In Review: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – War #2
The cover: Jedi Zayne Carrick fights alongside his new allies the Mandalorians. It’s a cool painted cover by Benjamin Carre that could actually serve as an appropriate first panel of this issue’s story. If this were a novel cover I would have to pick the book up to find out what it was about. Overall grade: A
The story: John Jackson Miller continues the saga of Zayne Carrick, as Zayne now works for the Mandalorians, who now have their own Jedi, which is changing the war between the Republic and the Mandos. The first four pages deal with Zayne’s initial battle as a Mando, and his concern for his commanding officer, Kra’ake, who doesn’t care for the the Jedi. The remainder of the book deals with Zayne’s wishy-washiness in fighting and Captain Morvis doing some cliche whining and back stabbing. I just didn’t care, I’m sorry to say. And I don’t think the story was the entire reason for my disinterest, but the book does boil down to a battle of dogma, especially on Pages 10 and 11. It’s coming off as a glorified speech debate, and if the remaining issues in the series goes this way, I won’t be buying any further adventures of Zayne. Overall grade: D+
The art: From a strickly business point of view, how can Dark Horse expect to make a profit from a product that looks like this? I’m sorry, Andrea Mutti, but this is really not working for me. Look at Page 2: Is that a look of shell-shocked fear or rage on Zayne’s face? Look at Kra’ake on the same page: At first I thought this Mando had legs that bent backwards, like those aliens in the Charlie Sheen sci-fi flick The Arrival, but, nope, that’s just a big damn foot. Look at Page 4: How was Zayne hit? Laser? Sonics vibrating his shoulder to smoulder? I can’t tell! There’s a lot of this going on in this issue. And every drawing of Morvis on Pages 8 and 9 is open mouthed: He looks like a cartoon cliche. This artwork reminds me of Marvel filler by Al Milgrom. Now the ships on the last page are picture perfect, but two ships do not make a book. Overall grade: D-
The inks: How can I grade the inks separately from the pencils? I can’t. I don’t know if Pierluigi Baldassini followed Mutti’s pencilwork flawlessly or put his own personal spin on it. I do know that I didn’t like it. Overall grade: D-
The colors: Michael Atiyeh does what he can, but it’s like coloring in a 99 cent coloring book. Overall grade: C+
The letters: I can give high marks to Michael Heisler for the good narration and dialogue, but those sound effects in the first seven pages were great! Overall grade: A
The final line: Because a book has Star Wars in the title it will sell better than others because Star Wars fanatics, such as me, will buy it, more often than not. But that doesn’t mean it will be good. As a visual medium, comic books can be destroyed, regardless of how good the story is, buy art that fails to live up to expectations. This is an epic fail from the Dark Horse Star Wars line. I will no longer review this title if it continues in this fashion. Overall grade: D
