Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic #35
Dark Horse Comics
Miller, Ching & Atieyh

For about three years this comic has followed Zayne in various situations as he runs from the Jedi Masters in the Covenant who framed him for their executions of his fellow classmates. Zayne began taking the fight to them and things started unraveling for the Covenant. This issue ends the Covenant and essentially cleans the slate for Zayne. It’s not a One More Day situation, but it is the close of this long running story arc. It delivers the ending with a real Bang. I enjoyed the comic, but in some ways it’s kind of bummer the storyline comes to an end.

The issue wastes no time jumping into the action as Zayne fights his former master, Lucien. Zayne is overmatched and overpowered. But Lucien isn’t the only problem is he? No, Haazen, the Sith-Jedi hybrid, is cooking up some interesting evil. Gryph enters the fray while the Zayne-Lucien fight spills into Haazen’s lap. The four-way confrontation is brilliant. There are twists and great moments. I can’t explain any more without spoiling it. It’s not to be missed though.

The comic ends with a new status quo being established. Some characters live while others die. Some, just sort of disappear. This leaves some potential plot threads open, but for the most part, things will be very different for those that are left in future arcs. It’s a good ending, but doesn’t completely satisfy.

Zayne, in his travels, had contact with many, many characters. Some get mentioned in the end of this story, but not all of them. Some needed more than just a blurb or two to completely close the book on them. I realize this comic didn’t have a ton of space to wrap everything up, but I felt some characters, important to Zayne, were ignored entirely in the end of this one.

Now, the comic is terrific. Zayne and Lucien let out all of their complaints for the other. While there wasn’t a big screaming match about all the deaths of the other students, there is a lot of Zayne trying to bring Lucien back to reality. It’s a really good role reversal of the teacher and student. Again, Gryph and his comic antics take a bit of a break in this issue, which is a good thing. Zayne grows a lot in this arc and this issue, but in some ways so does Lucien. This comic makes great use of the core adversaries.

The artwork is outstanding. The fight between Zayne and Lucien plays right out of the movie franchise. How cool was it when Zayne takes a swipe at Lucien and Lucien jumps only to lose a piece of his robe? Awesome artwork and direction.

A great ending to an excellent story idea. I like long reaching mega arcs and I was very happy with the ending to this one. I wouldn’t have guessed it would have ended like this, but this was a very fun read.

4 out of 5 geek goggles