Readers of the Last Arc - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

by Brandon

It's crossover time in the galaxy far, far away! Did the first Star Wars crossover start with a Death Star like bang or a Galactic Senate bust? Knights of the Old Republic was the first chronologically in the current line of Star Wars title, and therefore the first out of the gate. The four-issue arc took place between #'s 25-28. Series scribe John Jackson Miller promised all sorts of Zayne Carrick zaniness. Did he deliver?

A bit of background first. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Star Wars line from Dark Horse, The Knights of the Old Republic title takes place a little bit less than 4,000 years before the events of A New Hope. Titular hero/screw-up Zayne Carrick was framed by his Jedi masters for murdering his fellow padawans. Unknown to Zayne and his now deceased homies in the force, the Jedi masters on Taris were members of an elite Jedi cabal called the Covenant. This organization is tasked to investigate the mysteries of the Sith and stop them in their tracks. After receiving a vision as a group that one of their own would become a Sith lord, the Covenant Masters decide to exterminate their padawans. Zayne escapes their dire plot and ends up having adventures all around the galaxy. Unfortunately for Zayne, the Mandalorians are starting a major war in the Outer Rim that would soon engulf the entire galaxy and bring the Jedi to the brink of extinction.

Enter Celeste Morne. (significant arc spoilers start here)

Celeste is an operative for the Covenant on Taris. She is tapped by Lucien Dray, Covenant Hand and son of Covenant founder Krynda, to find the ancient Sith artifact, the Murr Talisman on Taris, and to kill Zayne Carrick. Oh my! Celeste acts as the central character that ties the individual vector arcs into one large arc. She makes her first appearance in issue #25. She's a savvy devotee to the Covenant's goals and is handy in a fight.

The Murr Talisman was created by a Sith lord named Karness centuries beforehand. If a non-force user is struck by the talisman, it turns them into a Rakghoul. Those familiar with the KOTOR games will recognize this term immediately. A Rakghoul is a zombie-like creature that prowls the undercity of Taris. These things were slightly less annoying than Ewoks, but much cooler because you could actually kill them in the game!

Zayne and his "friend" Gryph end up tagging along with Celeste as the Mandalorians get their hands on the talisman first. They end up on Jebble in the Outer Rim, where the Mandalorians were preparing for an assault on Alderaan. Mandalorian crusdaer Pulsipher foolishly tried to use the Muur Talisman and it started to spread the Rakghoul plague throughout his Mandalorian ranks. The talisman attempts to attack Zayne, but Celeste thwarts the attack by revealing to it she is a Jedi. It then attaches itself to her. The Sith artifact begins to corrupt Celeste. Zayne decides the only hope to save Celeste is to place her in a Sith oubliette to bring her back to Coruscant. This was good plan, but before Zayne can get her off the planet, the Mandalorians nuke the base, destroying the Rakghoul and supposedly destroying the entombed Celeste.

Whew!

This arc was quite an entrance for this crossover. With the whole industry on event-overload, I was very surprised when Dark Horse announced this project. Crossover in Star Wars? Give me a break! However, the team here does a great job. John Jackson Miller has slowly and quietly crafted one of the best Star wars titles out there. In fact, Dark Times and Legacy are also really strong too (like a Bantha)! Miller managed to weave a tale here that makes sense both in terms of the title and the crossover itself. By introducing the Rakghoul plague and a cryogenic-frozen Jedi, we have the beginnings of a good, if somewhat overused, basis for a story/crossover. I was worried that time-travel would be involved with this crossover. That concept seems more relaxed with Star Trek, not Star wars. So kudos to Miller for that.

My only small quibble with the arc was the art. The artist Scott Hepbrun's style is too cartoon-like for this series. I am not saying that his art was bad, but it was out of place with the artists we've seen prior to this arc in KOTOR. I must admit that I am unfamiliar with his work, but I'm sure it would be better suited with something besides Star Wars. It looks especially out of place when you go on to read the next issue in the Crossover from Dark Times, which is beautifully illustrated by Doug Wheatley.

Despite that small criticism, Vector appears to be off to a solid start. Read more!

Readers of the Last Arc: Freddy vs Jason vs Ash

by Dan

Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash - I read on a message board that this was based on the script from the scrapped movie of the same name. Since you should always have two sources, I decided to verify that and read on Wikipedia that this is "Based on the original Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash film treatment by Jeff Katz." A message board and Wikipedia, that's two sources, so it must be true. And since I thought the original Freddy vs. Jason movie was so laughably bad it was good, I was looking forward to this mini.

The story starts five years after the end of the Freddy vs. Jason movie with Freddy stalking Jason's brain trying to get Jason to make him whole again. At the same time, a certain S-Mart employee named Ash transfers to the new Crystal Lake area Super S-Mart. Ash is the narrator of this tale and it sets a great, snarky, badass tone for the book. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that while I enjoy the ridiculousness of Freddy and Jason movies, I really don't like Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2. I enjoyed Bruce Campbell in them and like the character of Ash, but I don't enjoy them as movies. Considering my gross dislike of the Spider-Man franchise, I'm going to say it's all Sam Raimi's fault.)

The dialogue, pace and humor in this mini-series are all spot on for a slasher film transfered to the comic page. I applaud the writers for this, as it seems many Hollywood to Comics scripters have difficulty adjusting to the format (see my Dan Goes Deeper: Joss Whedon article next Wednesday). To be fair, Katz is only credited with the "story," while regular Army of Darkness comics writer James Kuhoric does the heavy lifting.


I only have two knocks on the writing; 1) the intros/recaps to each issue are far too long and wordy, almost eclipsing the entire word count for the rest of the issue and 2) the phrase "playing grabass" was used three times by two characters in back-to-back issues. It was amusing the first time, an odd choice the second time and just lazy feeling the third time. But, really, those are nitpicks to an otherwise surprisingly fun read.

The best part of this mini-series was that we didn't stand around playing grabass (see, seems forced, doesn't it?) for five issues with a big fight in the sixth issue. Jason was slashing people up in the first issue. The focus moved to Freddy and Jason in the second issue and by the middle of the third issue we were in full-blown Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash territory.

Unfortunately, the art is nowhere near the quality of the writing. As the mini progresses the art get looser and looser to the point that characters facial structure change from panel to panel, and not just because their jaw was blown off with a shotgun. Additionally, the artists had a bad habit of turning what was supposed to be looks of surprise into something that looked like the lady who pops her eyes out of her eye sockets. On a positive art note, the first two issues have fantastic covers - J. Scott Campbell provides three interlocking covers for issue #1 and Eric Powell does an amazing job on #2, particularly when it's just the pencils and inks of the second printing cover.

If you're a fan of slasher flicks, WildStorm's previous Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street books, or just like a slightly silly, fun, action comic I think this mini-series is well worth checking out. B Read more!

Readers of the Last Arc: Action Comics

by Patrick

Hello and welcome to another of our irregular features at The Bad Genious, Readers of the Last Arc. Rather than look at just the newest issue of a series, we'll be taking a look at the most recent storyline, or, the last arc. And while I may be posting the first installment of this series, the credit for the awesome name must go to The General. Long may he command his collection of X-Men books!

There are those collectors out there that we may refer to as "whores." The X-Men whores; compelled to pick up everything "X" book regardless of whether or not it is any good. Dan has already admitted to being a Warren Ellis whore, buying everything Mr. Ellis puts his name on. But myself, for a good portion of my adult life, my weakness has been for anything with a logo spelling out Legion of Super-Heroes. I don't know what it was exactly that drew me into to DC's super-team of the 30th century, but they were the center of my fanboy obsessions from high school through my 20's .

But the last decade and a half has not been kind to the Legion. First they introduced the LEGIONNAIRES. Then the earth was destroyed. And then a couple of years later, the Legion was wiped out as the future was destroyed in ZERO HOUR and then 35 plus years of continuity started over from scratch. Half the team ended up stuck in the present day DCU for a couple of years, and then eventually, the Future was rebooted. AGAIN. I've still picked up the Legion book, but it's more out of my fanboy completest compulsion than out of any great love for what has been going on in the book for the past decade. (With small exceptions here and there.)

Then last year, a small ray of hope appeared. None other than Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer brought back the original Legion. Not the clones (yeah- Spider-Man was not the only one to have a clone saga in the '90s. Again- don't ask). Not the reboots. But the "real" Legion that first appeared with Superboy in the 1950's. And while it's fun to see those old characters again, the book suffered because the story was silly and kind of sucks. In the course of the story, they dropped hints that it wasn't safe for Superman to go the future to help the Legion, the Legion was on a desperate mission for some magical so and so, and that they left three people in the past to be in other books for no reason other than to annoy me. (I really want to like Starman being in the JSA, but, I am not. But that's a subject perhaps for another time.)

Given the last outing that the Legion had with Johns at the helm, I was a was a little scared when I heard that there was an upcoming arc in Action Comics titled "Superman and the Legion of Superheroes". But Johns and new Action artist (and one of my old favorites) Gary Frank, started out strong with a "giant-sized" issue, and it got into things pretty quickly. The Legion is in trouble in the future, so the smartest man of the 31st century, Brainiac 5, sends for Superman. Superman arrives in a future where his name and legend have been perverted to promote bigotry and hatred by a group of Legion rejects operating under the name of "The Justice League." And, Earth's sun has been turned red, so Superman has no powers to help turn things around.

There are a lot of great little touches to the characters that I really enjoyed. Ever since the Legion was rebooted, Brainiac 5 has been portrayed as a bit of an asshole. The arrogant smart guy. But in this story, we see the old Brainiac 5. Not a jerk, but more like the smart guys on the Big Bang Theory. So smart he can see the big picture in ways no one else could, and build almost anything you want, but misses out on all the little personal things around him. Or Polar Boy, the hero with freezing powers, who when rejected for Legion membership, formed the Legion of Substitute Heroes. His own group to be accepted in.

And then, there was also this moment:Anytime you can throw in a reference to Jim Croce and You Don't Mess Around With Jim, you are doing alright in my book.

I really don't want to spoil too much of this arc for you all, because if you didn't read it, the collected edition is coming. The big themes of the arc have to do with that universal feeling of not belonging and the deep rooted desire we all have to find a place to fit in. From Clark Kent not fitting in at the Daily Planet, to flashback of a teenage Clark wishing he had friends he could share with, to the villains feeling rejected by the Legion, and wanting revenge for feeling outcast, the theme runs strong in this book.

Add that with the strong art, action, and a great storyline from Frank and Johns, and you get a book that this reader gives an A- to for it's last arc. If you were a fan of the old legion, forget the trainwreck JLA/JSA crossover that brought them back. THIS is the story you have been waiting 15 years for. Now bring on THE LEGION OF THREE WORLDS mini!

Read more!