Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller, Book 1

Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume One: Aflame

Collection published: 2011
Contents originally published: 2010-11
Acquired: January 2013
Read: December 2025

Script: John Jackson Miller

Pencils: Federico Dallocchio, Ivan Rodriguez

Inks: Federico Dallocchio, Ivan Rodriguez, Belardino Brabo, Marcio Loezer
Colors: Michael Atiyeh

Letters: Michael Heisler

I was a big fan of John Jackson Miller's Knights of the Old Republic; in fact, I would say it is probably my single favorite ongoing Star Wars comic book. That took place four thousand years before the films and followed a disparate cast of characters thrown together by circumstance. (Still the best model for Star Wars story.) His later series, Knight Errant, takes place one thousand years before the films and has just a single lead, Kerra Holt. The story is set at a time where the Republic was on the retreat from the Sith; Kerra is a newly minted Jedi who crosses into Sith space on a daring raid and ends up stranded there, having to make her own way—and fight her own war.

I like the basic idea here, but the series never clicked with me like KOTOR did. At least part of that is due, I think, to Miller's artistic collaborators. This book has two primary artists, and neither is a Brian Ching or a Dustin Weaver. In particular, I think the book's open sequence really depends on the art, as it is action-packed and a key character moment, but I found the blocking of key sequences hard to work out and the character strands hard to follow.

Pivotally, I think the whole book depends on Kerra's emotional arc, that you need to see her as going too far in her desperation, and pulling back. Not that she's going to the Dark Side or anything, more than she's bitten off more than she can do, and she needs to focus on helping where she can, not overthrowing the system, which will just get her killed. But in this case I don't know if it's the writing or the art that fails to sell the vibe Miller is going for. You can tell what it's meant to be, but I don't think you really feel that there's a difference between the decisions she makes in the middle of the story and the ones she makes at the end. I think the middle of this story ought to feel like she's at her lowest point, but it doesn't really come across.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The End of Green Arrow, Part III: Justice League: Rise and Fall

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2012 (contents: 2010)
Borrowed from the library
Read June 2012

Justice League: Rise and Fall

Writer: J. T. Krul

Pencillers: Diogenes Neves, Mike Mayhew, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Federico Dallocchio, Geraldo Borges, Kevin Sharpe, Sergio Arino, Fabio Jansen

Inkers: Mike Mayhew, Vicente Cifuentes, Ruy José, Federico Dallocchio, Marlo Alquiza, Mark McKenna, John Dell, Scott Hanna
Colorists: Nei Ruffino, Andy Troy, Michael Atiyeh
Letterers: John J. Hill, Sal Cipriano, Rob Clark Jr.

Rise and Fall is a direct sequel to Cry for Justice, though the timelining is a bit wonky: Blackest Night happens between the last chapter and epilogue of Cry for Justice (and the last chapter of Five Stages happens during Blackest Night). Despite the intervening events, everyone is acting like Roy Harper was only attacked and Star City only just devastated by Prometheus-- so they're searching for him. Only Green Arrow, as anyone who read Cry for Justice knows, has secretly already killed Prometheus.

This book deals with the repercussions of that-- in perhaps the stupidest way possible. Green Arrow is found out, arrested, and revealed as Oliver Queen, and quickly put on trial by a Star City court for murder. Why? First, Oliver killed Prometheus in a location outside of our own universe, where I suspect a Star City court has no jurisdiction. Secondly, this is like putting SEAL Team Six on trial for killing Osama Bin Laden... only Prometheus killed more people than Osama Bin Laden, and has consistently been portrayed (no matter how stupid I might find it) as someone who just by living is immensely dangerous.

Then, he is found not guilty, but sentenced to exile from Star City anyway, as though this is a thing that could actually legally happen.

All of this is made worse by the fact that the rest of the Justice League acts like complete dicks to Ollie, as though they cannot understand his actions at all. Oh come on! Now, there's an interesting story and potential real drama to be created from a setup like this, but it's not going to be found when the Flash shouts things like, "Well, I never liked you anyway, Green Arrow!" Also, Green Arrow somehow moves so fast that the Flash can't catch him. Yeah, I don't know either.

Also, Green Arrow and Black Canary break up. I'd complain that such an action is horrendously out of character for both of them, but comic book writers are so bad at marriage-- and especially this marriage-- that we're probably better off.

This book also contains a story about Green Arrow's old sidekick, Speedy-cum-Arsenal-cum-Red Arrow-cum-Arsenal again trying to put himself back together after his daughter died in Cry for Justice. This story is also stupid, for so many reasons. It features:

• heroin doing things that I suspect it cannot actually do
• a drug treatment facility where they just strap you on a table in an empty room and leave you there
• a significant plot point being Arsenal's inability to get it up
• Arsenal cradling a dead cat while fighting Batman

Really, Chris Sims says it better than I can, though.

The art ranges from inconsistent (one chapter is drawn by three people who have apparently not consulted each other on whether or not Green Arrow's mask hides his pupils) to stiffly posed (Black Canary looks like she came out of Maxim at times) to just flat-out terrible for most of the book, though the Arsenal story looks surprisingly good, aside from the superround butts and boobs. I don't know who drew it, though, because there's no credits on individual chapters. Bleh.