I must say that the Evasive Action webstrips are small masterpieces made by obviously talented people. Paul Ens has a flair for writing exciting personal dramas set against the backdrop of large scale conflicts, and Thomas Hodges' funky fresh drawing style is really dynamic and great.

Evasive Action is very much in line with the type of Star Wars EU material that I like. I tend to dislike tale that pretend to be epic and seek to change the Star Wars universe and focus on the main characters known from the movies, but in stead I prefer those that explore the univers in the perspective of minor haracters or even characters that don't appear in the movies (see also Darth Dan's discussion of the notion of galactic super wars in EU). That's exactly what Evasive Action does. It explores its own little corner of the Star Wars universe in the perspective of three very interesting and well written characters - the orphaned padawans Zonder, Ekria and Drake - as it tells the tale of their struggle to survive in Palpatine's new Empire.

The characters are really interesting (my personal favorite is Zonder) and they are different enough from each other for there to be interesting tensions between them, which adds variety to the narrative. In many ways the character combination is reminiscent of that of A New Hope, in which Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie are very different characters who are placed in the same situation but offer very different perspectives on it. Much in the same way, Drake is primarily driven by revenge, Ekria by her sense of logic and her continuing belief in the Jedi Code, and Zonder who is primarily driven by his instinct for survival. The trio goes on adventures in the galaxy around the Rise of the Empire Era and offer their own perspectives on it, but are still forced into operating as a team and coming up with common solutions.

Another thing is that Evasive Action ties in briliantly with the rest of the Star Wars universe, both that known from the movies and the EU, and even manages to make some convincing retconning itself without changing the universe too radically, but mostly uses it as a backdrop for the tale of the three orphaned padawans; a backdrop that really makes Evasive Action a real Star Wars tale; one of the best if you ask me. It beats many novels, short stories and comics I've read and should be up there among the finest of EU with the Thrawn Trilogy and the Empire comics and the rest of the creme de la creme of EU.

Evasive Action does not pretend to be grandiose and epic, and it doesn't seek to change the Star Wars universe. Rather, it modestly explores a corner of it and tells an intriguing tale of personal drama within the boundaries of the universe, which I think is more challenging than telling an epic tale of galaxy-wide heroics. That's really what makes Evasive Action such a great Star Wars tale ... it's almost a shame that it's not published to the open public in a TPB or something.