Review: ‘Hyperspace Stories’ #5 – ‘The Betrayal’ Tells a Familiar Asajj Ventress Story
The fifth issue of Hyperspace Stories focuses on fan favorite character Asajj Ventress. It’s certainly an intriguing character choice with the potential to be the most interesting story in the series so far. Sadly, most of that potential goes unrealized in a mildly entertaining story that fails to provide much additional depth to the character.
The Betrayal is set early on in the Clone Wars, back when Asajj is still an assassin working for Count Dooku with dreams of becoming his Sith apprentice. While I always enjoy watching/reading the dynamic between Dooku and Ventress, and the story does convey that dynamic well, we’ve seen so much of it over the years that we know the ins and outs of it already.
There’s plenty of good action as Ventress tears through clone troopers and Hyperspace Stories presents her as a woman with a little more backbone than in other stories — standing up to Dooku on more than one occasion — but there are other opportunities for character development that go frustratingly unexplored.
Ultimately, The Betrayal is a decent story for anyone looking for more Asajj Ventress tales, but I wouldn’t call it required reading.
Spoilers ahead…
The issue begins with Asajj Ventress on a mission to capture/destroy a Republic base. We see her emerging from the shadows and taking on a squad of clone troopers, carving through them with ease. It’s not until she’s discovered by a Jedi that she encounters a true challenge. The Jedi, Mayanka Catrine, is a new entry to the Star Wars canon but soundly beats Ventress.
I did enjoy that Ventress bristles at the idea that she’s copied Dooku’s fighting style, insisting that she fights with her own style. It’s consistent with the depiction of her as someone who clearly values her own identity, rather than letting someone else define her. She doesn’t see herself as a mindless thrall, but as someone deserving of being a Sith Lord in her own right. It’s the closest we get to fleshing out her character a bit more in this issue and while I’d have liked a bit more, this is interesting in its own right.
We soon discover that it was Ventress’ intention to lose the fight so she’d get locked away in a prison deep inside the base. Some time passes and she waits for the Jedi to leave the base — I can’t understand why they would leave dark side Force user without a Jedi guarding them but oh well — once she learns that it’s only clones left, she springs from her prison with ease and kills everyone, taking the base for the Separatists.
Even when she succeeds, it’s because her enemies have underestimated her, just like Dooku often does.
She returns to Dooku victorious, but overplays her hand and demands to be made a Sith Lord as reward for her successful mission, pointing out that not even General Grievous had been able to take the base. Dooku not only rejects her demands but is affronted by her arrogance to think she is in a position to demand something of him. He punishes her by shocking her with Force lightning.
This dynamic is nothing new; we’ve seen Dooku punish Ventress like this multiple times in The Clone Wars and in his audiobook Dooku: Jedi Lost (in which Ventress is much more subservient and grovelling than she is here). While it’s always interesting to see the dynamic between a Sith and their apprentice, it’s nothing new.
Instead, Dooku gives her another mission: to retrieve an ancient Jedi artifact for him so he can gain favor with Darth Sidious (he claims they’ll present it together but that’s clearly a lie). He has no leads to give her at first, which leads to another angry outburst from her protesting against the difficulty of this task, but all it earns her is another shock of Force lightning.
Dooku sends her to an ancient Jedi Temple in the Outer Rim, but she arrives to find the artifact gone. She can sense where it might be, but she is ambushed by clone troopers. It seems in traditional Dooku fashion, he’s decided to test Asajj by alerting the Republic to her whereabouts via Palpatine. She dispatches the clones with ease and contacts her master, levelling thinly veiled accusations at him that he set her up. Again, this would be interesting if we hadn’t seen Dooku do this to her before.
Her mission takes her to Naboo, where it seems the artifact has been snatched up by a young Gungan. She tries to take the artifact off them, but the commotion reveals her identity to Anakin Skwyalker, who immediately attacks her. She retreats and hides, expecting Obi-Wan to punish Anakin for running off and disobeying his orders.
When she sees that all Obi-Wan does is admonish him verbally, she is shocked. I was expecting a seed of doubt to be planted in her mind that would lead her to question her relationship with Dooku, but instead she scoffs at the two Jedi for being weak. I understand that this character development happens later in the Clone Wars, but what we get here is still less interesting than what could have been.
In the end, Ventress leaves the artifact where it is, deciding to punish Dooku herself by refusing to complete his mission. Perhaps Obi-Wan and Anakin’s reaction affected her more than she realized, but it’s not clear. She states at the end that while Dooku continues to treat her as a tool to be used, she’ll never be truly loyal to him. I like that she’s standing up to him somewhat, but nevertheless it’s an odd ending to a story that perhaps could have taken bolder swings when it comes to Asajj Ventress’ character development.
Rating: 5/10
Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories #5 is available now wherever comics are sold. Special thanks to Dark Horse Comics for the ARC used in this review.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
