Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Two: Deluge |
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Collection published: 2012 Contents originally published: 2011-12 Acquired: January 2013 Read: December 2025 |
Pencils: Ivan Rodriguez, Iban Coello, David Daza, Marco Castiello
Pencil Assists: Andrea Chella
Inks: Ivan Rodriguez, Sergio Abad, Vincenzo Acunzo
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letters: Michael Heisler
Knight Errant lasted two more story arcs after its novel installment: thus, volumes two and three make up books three and four of the series. I feel like these deliberately tried to remedy some of the faults of the first comic arc and the novel, in that both delve into Kerra Holt's backstory more and thus her characterization. In volume two, Deluge, Kerra returns to her home planet for the first time since her childhood, alongside a squadron of Republic starfighters who actually dare to fight the Sith. The story delves into her childhood friendships, her guilt, and her expectations for the actions of others.
This was certainly my favorite Knight Errant story, though it still has its weaknesses. While some other Knight Errant arcs feel a bit stretched, this one actually feels compressed: the idea that Kerra had a positive relationship with the squadron, and then they kind of betray her, and then she redeems them, is a good one, but her relationship with them feels squeezed in amongst everything else the story is doing. I think this needed more time to breathe in order to be effective.
Additionally, the story suffers from the same thing as the rest of the Knight Errant comics, which is inconsistent and low-quality artwork. The art is fine enough I suppose, but struggles to communicate action—in a very action-focused series—and doesn't do a lot with faces—in a series with few supporting characters, there's not much character-revealing dialogue, which means we need to learn character from art.
Still, I enjoyed it well enough, and if the series had gone on like this (or gone on at all), it would have been solid enough even if it never hit the heights of writer John Jackson Miller's Knights of the Old Republic.
Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape |
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Collection published: 2013 Contents originally published: 2012-13 Acquired: May 2013 Read: January 2026 |
Unfortunately the last installment, Escape, is probably the weakest Knight Errant story yet. In a very big way, this is down to the art: we still don't have one artist who can make it all the way through a storyline, and Marco Castiello's Kerra becomes a generic big-breasted female comic book character. (I note that back in the novel, Kerra specifically noted she was not well-endowed!) On top of that, Castiello shows little visual imagination: the hardware and soldiers he draws are largely straight out of the Clone Wars even though this story takes place a thousand years prior! (Colorist Michael Atiyeh does his best to disguise this, God bless him.)
I didn't find the story here very interesting, either; the idea of Kerra hunting down her missing family had merit, but it felt like there were too many coincidences and the story's optimism often felt unearned given some of the horrific events it depicts. I also feel like two arcs in a row delving into Kerra's backstory is too much: backstory is not character.
Overall, I would argue that Knight Errant was a victim of the release pattern Dark Horse adopted for its ongoings during the late EU. Though I'm sure there were good sales-related reasons for it, instead of releasing traditional monthly ongoings (as they had with KOTOR and Legacy), they instead alternated between different miniseries. Knight Errant isn't made up of fifteen issues, but rather Knight Errant #1-5, Knight Errant: Deluge #1-5, and Knight Errant: Escape #1-5, with a six-month break in between each arc. (This model was also used for Dark Times, Invasion, and Agent of the Empire.) At the time I'm sure that resulted in a loss of storytelling momentum; that doesn't matter so much in retrospect, but I think the way it constrains the shape of the stories does. Miller's KOTOR had stories of one, two, three, four, six, and even twelve issues. This kind of flexibility, being able to move between intimate one-offs and massive epics, while incrementally moving forward all the time, is the real strength of the medium of the ongoing comic, and Knight Errant's straitjacket of five-issue stories keeps it from living up to the potential of its premise. Miller created a compelling world, but the series as published doesn't get to explore it enough.
