Lit Star Wars: KOTOR (comics) thoughts?

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a comic series first published by Dark Horse comics in 2006, with it's last issue being published in 2010. It was written by John Jackson Miller, with art by various artists. The KOTOR comics are set almost 4000 years before Episode I, and a few years before the original KOTOR game, and are focusing on Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick and his friends.

One of my favorite Star Wars comics ever, with a very fun story and likeable characters. I love the fact that this series introduced us to great original characters like Zayne, Gryph and Jarael among others with only cameos by characters from the KOTOR games. Dark Horse had a perfect opportunity to play it relatively safe by making Revan or another "big" character from the KOTOR games as the main protagonist(s), but what they gave us was even better. My favorite character is definitely Zayne. He's more Jedi than Jedi personality wise, but his Jedi skills are surprisingly under average, making him a unique and very interesting character in the Star Wars universe. My favorite issue is issue #1. It got me hooked the first time I read it. Only complaint that I have about this series is the various artists that it had. Some issues and arcs had great art (Brian Ching and Dustin Weaver), and other issue had sub par art for my liking. I also regret that we never got to see Zaynes' adventures during the Manadlorian Wars.

So what are your opinions about KOTOR? What are the things that you liked, and what are the things you didn't? What did you want to see in the series that wasn't presented? Who are your favorite characters and moments from the series, as well as favorite arcs, issues, covers...?

 

One of the best series' ever. Zayne, Gryph and Jarael rock! One of the best trio's in SW.
Zayne is what a Jedi should be imo.
We need more issues.

 

KOTOR... I miss you.

Favourite. Series. Ever.

I know many preferred Legacy, but KOTOR was always my favourite. It had everything I wanted from Star Wars. Fun, original characters? Check. A big storyline? Check. Tie-ins to other stories? Check. The only thing it didn't have was enough issues, as I would have loved to have followed Zayne all the way through the Mandalorian Wars. He was such a nice... for lack of another term, "witness" to the war, a third party who was more than just a third party, and that's something we so rarely get.

I guess, it was for me a bit like the X-Wing series of the Old Sith Wars era. Okay, Zayne was another Jedi, but... not a "Jedi character" in the way Ulic or Revan or the Exile or [Insert TOR character of choice] is a Jedi. Zayne was always outside the main stuff, looking in, like you got from the X-Wing characters for the New Republic era, and I liked that, as it allowed us to get a more long-distance perspective of what was going on during the Mandalorian War, and that's something you so rarely get from Star Wars books.

 

I really enjoyed KOTOR because it perfectly captured the small crew thrown together style storytelling from the game that inspired it, sadly it lost steam after the first major arc was through and i consider it the weakest SW work by Miller, though that of course still makes it among the best stuff to ever have had happened in SW.

 

I didn't read the whole series, but for what I read I enjoyed it. The art style is my favorite type of comic art for any star wars comic and Griff would have to be one of my favorite EU characters.

 

Hey, I wanted to write that.

 

Then do it!

 

Maybe I don't want to anymore now that it's already used. Who knows if Zor washed his hands before typing.

 

Are you saying Zor is.... dirty?

 

I loved the period that KOTOR was set in, but the art was never my fav. I thought Zayne was a bit too... Hapless. Compared against Legacy and Dark Times, KOTOR was the weakest for me out of the three. I did enjoy it more towards the end, but I wish it mimicked the games more.

 

KOTOR was totes amazing. The best thing Dark Horse put out.

 

Half of KOTOR was really good, but half of it was so-so to just bad. (Adasca/space slug and Crucible plotlines, I'm looking at you.) The first ten issues, the Vindication climax, and the final storyline were all absolutely top notch, though.

 

I didn't get into KotOR until after the first TPB had been released, then I started following the series. At first I was only interested in Legacy, as I was more familiar with that time period (post-RotJ, post-NJO), but then started picking up KotOR since I was in the comic shop and never regretted it since. I only regret not picking up the first arc in individual issues in those early years. Even signed up on these boards to talk about the Star Wars comics. Ah, those were good years.

I liked the first half of KotOR a lot, up until the Vindication finale and how it tied up most of the immediate plots by then (Zayne cleared his name, justice was done, Camper had pulled himself together, Slyssk was awesome, etc.). Just too bad the latter half wasn't as good, but at least that did clear up the rest of the loose ends, showed Zayne's maturation into a very confident fellow, some romance, and a happy ending. Not to mention being possibly the best Jedi ever by actually skipping out on the Jedi Council and all their politics, and actually focusing on helping people.

I also just liked Zayne's crazy luck, good or bad. Either way, always be careful around him, you never know what will happen... which made for a very entertaining comic. Sadly War wasn't anywhere near as good as the main series (though I still like it somewhat), but Zayne is one of the things I miss the most about the old EU. I hadn't even played KotOR at the time I started reading the comics, but the art was good, the plot was great and easily followed and it had plenty of Star Wars elements and some really nice ships (always liked the Inexpugnable and Last Resort ship designs.)

 

stroke of genius

 

The first time I read KOTOR: War my reaction to it was 'meh'. For some reason, I could barely finish reading the last two issues when they originally came out. Last year I reread the whole KOTOR run including War, and I liked it a lot this time. So my opinion of War has changed from 'meh' to 'pretty good'. Not the best KOTOR arc, but not the worst either. Certainly an enjoyable read (after the second time for me at least). Anybody else feels the same way about War?

 

I thought War was absolute garbage the first time I read it, not to mention a truly unnecessary coda to the main series (and one can argue, a coda which actually diminishes the original ending) and as a result I have no interest at all in ever reading it again.

 

War committed the cardinal sin of breaking up the band!

 

No Gryph! How stupid is that? Just a quote.

 

Quite. Zayne's a great character but not in isolation away from the others.

 

At least Jarael was there at the end but not enough.

 

Well Gryph did appear briefly in one issue of KOTOR War in his restaurant on Coruscant together with Slyssk, although not enough to leave a significant impression. I agree that one of the biggest problems with War was that Zayne was alone.

 

At least we got a brief glimpse of the Valorettes, that was funny. I did really miss Gryph and Jarael though.

War was weaker , but was kind of nice to see more of the Mandalorian Wars (they're no match for Zayne and Jedi Brain Fever). Though one of my favorite parts was having Morvis' character turned around, I just figured he would be future Sith lackey like Karath or a joke, but I like seeing more character development. Though #50 was definitely a better ending, but I like KotOR War more than Legacy War (though to be fair, Legacy ended more abruptly and had way more plots to tie up).


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To me, it was likely the best Star Wars comics series that was ever released. It had good, memorable characters. It had an overarching meta plot while still being able to pick up a random issue and not feel too lost. It had good side stories that never seemed to distract from the meta arc, save for the shoe-horned in Vector issues. The art was generally top notch, with the exception of the god-awfulness that was Vector. And there was Gryph.

 

Agreed. The main storyline was awesome. The stuff with the Crucible got a bit out of hand. It is a top knotch work but I have to go with Legacy.

 

KOTOR is my favorite comic series, hands down, period.