I Read the SWTOR Comics

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how I bought a comic book collection that I thought was going to be about SWTOR, but it turned out to be set in the KOTOR era instead (not that I had any regrets). The other day I was browsing around Amazon and noticed that the series these books had been a part of had received a Volume 4 since then - and that one did have the SWTOR tie-in comics in it. So of course I bought and read it!

Cover image taken from Amazon.

I've got to admit, for how long I've been curious about these, actually reading them was a bit of a let-down. I did enjoy seeing characters from the game in a different context, as well as spotting the many references to events and NPCs in the game, but aside from that, the three stories were honestly not that amazing.

Blood of the Empire (which was originally the second story but is put first in the book for continuity reasons I think) teaches us something about the Children of the Emperor and ends with a surprise reveal about one of the main characters, but ultimately fails to provide a protagonist to really care about. Hey, watch a bunch of Sith kill off every even remotely likeable character we encounter! I mean, okay?

Threat of Peace was actually pretty interesting but not well-suited for the medium in my opinion. It deals with the Treaty of Coruscant and the events that surround it, but the problem is that this involves a lot of different characters, with fast cuts between different scenes. Combine this with the fact that the art leaves many of the characters unrecognisable compared to their in-game counterparts (Master Orgus for example is a bald dude in the comic, and would you have guessed that the generic brunette on the cover pictured above is meant to be a young Satele Shan?) and it can be kind of hard to follow what's going on at times. I feel like this would have been a much stronger story if it had been told as a regular novel, making it easier to keep up with the different points of view and what each character is thinking at any given point in time.

Finally, The Lost Suns was kind of cool in that it made me realise just how long before his first in-game appearance Theron Shan was conceived as a character. In-game we first met him in April 2014 with the introduction of the Assault on Tython/Korriban Incursion flashpoints, but those comics telling his backstory already came out in mid-2011. Neat! Still, the whole storyline felt like it was meant to set up something bigger, such as Theron getting a whole series about him going on spy adventures or something, but that obviously didn't happen.

There were a few more non-SWTOR stories included in the volume as well, and I've got to admit I actually got more into Lost Tribe of the Sith than into any of the featured SWTOR tales... I guess there was a tiny tie-in in there in the form of a Sith Lord whose armour set you can buy on the Cartel Market - but I won't say more so as not to spoil anything.

Anyway, I guess my main takeaway is that I think it's cool that all these comics are finally available in the form of a single physical book, which is nice for collectors, and for SWTOR superfans like me it's a nice thing to have for the additional lore. However, if you're just a Star Wars fan in general looking for a good read, I'm not sure if this volume in particular is really worth it.

I Read The KOTOR Comics

Back in September I had the opportunity to attend Stockholm Comic Con, and while browsing one of the booths there I found Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Old Republic Volume 1 on a shelf. (And you thought that SWTOR written out in full was a mouthful!) "Neat," I thought, "that must be that SWTOR comic series I remember hearing about" and bought it.

I was wrong and apparently the SWTOR comics are a different thing, as the series collected in this volume actually takes place in the KOTOR era, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment. Also, it still has some relevance to the game as several Cartel Market outfits were inspired by ones worn by characters in the comic for example. So I'd look at certain images and go...

Hey, that's the chest piece my Sentinel is wearing!

Or: Hey, that's the set Cal's Sage used to wear!

That was kind of amusing.

The comic itself was also entertaining enough, and I liked it enough to buy the other two volumes from Amazon.

The story is set during the Revan era, and s/he even makes several appearances as a shadowy figure, with the comic leaving his/her identity unclear as it was still respecting the fact that every KOTOR player had their own unique Revan. We get the backstory of the mysterious mask of Revan too.

The main story was interesting enough on its own as well, though it had its ups and downs. There were parts that were very good, but others were fairly mediocre.

I quite liked the main character Zayne Carrick, a Jedi who has a slightly awkward and uncomfortable relationship with the Force and who slowly learns how to deal with it over the course of the series (while pursuing other objectives).

The secondary protagonist and main female character Jarael left me feeling a bit disappointed: While she started out strong, she quickly became way too passive, mainly serving as an object for other characters to obsess over, which struck me as quite a shame.

The art was a bit of a mixed bag - I'm neither an art critic nor a comics connoisseur but I honestly wasn't that impressed by a lot of it. The worst thing was that the artists and style often changed quite drastically from one arc to the next, from pretty realistic to highly cartoonish. The former sometimes struggled to deliver the more humorous moments appropriately, and the latter was mainly used in an arc that was clearly meant to be quite dark and serious, leading to a horrible clash between tone and imagery.

Still, overall I can recommend this series. The writing is about on par with some of the better Star Wars tie-in novels (of which the author has also written several), so definitely worthwhile if you're into that sort of thing.