Knights of the Old Republic #11–12: Reunion
The gang arrives on Telerath, the Inner Rim’s most luxurious banking planet-cum-pleasure resort, to scam 100,000 credits out of Gryph’s frozen bank account. Posing as Baron Hyro Margryph and Chantique, Camper and Jarael meet with a banker named Arvan to spin their cockamamie yarn about the bank confusing the baron’s name with that of wanted criminal Marn Hierogryph.
Their meeting is interrupted when a pair of Ithorian bounty hunters leap out of the bushes and abscond with the banker. Hearing the commotion over Jarael’s hidden earpiece, Zayne and Gryph run out of the The Last Resort to see what’s going on. Camper randomly goes catatonic so Zayne is left to pursue the kidnappers by himself. He ends up coming face to face with them and realizes that the banker being abducted is, in fact, his father. “Hi, Dad. Umm . . . how’s it going?” he asks. Then somehow by the next page the Ithorians have made it back to their ship with Arvan while Zayne has lost them completely. Did they forget to write a transitional scene here?
The Ithorians, idiot brothers Del and Dob Moomo, have Raana Tey on speakerphone and she’s bitching them out for kidnapping Zayne’s father when all she hired them to do was report on his activities. Now that her trap for Zayne on Telerath has been prematurely sprung, she tells the Moomos she will rendezvous with them in a few days and eliminate Arvan herself.
The brothers start arguing and throwing things at one another, prompting one of them (it does not matter which) to go to a bar. Gryph tracks him down there and scams him into thinking Zayne will turn himself over to him if he releases his father. Zayne follows this Moomo back to his ship, the Moomo Williwaw, where the Moomo brothers start punching each other again.
While they’re distracted, Zayne sneaks in and frees his father, who tells him that he and Zayne’s mother never believed that Zayne actually killed his classmates. He then adds that if Zayne did do it, he must have had a good reason. Goddammit, Zayne’s dad.
Arvan completes Camper’s transaction, which means that Gryph can finally pay Zayne for all the work he’s done since being promoted to henchman. Zayne asks his dad to transfer his first paycheck to his dead friend’s sister on Taris, aka that blonde he had a crush on in the first book. Now that he knows the Jedi Covenant has stooped to targeting his family, Zayne has his dad put in a transfer request to the bank of the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, the one place Zayne knows his parents will be safe.
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The greatest criminal minds of our time. |
Meditations
This story is twice as long as the previous one and I described it in half the space. I’m pretty sure Arvan Carrick doesn’t even appear in the series again after this so I’m not sure why we needed to spend two issues on one of the Jedi Covenant’s many backup plans. They’re leaving no stone unturned in their quest to catch Zayne, I got it. Just humor my attention span with more videogame references please.
The art duties on this story are again split between Brian Ching and Some Other Guy. The other guy’s style isn’t the worst ever but it’s still noticeably and distractingly worse than Ching’s, which I’m not even that crazy about to begin with. There’s this weird thing that he does at least twice where he’ll have a close-up of a character’s face in one panel, then adorn it with an illustration of their disembodied hand, because it’s vitally important that we see both their facial expression and how many fingers they’re holding up at the same time. It’s peculiar and I don’t care for it.
Having the perpetually befuddled Camper impersonate a baron provides a fun little character moment at the beginning of the story, but there’s not really a lot going on here. Fortunately, this arc also introduces the Moomo brothers, who are great fun in a developmentally arrested, physically abusive sort of way. Nearly all Ithorians in the EU are depicted as peaceful nature-lovers, and Gryph explains that they maintain that reputation by kicking out violent knuckleheads like the Moomos.
They’re fun characters but the rest of this just feels like filler. I’m sorry but I don’t care about Zayne’s father. I just don’t.
2/5 Death Stars.
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