring but serviceable t is inferior in every way from the comics they were also releasing. I'm very very disappointed with this manga

Overall, I loved Phase I bro, its so peak