The Secret Journal of Doctor Demagol
This first-person series of journal entries spans the entire run of the Knights of the Old Republic comic and retells many scenes from Demagol’s point of view, in addition to revealing what he was up to while off-screen. Unlike the previous two KotOR shorts, “Labor Pains” and “Interference,” which didn’t really bring much to the table beyond being fun diversions, this story offers new insights on Demagol’s behavior and thought process while disguised as Rohlan and alleviates the lack of overt characterization caused by his subterfuge.
There are a few points of interest that change things we thought we knew from the comics. When Demagol calls up Mandalore to invite him to Adasca’s auction, he lets him know who he really is instead of sticking to the Rohlan disguise. So when Mandalore gives him the new suit of armor that Demagol promptly throws away, it adds kind of a little comedic twist on the scene. I guess not really though.
There’s also a line where Demagol muses how Squint would be lucky to leave his laboratory with nothing more than an elongated spine. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be an explanation on Miller’s part for why Malak is so much taller in the videogame than in the comic or just a callback to Alek’s joke in Flashpoint about being a little taller after getting off the torture rack.
At this point I don’t care, however. The best thing about this story is getting inside Demagol’s head and basically revisiting the entire series from his point of view. In that way it serves both as sort of a “greatest hits” and as an overdue exploration of a major character who we didn’t realize was a major character until shortly before he died. It’s a cool narrative device and Demagol gets a lot of great funny and/or evil lines. “It is a wonder anyone is ever born.”
4/5 Death Stars, an acceptable coda to the series.
Knights of the Old Republic: War
John Jackson Miller’s intent for Knights of the Old Republic originally encompassed three distinct story arcs. In the first, Zayne Carrick was a fugitive from injustice, framed by his teachers for the murders of his fellow Padawans and on a quest to clear his name, all set against the backdrop of the opening salvos of the Mandalorian Wars. In the second, Zayne was a freelance do-gooder who traveled around righting wrongs that escaped the Republic’s notice, culminating with helping Jarael overcome the past she was running from and vanquish the evil she was once a part of.
The third arc was to shift focus, foregrounding the ongoing war and throwing Zayne into the role of a hapless soldier, left adrift without his friends to bail him out of trouble. I’ve remarked several times throughout these reviews that the story arcs more involved with the macro-conflict of the Mandalorian Wars, like Flashpoint and Days of Fear, were some of my favorites, so making the war the central plot of the series instead of something Zayne happened to stumble into from time to time could potentially have been a very cool narrative shift.
So of course Dark Horse canceled the series for no reason right before it was going to happen.
I should note that I’m not overly bitter about this because KotOR already had a long run and Demon wrapped things up so well. As nice as it would have been to see Zayne’s continuing adventures go on for another 20-30 issues, the fact that we missed out on a series set during the Mandalorian Wars actually being about the Mandalorian Wars isn’t my biggest complaint here. It’s that if they weren’t going to let John Jackson Miller do it the way he wanted, they shouldn’t have done it at all.
Because War kind of sucks. Like a lot.
Shortly after the events of KotOR #50, Zayne’s family moved from Dantooine back to their homeworld of Phaeda. Zayne attempted to visit them but immediately upon setting foot on the planet he was drafted by the Republic. He’s now under the command of Dallan Morvis, Saul Karath’s henchman from the main series. Zayne is the worst soldier ever, though. He refuses to carry a gun or kill anybody, so instead of court-martialing him or making him a support staff member or just allowing him to refuse to serve on the grounds that he’s a pacifist, they just let him carry his lightsaber and run around the battlefield doing whatever.
No wonder the Republic’s losing this war.
The Jedi Master working with Morvis’s detachment is former High Councillor Dorjander Kace, but in a twist that no one could have seen coming, Kace and his three Charlie’s Angels Jedi associates (if Charlie’s Angels were weird-looking alien chicks) betray Zayne and the others to the Mandalorians. Zayne, Morvis, and the rest are pressed into service as Neo-Crusaders under the command of Kace, who uses the captured Republic frigate Reciprocity to infiltrate and take over Republic installations.
Zayne still refuses to fight, however. You’d think the Mandalorians would just shoot him for cowardice and move on, but for some reason both sides are really intent on sabotaging themselves by forcing an unpredictable element into volatile combat situations. Zayne tries his best to save lives by disarming the outnumbered Republic soldiers with his lightsaber, but somehow he’s unable to foresee that the Mandalorians would just shoot them all anyway. It’s like they’re in a war or something!
Despite his inappropriate and inopportune moral dilemma, Zayne has made an ally of Koblus Sornell, the Mandalorian communications officer we briefly met in “Interference,” by saving her and her son from Morvis’s troops before they were captured. Who didn’t want to see her again, right? He persuades her to send a message to Gryph’s Coruscant eatery. Gryph answers the phone wearing a top hat, which would be a great image if the art weren’t so lackluster. The cameo only lasts a single page, but seeing Gryph’s flourishing restaurant business, along with Elbee (looking depressed as ever) and Slyssk in the background, is like looking through a window onto a more entertaining story.
Gryph reads up on Dorjander Kace and gives Zayne the skinny on his history. Kace was captured by the Mandalorians during the Great Sith War and apparently went native while in their company. When Revan dragged the Jedi into the new war, Kace saw an opportunity to even the odds for his adopted people by bringing Force-users over to their side as well. Zayne realizes that he plans to attack the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine and induct all the students there into the Mandalorian forces.
He persuades Sornell to turn a blind eye to his activities, because splitting up families and harming children is anathema to Mandalorian culture apparently (I wonder how many children were on Serroco and Cathar). Using bile rat stew to make it look like his and his fellow escapees’ brains are leaking out of their heads, Zayne hijacks a Mandalorian dreadnought and makes a beeline for Dantooine, where Kace’s Mandalorian Knights have already subdued the Jedi instructors (including KotOR NPC Zhar Lestin in his first speaking role of the series) and rounded up the children.
Disguised as Mandalorians, Zayne and the others are almost able to con the Jedi turncoats into allowing the students to go with them while the Mandalorian Knights go off on a mission for Mandalore, but in one of the comic’s few humorous bits, Morvis accidentally gives them away and Zayne slaps himself on his armored forehead, unable to withstand the stupidity. (I know how he feels.) Zayne blows up their stolen Mandalorian landing craft, however, buying enough time for Morvis to escape with the students in Reciprocity while he duels Dorjander Kace.
Kace is about to kill him when Sornell shows up and pulls a gun on the Mandalorian Knight, telling him that his backup troops aren’t coming. Despite Mandalore the Ultimate’s orders, they’re refusing to have anything more to do with Jedi magic after the “Jedi brain fever” they witnessed among the crew who stole their dreadnought. Superstition wins out against pragmatism, just like always.
Kace refuses to back down, however, even if he has to kill Zayne and Sornell both. But Sornell informs him that she is pregnant, and Zayne reminds Kace of his own pregnant Mandalorian wife who was killed by a Jedi during the war. “Perhaps . . . perhaps this wasn’t the way,” he admits. He relents and is taken into custody by the Dantooine Masters.
“When you were a pupil here,” Zhar Lestin confesses to Zayne, “I never thought you would become a Jedi. I see now that I was right—you seem to have become something more.”
Dorjander Kace is taken to stand trial in the same chamber where Demagol didn’t. He talks for nine hours about how corrupt the Republic and the Jedi are. “I think they’re going to have to come up with something else for the next Jedi who goes wrong,” comments Zayne. Oh we know they will!
Zayne finally makes it to Phaeda to see his family and finds his sisters showing embarrassing baby pictures to Jarael. “So what am I supposed to be, the big reward at the end of your story?” she asks. Well . . . yeah.
Zayne joins the Republic Navy as a special diplomatic agent attached to Captain Morvis’s command, a job he describes as being the crew’s “official conscience.” “And the fight goes on . . .” promises the concluding textbox as the Reciprocity sails off to meet the Mandalorian forces. That may be true, but we’re not going along for the ride.
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All right, this is kind of cool I guess. |
Meditations
Going from Demon to War is like playing the expansion pack Dragon Age Origins: Awakening immediately after finishing the main game. Sure, the setting and the main character are the same, but without the party of companions you’ve gotten to know and love over the course of the adventure, who cares? It turns out that, without Gryph and Jarael around to play off of, Zayne isn’t all that compelling a character.
His Batman-esque refusal to take a life, an endearing trait when he was an independent agent contending with various foes on the fringes of the Republic, just comes off really annoying when he’s a soldier. The frontline is no place for your conscientious objection, Zayne. You’re going to get someone killed trying to force your ethics down their throat. I lost track of how many times he tells someone, on both the Republic and Mandalorian sides, “you don’t have to do this.” It’s a war for cultural survival between two irreconcilably different civilizations, you twit; if you’re not going to fight, just mind-trick the draft board and walk away.
But despite everything he has to go through in this book to get back to his girlfriend and family, in the end he decides that the armed forces is the best place for him to be after all. I don’t know if the author was planning on writing more tales about Zayne’s military service that never materialized because of the Disney buyout and reboot, but this is a pretty crummy place to end the story. It undoes all the resolution from the end of Demon in favor of a new status quo that doesn’t even fit with the themes and characters of the main series. Zayne Carrick is a nice guy who helps people who are down on their luck like he once was. That’s what he was doing at the end of issue 50, and that’s what we should have left him to do once the story was done.
Also the art blows chunks. The only cool-looking character is a Togorian Mandalorian named Kra’ake. Everyone else looks so beady-eyed and ugly. Zayne doesn’t even look like Zayne. You know, I take back every negative thing I ever said about Brian Ching’s art. It’s fantastic. It’s no Dustin Weaver, but it’s still fantastic. Please bring him back to redraw this comic.
Actually just don’t make this comic at all. Everything about it is redundant, unnecessary, and pointless. A good story always leaves you wanting more rather than knowing too much.
1/5 Death Stars. Truly disappointing.
Knights of the Old Republic Series Retrospective
We’ve now reached the end of the Knights of the Old Republic series. After 56 comic issues and three short stories, the story of Zayne Carrick, Marn Hierogryph, “the fierce warrior woman” Jarael, and all their wacky friends is at an end. So was the journey worth all the time it took? In a word, yes. Like I said way back in my review of the first arc of the series, Commencement, John Jackson Miller’s Knights of the Old Republic is a pretty good Star Wars comic overall, so there’s only so much to snark about.
Most complaints I have about this series involve downturns in the artwork, contradictions and inconsistencies with the videogames, and the occasional boring subplot. And also, I guess, not knowing where to stop (see above). Taken as a whole, however, this series probably stands as one of the EU’s best, if not at being literature then at being Star Wars. It’s a distinction that will become clearer the farther down the rabbit hole we find ourselves.
Flashpoint, Days of Fear, Knights of Suffering, Vindication, and Demon all stick out in my mind as fantastic arcs, while Commencement, Homecoming, Exalted, Turnabout, Faithful Execution, and Destroyer are all quality additions as well. The space slug subplot, Vector, and the first half of the Crucible arc are the major low points, but despite all the criticisms I’ve made along the way, if you’re looking for light-hearted adventures with fun characters set in one of the coolest eras of the Star Wars universe, you really can’t go wrong with this series. Just stop reading before you get to War; it is not worth it.
But now that the series is done, and ended on a less conclusive and satisfactory note than we might have hoped, what became of that diverse cast of memorable characters we got to know over those 56 issues and three (well, at least two) short stories?
Saul Karath and Dallan Morvis were eventually married, but their partnership ended prematurely after Morvis shaved his mustache and Karath not only failed to notice, but, when pressed, insisted that Morvis had never even had a mustache to begin with.
Cassus Fett sparred with Revan and Malak at the Battle of Jaga’s Cluster, where he murdered a Republic fleet captain in hand-to-hand combat and became the most wanted man in the galaxy for consistently wearing battle armor that looked nothing like the armor he was famous for.
After being placed on academic probation following complaints of wanton destruction of property and inappropriate sexual conduct, Mandalore the Ultimate and the bros of Sigma Chi decided to throw one last LAN party before they were kicked off campus. He eventually met his end at Malachor V in a tragic accident with a beerzooka.
Shel Jelavan continued to serve as Senator Goravvus’s intern until allegations of workplace misconduct put a premature end to his political career. Shel became a pop culture celebrity due to her role in the scandal but eventually retired from the public spotlight to design her own line of handbags.
Dr. Gorman Vandrayk continued living among the space slugs, and was eventually crowned their king. The ceremony was somewhat confusing due to the space slugs’ lack of hands, crowns, language, and any concept of formal society. He never went camping a day in his life.
T1-LB moved into the basement of Goodvalor’s Little Bivoli, where he sat staring morosely at the same spot on the floor until all his friends forgot he was alive. He’d never been happier.
Rohlan Dyre kept his promise to Cassus Fett and did not reveal that “the Questioner” was still alive and well. He refused to abandon his investigation into the origin of the Mandalorian Wars, however, and eventually uncovered the truth: that all along Mandalore the Ultimate had been a pawn of EA Games used to promote their upcoming MMO. He currently appears as Vic Sage at conventions.
Demagol is fucking dead.
Irritated at not being being asked to return for the series’ second story arc, Del and Dob Moomo embarked on a galaxy-wide shooting rampage that killed no one. Satisfied that they’d made their point, they returned to their life of bounty hunting aboard the Moomo Williwaw, their reputations improbably better than ever. Del is the proud father of twelve bombs, all of them named Brabwa.
Slyssk became an Internet meme and parlayed his newfound fame into a reality dating show on VH1. Called Scales of Love, it was canceled after only one season when some ancestral instinct in his reptilian forebrain overrode his gentle nature and caused him to devour the winning contestant live on camera. He currently stars in the reality cooking competition Hell’s Kitchen on Fox.
Marn “Gryph” Hierogryph, alias Baron Hieromarn, Remulus Horne, Professor Gryphomarn, Donald J. Trump, and Bulgryph Mandrake, continued to manage his restaurant franchise until it became apparent that he had no idea what he was doing. Goodvalor’s was eventually shut down for 170,000 health code violations, but by that point Gryph had already made his fortune and retired to operate a men’s clothing warehouse and party costume emporium. One of his aliases has been named the richest sentient being in the galaxy by Space Forbes every year since.
Zayne and Jarael went on to have many more misadventures together, beginning with Zayne’s desertion from the Republic Navy when Captain Dallan Morvis was driven mad by his crew’s insistence that he had never had a mustache. Each new adventure somehow seemed to involve Jarael dressing in slutty costumes and getting kidnapped by crazed stalkers, while Zayne saved the day by flailing around being ineffectual and getting beaten up. In essence, they were the perfect couple, and they lived happily ever after (more or less), until the end of their days.
And of course Malak and Carth Onasi kept very, very busy. But that’s another story.
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