Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Vol 1 Commencement

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Vol 1 Commencement 

By John Jackson Miller, Brian Ching & Travel Foreman (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN 1-84576-371-8

This is set nearly four thousand years before the events of the feature films and the Republic is a sprawling pan-galactic, multi-species culture run on largely democratic and free-market principles, policed by individual systems but overseen by the beneficent adepts known as Jedi Knights, who answer only to the Senate. Zayne Carrick is a Padawan, a Jedi-in-training, and one of the worst his Jedi masters have ever taught. In fact he’s even a bit of a joke to the various low-level criminals and thugs he in charge of policing.

So it’s much more than grim irony when his Jedi masters slaughter all the other Padawans and frame Carrick for the crime. Hunted and desperate the fugitive must team-up with a minor crime-lord and other “evil-doers” to discover the truth of a plot to re-shape the Galaxy if he is ever to find peace and justice.

This is an old fashioned story told in a traditional way, and it’s great. Harking back to the glory-days of the pulp genre from which the Star Wars brand evolved, it’s full of breakneck thrills, baroque characters and action, action, action. No knowledge of backstory is necessary, and there’s even a twist in the tale. All licensed comics should be this good.

© 2006 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.