Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic #34 ( Dark Horse / Miller / Ching / Atiyeh )
“The secret Jedi Covenant has one leader, but it isn’t the devoted Jedi seer, Lady Krynda Draay . . .
As Padawan Zayne Carrick struggles to clear his name, the Masters who framed him for murder are finding the ideals they have worked so hard to protect are crumbling. They have been deceived by a trusted advisor whose hostile takeover will pit the Jedi Knights against one another-true Jedi of the Order vs. the misguided Jedi of the Covenant!
* Brian Ching, the artist who kicked off the series, returns for the climactic end of this major storyline!”
This is the penultimate issue of KOTOR! Everything is coming to a head and Lucien can’t even see how off kilter he is. The evil mastermind Haazen has set his plan in motion and moved all his pieces into position. We discover who was in the red space suit that the vision was based on (big surprise there!) and it looks like we get to see the finial clash between master and padawan.
Things to love in the issue are the continuation of the story. John Jackson Miller’s thirty-four issue mega-story is finally in it’s climax and the build up is well worth it. We see the down fall of one of the Old Republics greatest families and how they were duped into some things and just down right wrong in others. In classic Sith style we see how one character thinks he can be the “true” master of the Force by playing both sides. When will they learn? Not only do we get to love Miller’s story, but we also get to drool over Brian Ching’s art. Brian is making some very specific art choices here and it looks great! He’s given a new look to Force powers into more thread like look and less cloud/spherical. Very organic and very cool.
The bad….there’s not much. I was a bit disappointed when we found out who was in the red space suit. Surprised, and also disappointed because I thought the character would have come forward by now. I’m very interested to see how his roll plays out in these last few issues of “Vindication”. Also, as much as I am excited to see Brian Ching working on KOTOR, I don’t expect he’ll be around very long because KOTOR has a revolving door of artists. I love…loooooooove Brian Ching’s work on KOTOR, but it’s hard to get too excited when you know he’ll most likely be gone in two issues. It’s kind of like getting dumped by the same girl over and over again. You know it’s going to happen, but you keep taking her out anyway. Still, this issue is great.
Grade: A
