Maythe Force Be With You
Cover artwork for Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the Sith

Original generated cover art — not a reproduction of any published cover

LegendsLimited seriesThe Old Republic

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the Sith

Two Jedi go looking for the Sith for the best of reasons. Exar Kun finds them on Onderon and Korriban and is remade; Ulic Qel-Droma infiltrates the Krath and does not come back out.

Six issues from October 1994 to March 1995, written by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson with art by Chris Gossett — Art Wetherell drew the finale — and covers by Hugh Fleming. Collected in February 1996.

Publisher
Dark Horse Comics
Published
October 1994 – March 1995, preceded by a black-and-white ashcan preview in September 1994
Issues
6 issues
Format
Limited series
Continuity
Star Wars Legends
Writers
Tom Veitch, Kevin J. Anderson
Artists
Chris Gossett, Art Wetherell, Mike Barreiro, Jordi Ensign
Cover artists
Hugh Fleming

The verdict

The miniseries where the Old Republic stops being backstory and becomes a place — and the best-drawn thing Dark Horse published in its first five years.

The first Tales of the Jedi miniseries in 1993 was a proof of concept: Star Wars four thousand years early, with different ships and the same Force. Dark Lords of the Sith is the one that proves the concept was worth having.

Two falls, told properly

The book runs two descents in parallel and refuses to make either of them a single bad decision. Exar Kun is a Jedi with a scholar's curiosity and an enormous ego who goes looking for Sith holocrons because nobody will tell him what is in them; by the time he understands the bargain he has made, the bargain has already been made. Ulic Qel-Droma's fall is slower and sadder — he infiltrates the Krath as a deliberate, sanctioned operation, and the story is honest about the fact that a good plan executed by a proud man is still a trap.

What Veitch and Anderson get right is the institutional failure around them. The Jedi in this era are numerous, scattered and badly co-ordinated, and every character who could have stopped either man is somewhere else, sure that somebody senior is handling it.

Chris Gossett

Gossett draws five of the six issues and his figure work is the reason the era feels ancient rather than merely early — heavy robes, rough stone, lightsabers that read as artefacts rather than tools. Hugh Fleming's painted covers are the other half of the argument: they made a comic set four millennia before the films look like it belonged on the same shelf.

What it started

Exar Kun goes on to haunt Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy novels, and the vocabulary invented here — Sith holocrons, Korriban, Massassi, a Sith Empire with an aristocracy — is still load-bearing in everything from Knights of the Old Republic to the 2022 animated shorts. Almost none of it is canon now. All of it is why the Old Republic exists as a setting at all.

Structure

Story arcs

How the run divides, and where a reader can get on and off.

  1. #1–6

    Dark Lords of the Sith

    Introduces Exar Kun and turns Ulic Qel-Droma; a black-and-white ashcan preview preceded issue #1.

Every issue

Issue list — 7 of 6 catalogued

Number, title, cover date and credits. A dash means the field is not verified — not that it is empty.

Issue list: number, title, cover date, credits, story arc and notes
# TitleCover date WriterArtistCover artist ArcNotes
0Dark Lords of the Sith Special Ashcan EditionSeptember 1994Tom VeitchChris GossettHugh FlemingA black-and-white preview polybagged with the collector’s edition of Star Wars Galaxy Magazine #1. Wookieepedia’s infobox dates it October 1994 while its article text says September 1994; the earlier date is used here and both are recorded.
1Masters and Students of the ForceOctober 1994Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonChris GossettHugh Fleming
2The Quest for the SithNovember 1994Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonChris GossettHugh Fleming
3Descent to the Dark SideDecember 1994Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonChris GossettHugh Fleming
4Death of a Dark JediJanuary 1995Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonChris GossettHugh Fleming
5Sith SecretsFebruary 1995Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonChris GossettHugh Fleming
6Jedi AssaultMarch 1995Tom Veitch, Kevin J. AndersonArt WetherellHugh Fleming

In print

Collected editions — 1

Trades, omnibuses and Epic Collections. ISBNs appear only where verified.

Collected editions of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the Sith
EditionFormatPublisherYearCollectsISBN
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the SithTPBDark Horse Comics1996Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – Dark Lords of the Sith #1-61569710953