Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller, Books 3 & 4

Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Two: Deluge

Collection published: 2012
Contents originally published: 2011-12
Acquired: January 2013
Read: December 2025

Scripts: John Jackson Miller
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

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.

Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller, Book 2

In the waning days of the old Star Wars EU, they experimented with more cross-fertilization between Dark Horse's comics and Del Rey's novels, with series that would cross back and forth between them. One example of this was the Knight Errant series, where the story begins in the comics, then goes into a novel, and then returns to the comics. (Somewhat confusingly, the novel is just called "Knight Errant" with no subtitle, and also confusingly this mean the comic collection branded "volume two" is actually the third Knight Errant book.)

Star Wars: Knight Errant
by John Jackson Miller

Published: 2011
Acquired: January 2013
Read: December 2025

The novel picks up a bit after the end of the first trade paperback, with Kerra trapped in Sith space, still doing her best to cause problems.

Different media obviously have different strengths. Two of the benefits of a novel over a comic are worldbuilding and interiority. Though obviously comics can handle these in their own way, I think it's probably easier to work in a little touches in a novel; also given this novel is almost 400 pages but the Knight Errant trades are just 100, Miller has a much bigger canvas here. That to me was the real triumph of the novel: I can't think of any Star Wars story that's ever really shown us what it would be like to live under the Sith, what a realm under Sith thrall would actually be like. (Technically, the Empire was such a thing, but Darth Sidious kept this secret from his Empire.) Miller's novel carries us through several different kingdoms within the Sith empire, each with its own ruler with their own ethos. There's the Sith who believes no one exists but him, the Sith who believes no one deserves to exist, the Sith who directly controls their entire kingdom, and so on. I thought this stuff was fascinating and all very well done. It does what a good tie-in story should do, giving us a previously unseen angle on a familiar universe. 

We also get a mercenary who operates in Sith space; I liked this guy a lot. He's an interesting character and he shows a new angle on Sith dominance. It seems a real shame he didn't pop up more in future Knight Errant installments. 

On the other hand, I found the characterization of Kerra a bit of a squandered opportunity. Kerra is very much a character who is always on the move, and not given to introspection very much. This works to the strengths of the comics medium to an extent, but does leave me feeling like we mostly know Kerra at a bit of a remove. I do think lots of introspection wouldn't have felt right for her, but I also think the medium of a novel provided more opportunities for developing her as a character than we got. Specifically, Kerra befriends a young woman on one of the Sith worlds; she helps liberate this girl and some other Sith thralls, but then struggles to find a place of safety for them. Unfortunately, this friend character feels more like a plot point than a person. Kerra does a lot of stuff to help her, but rarely actually interacts with her or even thinks about her. I think this was a real missed opportunity; if Kerra is not inclined to reveal herself voluntarily, seeing her build a relationship with a young protegee could have done a lot to develop her.

Like a lot of Miller books, I did find that in the last quarter or so it felt like, despite the presence of fast-paced action, the book was treading water. I don't know if I could exactly put my thumb on what causes this, but I felt similarly when reading Rogue Elements and The High Country.

Despite all this, I enjoyed the novel as a whole. Overall, I found Knight Errant a mixed bag as a series (more on that when I get to the last two comics), and this was probably the best it was in execution. 

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.