Knights of the Old Republic #9: Flashpoint Interlude: Homecoming
After Zayne Carrick’s escape from Taris, the Jedi Masters stationed there were recalled to Coruscant. On their way to meet with the Jedi High Council, Lucien Draay, Q’Anilia, Raana Tey, Xamar, and Feln stop by Lucien’s family estate to see his mother, but Lucien is turned away at the door by his family’s droid butler.
The Jedi Council of this time consists of NPCs from the KotOR games, including Vrook Lamar and Vandar Tokare, both of whom we’ve previously met, as well as Atris and Zez-Kai Ell. When the “Jedi Covenant,” as they call themselves, arrives at the Jedi Temple, the council is already in session with Alek’s mysterious Master, a hooded man whose face is never visible.
Master Vrook (played by Ed Asner) and Atris lecture him for nosing around the Mandalorian invasion against their wishes and getting many of his followers captured on Suurja. The unnamed Jedi passes Lucien and the others on his way out, reminding them of his warning about the coming war back on Taris. “The truth is written in blood!” he cries flamboyantly.
Master Vrook will brook no more backtalk today, so when Lucien suggests that the Jedi make the hunt for Zayne Carrick their priority, he puts his foot down. “If we’re going to have a Jedi Council at all, then somebody, somewhere, is going to do what it tells them!” he snarls, suggesting that the council’s existence is relatively new. Too bad Shadows and Light already jumped the gun and had a Jedi Council calling the shots 30 years before this.
Despite their protestations, the five Taris Masters are reassigned to separate positions and dismissed from the Council Chamber. They go back out to their car and Lucien tells them that the Jedi Council can eff off, they’re the Jedi Covenant and they do what they want.
“A Sith Lord could walk right in front of the council and they’d lecture him about neutrality!” Raana Tey complains (emphasis mine). Feln, a Feeorin, says that among his people there is no nobler cause than to retake conquered territory like Alek’s Master is doing, and asks what the Basic (English) word for that concept is. “Revanchism,” Lucien answers.
Hmmm . . .
Lucien gets a text from his butler droid and they head back to his mom’s house.
A series of flashbacks throughout the comic reveals Lucien’s back story, starting with his early childhood. His mother, Krynda, was a half-human, half-Miraluka Jedi seer obsessed with clairvoyance. Her husband and sister, both Jedi, were killed in the Great Sith War, after which Krynda, terrified that the Sith would one day rise again, devoted her time to training seers without the Jedi Council’s supervision. Since Lucien was born without the gift of Force prophecy, he was always a disappointment to her.
Krynda founded the Covenant, a secret fanatical cabal within the Jedi Order. She devoted all her time and energy to training Q’Anilia, Raana Tey, Xamar, and Feln, her greatest group of students, while Lucien was left to learn rudimentary Force skills from his mother’s assistant, Haazen, a former Padawan who flunked out of Hogwarts when he lost his arm, eye, and both legs during the war. Haazen convinced Krynda to allow Lucien to formally enter the Jedi Order so he could serve as her apprentices’ manager and protector.
Lucien returns to his house in the present day, where Haazen berates him for taking it upon himself to murder the Taris Padawans after he had been explicitly instructed to bring them to the Draay estate for further investigation. Because of him, the Jedi Covenant has just barely escaped exposure. Then Haazen kicks him out and slams the door in his face.
It’s really cool seeing this series beginning to reveal how deeply its roots are sunk into the previous lore of this era. This issue is filled with organic references to both the KotOR games and Tales of the Jedi, with Krynda Draay even name-dropping good old Master Vodo. Short but sweet.
3.5/5 Death Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment