Republic No More

Today is a sad day for me. I just found out that Knights of the Old Republic is coming to an end with issue number 50. Now, that issue won't hit for several months now, but author John Jackson Miller says that he's already turned in the final script for it. This is the end of a great ride that I only recently jumped on.

This past summer I heard some buzz about this kooky Star Wars comic called Legacy that takes place 130+ years after the battle of Yavin (the explosion of the first Death Star in the first Star Wars movie). The protagonist of the series is a Jedi turned bounty hunter with a drug habit. Oh, and he's also a descendant of Luke Skywalker and occasionally sees visions/hallucinations of his famous ancestors. It's a pretty nifty read.

But what, says you o' faithful reader, does that have to do with KotoR? Well, part way through Legacy there was a crossover dubbed "Vector" that included all 4 (at the time) Star Wars titles regularly published by Dark Horse. I really didn't want to have to dig through other, unfamiliar titles just to understand what was happening in the Legacy portion. But I ended up doing it anyway. And to my delight, one of those crossover titles was KotoR.

My first impression of KotoR was how humorous it was. Compared to the dark moral ambiguity of Legacy, Miller's title was rather funny and almost lighthearted. The main characters of Zayne and Gryph were bumbling buffoons. Zayne was not a super cool Jedi. Instead, he was a klutzy padawan that hadn't even graduated to the status of Jedi Knight. He was more in line of what I'd be like as a Jedi.

I loved the Knights of the Old Republic video game. The comic series takes place a couple years before the events in that game and, for the most part, does not include the main game characters. There's cameos, guest appearances, and allusions to those characters and events in the game, but the bulk of the story focuses exclusively on Zayne and his compatriots. This gives the sense that the comic, and also the game, take place in a bigger world where a lot more things are going on than just what is on the page or screen. It adds a depth and history to the Star Wars universe that I greatly appreciate and enjoy.

And now its all ending. At least, in this format. While I'm saddened, I'm also hopeful that Miller will knock the final few issues out of the park. Make me laugh, make me cheer, even make me cry. I take comfort in knowing that the series isn't ending from an abrupt, unplanned, cancellation. Hopefully Miller, who's written every issue of the series, will end it exactly the way he wants to.

Issue #46 comes out this Wednesday and continues until #50 lands sometime in February.