Knights of the Old Republic #0 Crossroads Story: John Jackson Miller Art: Brian Ching Coloring: Michael Atiyeh Lettering: Michael Heisler Cover: Brian Ching Released: 03/01/2006 Reviewed by: JF Boivin (12/24/2006) SUMMARY: On the city-world of Taris, Padawan Zayne Carrick is trying to catch a con artist named The Gryph. He almost succeeds, but the attempt turns into disaster as Zayne's hoverchair goes out of control down the side of a building. Zayne is rescued by another Padawan named Squint, who is on Taris on a recruiting mission for the Mandolarian War. As Squint leaves and tells Zayne that he is destined for a great future, Master Q'anilia tells Zayne's Master Lucien that she foresees a dark event in the near future.

THE STORY

This shot 8-page story is on the flip side of Rebellion #0 and serves as a prelude to the Knights of the Old Republic series, but came out after #2.

We find the bumbling Padawan Zayne Carrick once again trying to catch the Snivvian con artist Marn Hieroglyph red-handed and bring him to the authorities on Taris. This time, Zayne is diguised as an arms dealer who sells a stolen shipment of Republic blaster power packs. And once again, Zayne ends up falling down several stories down from the Upper City (as he will do in issue #1) but this time he is caught in mid-air by an offworlder Human Jedi named Squint. Squint is part of a group of Jedi recruiting other Jedi to join in the Mandalorian War and they are passing by on Taris. Zayne can't go and the Republic recruiters lift off. Then on the last page, we see the Miraluka Master Q'anilia having some sort of vision that something bad is coming, probably prompting the action of the first issue in the series.

This story is short, but it does its job of giving a taste of what the series is about. For $0.25 readers can pick this up and get an idea if they're interested in the regular series or not. What I don't like is again the illogical coincidences: Squint just happens to meet be looking for Zayne and finds him as he is falling to his death. And how he manages to catch Zayne in mid-air falling down from a building is not clear... What I do like is the 9th page, which is a local HoloNet News feed named The Taris Holofeed: Prime Edition. Although it has a date of "39:56:1434" (does the writer know it's supposed to be a date?), the three short news items are interesting to read. One story gives names to all the Padawans that are in the Taris Academy, the ones who will get killed in issue #1, and lists their accomplishments. Of course, Zayne's major claim to fame is being "a human".

THE ART

Same quality as the regular series, as it is the same artistic team. Not my favorite, but the characters and places are recognizable.

CONCLUSIONS

Nice intro to the regular series. But get the book for Rebellion story. This one feels more like an added extra.

Rating: 6 / 10