Comics Join Me In Rereading: Knights of the Old Republic

Again, granting the lack of usefulness in "what-if" theories besides entertainment value, I think I've said before that had things gone like clockwork...

• Brian could have done #5 (it was having to go back and do #0 that hurt the schedule)
• #10 would have been #10 and not #9
• Dustin and Brian would have alternated three-issue arcs through 2007; that would have put the end of Adasca with Dustin, as it was heavy with ships and Mandalorians, and the return to Taris with Brian, who had drawn it in the beginning
• I would not have treated the proposed "Scoundrels" Gryph/Moomo Brothers two-issue microseries (or annual), where the Captain Goodvalor story was to have gone, as a fait accompli. That's fully on me; I was pretty sure it was going to be scheduled but we wound up doing other things.

Beyond that -- and without touching on anything I formally proposed later on -- I can only say that had the Crucible arcs and "Vindication" been reversed, Malak probably would have had a more active role in them; a more ideal timing further might have seen it all wrap up in #54 or even #60 rather than #50. But the next year would still have kicked off with Zayne being drafted, because he was always going to go from being the moral alternative to Lucien to being the moral alternative to Malak and Revan. There were several easy ways to bring the supporting cast back in had that continued.

While speculation is fun, it's just that -- and frankly, if there had been, for example, that micro-series, I would have been scripting that instead of proposing the graphic novel that eventually became KENOBI. And Tim Zahn's SCOUNDRELS, whose name I had suggested to Del Rey, possibly would have wound up under a different title. Life's full of butterfly effect things.

 

Ha, cool. The thing I always wondered about War specifically was how much time exactly was there between 50# and him getting drafted? How much time did Zayne and Jarel get to try out the new apartment ho ho ho... Lol but more seriously after War and bringing back the supporting cast I imagine would fall under those formally proposed things that never got off the ground, and thus probably can't say much, but I have always thought about it.

Even besides the obvious maybe big things like, "How did he get a station named after him", or "Where was he at Malachor". I kinda wanted a story of just Zayne trying to get clearance for Jarael to come aboard a Military ship.

Morvis: No Zayne, that's against protocol
Zayne: Ah but you don't have all the facts
Morvis: Which are?
Zayne: That I love her
Morvis: ಠ_ಠ

 

Heh. No, I think we did actually say something in War about how Jarael was working with the Republic to root out the rest of the Crucible and reunite families; that would have been her route into future stories. Gryph's return was easiest of all: he's a captain, after all.

 

I liked Haazen because it showed the underdog as someone NOT plucky but entitled and unwilling to put the work in. Mind you, the Jedi made no attempt to make him into a proper Jedi either.

They wanted the Core World nobleman.

 

Even though we can call them terrible Jedi masters for enacting the covenant against Zayne's class, they lived in the aftermath of the Exar Kun Sith War.

You can compare that to our times a little. We fear the creation of a new fascist dictator and new world war.

The seamlessness from the Sith War arc in TOTJ to KOTOR held everything together. Ever since reading Kevin J Anderson's intro to the second or third Dark Horse newspaperstrip tradepaperback, I have stuck with the notion that everything fits together. The ANH Special Edition was also my confirmation that Lucas wanted everything to fit together rather neatly.

I would interested in finding out more on how the timeframe was selected for KOTOR? Maybe it was selected because Lucasfilm originally wanted Vima Sunrider to be a featured character in the game? Vima's age became the determining factor?

 

Awesome to hear so much from JJM about what could have been with KotOR. I love the finished product, but interesting to hear about other plans. Most of it just reads quite naturally (like Vector continued the Mando plot and Zayne picks up a favor from Cassus that he calls in 20 issues later).

Sad to hear Bong Dazo has died, he drew a lot of my favorite KotOR issues. His artwork was pretty good and had excellent action scenes and I liked his ships too. Daze of Hate was one of my favorite arcs, as it was the culmination of Camper's story (unless he returned someday), not to mention the Gladiator's first appearance late in the series.

The Covenant are really crazy, huh? I think the Lucien, Krynda and Q'anlia thing was probably the most messed up relationship (the unfavorite son, the basically adopted new daughter, neglectful mother, oh dear). Even crazier that the Covenant's fall probably helped Revan's cause in fracturing the Order when he led his Jedi Crusade.

Again, thanks to JJM for the awesome series and the tidbits of what might have been. The idea of Zayne as a moral alternative to Revan and Malak, wow, that sounds really interesting, if he could have become that influential. Hm, I know SWTOR's Carrick Station was made up later, but still, I wonder if it would have been too out of character for Zayne to have done to get a station named after him (a station that was originally unimportant but that turns out to be a fortuitous name). Heck, I even wonder if Morvis would have just rode Zayne's coattails or if he would have made a decent officer. The only sources are Arkadia and Rusher and neither of them are the most informed (or trustworthy).

 

It doesn't mean Zayne would have been influential, necessarily, beyond his own crew: but the reader would have seen him as a different choice. What the Jedi "should do" in times of crisis is pretty clearly an issue in most all of my work. Certainly, if anyone would have been able to help Morvis see past the looming betrayal of a role model and teacher (in Karath), it's Zayne -- but we weren't very close to that point of the timeline yet.

As to the station name, as I've mentioned, there are at least six other Carricks in his immediate family, so who knows. (Meanwhile, the thing he's is named for, my dorm at the University of Tennessee, is slated for demolition, if it isn't already gone.)

 

I think Zayne has a great future ahead of him.

After all, the Carrick Cruiser is probably named after him.

When you absolutely need a capital ship that intimidates no one but somehow gets the job done.

 

LOL!

Also to quickly clarify: it may sound like Vector was this external force that hit all the series, changing the direction of each -- but we were all involved with every step. It was more "here's a high-profile moment to really zero in on what these titles are individually about, and reset things" -- which was useful in books like KOTOR and Legacy where the casts and subplots had multiplied. The idea that Vindication would work better at the end of Year Three rather than later came out of those discussions; once you start to get more than six trade paperbacks from the beginning of a story arc, it gets harder to bring new people in. I'd grown up on Claremont's X-Men and some seriously long subplots, but there was no main plot that required finishing; the subplots just interlaced and refreshed every once in a while. We didn't have that luxury because of how the series started; the Covenant plot was too big not to resolve while our initial readers were still with us. Once we did that we'd be freer to tackle the other subplots, while starting some new business.

 

Gives a whole new meaning to "He said to follow the trail of debris."

 

Mind you, the thing about the Jedi Covenant is they're NOT survivors of the Exar Kun Wars. As we recall, Jolee Bindo and Krynda are survivors of the Exar Kun Wars.

Lucien and the others are the Rey and Finns (and Huxes) to their Galactic Civil War.

Yes, Lucien is Kylo Ren.

 

Towards the end of KOTOR, I was left with a feeling that Zayne had gone on to accomplish many things in his life. Many of those accomplishments we will likely never see. However, the events in the series show him shoulder to shoulder with the movers and shakers of that period. It seems like he is an important witness to the events of that era. He displayed heroism, but more in a haphhazard manner; he sort of stumbled through the Mandalorian Conflicts and bumped into the future Darth Malak. It is cool to have a mythical figure in Jedi lore who is not perceived as the ultimate hero nor the arch-villain. Zayne is a rather ordinary Padawan who tries to do the best he can within his circumstances. Near the end of the 56 issue run, we are left with the "Legend of Zayne" versus the real Zayne Carrick, who stumbled through those events somehow still intact.

I enjoyed having the 56 issues to envision this new era post-Exar Kun. Zayne seems to be a more down-to-earth character the readers could relate to rather than the ancient-mythical feel of the Tales of the Jedi characters. The contrasts going from Tales of the Jedi (7 arcs) to Jedi v. Sith (1 arc) to KOTOR (56 issues) were nice. Why trap the ancient storylines with sameness?

One other comment as well: It seems that a space was found in KOTOR to work in a military-industrial-complex theme, with the banking world, the Draay Trust, and Adascorp. We didn't necessarily see that theme surface in the original TOTJ arcs. It's nice how there was freedom to venture into uncharted territory.

I hope the events depicted in the TOTJ, KOTOR, DOTJ, Old Republic, and Knight Errant eras never get over-written.

 

This makes me curious to see what Zayne was up to during the games era.

 

I assume he's Tag and Binking throughout the games.

Like he was on Taris when the planet was bombed and ended up moving a bunch of survivors down to the Promised Land.

Spent some time in the Sith Academy

And survives Sion hunting him

 

I'm pretty much headcanoning him fighting off Sith forces during the Jedi Civil War and thanks to his own unique brand of luck, surviving the Triumvirate's purge and to top it all off, helping Bastila and the Exile's students rebuild the Jedi.

I'm also picturing that given how much of a visual reference Christian Slater was for Zayne, we have a pretty good idea of Zayne would look like during his Jedi Master years.

 

As far as I'm concerned him and the Rogue Moon Project where kept pretty busy during the games.

I mean, RM's mission statement sure sounds like a group that would be interested in helping Jedi escape from Sith Assassins does it not? That plus his relationship with Vandar and where he ended up dying and wellll. Plus it would the most Zayne thing ever to successfully help smuggle 100 Jedi to a secret meeting only for Atris to alert Nihilus and get them all killed

 

Sad to hear about Dazo's passing. May he rest in peace.

Mr. Miller, thank you so much for your contribution to this thread. I hope you'll return to Star Wars comics soon!

 

@JohnJacksonMiller , thank you for the insight! It's really fascinating to think that Crucible/Demagol was originally envisioned as happening before Vindication. Thinking that over definitely puts a new spin on things.

The Bong Dazo panel really is something, too. It's fascinating how so many of those are clearly new, while also clearly in the Star Wars aesthetic. The alien above of the shoulder of the auctioneer clearly looks like it takes influence from both Mon Cals and Bith, without being too slavish to either (or without looking like someone just made some unholy hybrid of both). Without wanting to make this into an EU/Disney debate, I feel like that one panel captures the aesthetics of designing new Star Wars aliens in a way, with a few exceptions, the new aliens of the current movies haven't really captured.

 

Knights of the Old Republic 11: Reunion, Part 1

Notes: http://www.farawaypress.com/comics/swknights/swkotor11.html

And we finally entire the final arc of the first full year of the run. An arc that is much lighter overall then the two proceeding it, but that's not a bad thing, and its by no means filler either.

Its fun getting to see the crew operate without immediate death of either Jedi or Mando kind hanging over them. All the good banter between Zayne and Gryph, plus the 3rd Jarael disguise and Chantique gets name dropped for the first time, as a cover name and plot seeding for something roughly 30 issues down the line, gotta love it.

Camper being able to consistently fight out of his dementia like disease just because Gryph annoys him that much is hilarious, and him getting the 30 digit code right from memory while the group gaps is a nice reminder of just how sharp he is before the next arc makes it a vital plot point.

Really though its the Momo Brothers intro that I enjoy the most, there the total antithesis of every other Ithorian we have ever seen. Which in general is a theme with JJM' SW work in general. Evil Jedi who are NOT Sih, dumb brute Ithorians, physically fit jetpack riding, axe using Hutts, loving family men Sith, (who are still evil), or Sith who are all just glorified grand kids fighting for grandmas love(money). Or even actually examining what its like to be a Droid in the old EU and how much it would suck. Subversion is a hallmark of his work, and its always great.

Speaking of subversion, as the final panel directly states, we actually get to meet a Jedi's alive parent, and as we will find out, he is a good bloke just like his son. Which makes him super rare.How many Jedi characters are there with steady home lives of any kind? Not really any until Han and Leia's were born, but ah, apparently good parents didnt matter as much in the end for them, because well, reasons

But regardless of that, like I said its a really fresh take on a Jedi's home life, and I'll go into that more nest issue.

 

Yes, while I didn't get to the point of figuring out all the specific plots the other way, clearly chasing down the Crucible becomes trickier if Zayne can't involve the authorities. Likely we would have done something where Zayne risks arrest to get official help, or where he calls on the allies he's built up on his run. The Rogue Moon Project could have come into existence in some manner there -- kind of a secret Friends of Zayne alliance.

This also is pretty much the answer to complaints that the series is imbalanced, given that it's front-loaded with the fugitive arc. It wasn't the intention, and as someone above's already mentioned, had we continued to publish, the military phase would have been a much more substantial bookend.

 

A thousand times this! The " Planet of Hats " trope has always bugged me. "The <insert name here> species are proud warriors!" "If you're all warriors, then who farms your food, builds and maintains your technology, heals your wounded, writes your laws, and cleans your toilets?" " . . . I don't know. Just don't think about it. And also don't think about the implications that an entire group (or race, if you will) all think and act the same way."

Which is why I love it when we get bad Ithorians and good Trandoshans. (I can't wait till we get to Slyysk).

 

Don't forget the Mandalorian scientist.

 

Ah so the Military phase would have been the 3rd major encompassing story line in the line Fugitive and Crucible arcs? And within that the major characters like Gryph and Jarael would be reintroduced? Cool, I do wonder if there was any ideas for anything passed "Solider" But I imagine it was in those proposals

 

Spoiler

. . .who is also a Zeltron lacking any empathy.

(not sure if I really need to spoiler it since I assume most of the people in this thread have read the series and we've already talked in broad strokes about future arcs, but hey, there's no harm in it).

 

I'd have liked to bring them in for more than cameos, yes. But the Crucible would have been folded into the fugitive arc, rather than the masters going down one-two-three. But again, that would have put the resolution of the initial storyline more than three years after the series started, and that's not usually advisable. Comics readerships turn over more quickly than that, in general, or at least they used to.

As it ended up happening, we joked that it was The Fugitive followed by Maverick. Both TV series were created by Roy Huggins, and Maverick suited the free-wheeling adventurer stories we headed for immediately out of Vindication. What kept them from being fully that was the fact that we had the overhanging mysteries left over, so even as Zayne goes out and has fun swoopdueling, there are dark shadows over the story. He wouldn't have peace until those were dealt with.