It is one of the most beloved (and haunting) quotes of Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, and quickly gave the viewer a hint of the size and scope of the galactic empire in the film. The complete quote goes like this:

For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times…before the Empire.

Dark Horse Comics based several entire comic book series on this single quote. And then game developer, Bioware, based a video game on the comics. And then Dark Horse made a new comic series based on the video game. And THEN (pant, pant!) the developers made another video game–well, not based entirely on the new comic series, but the story is convoluted (in a fun way) nonetheless.

Long before there was a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) called Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare/EA), there was a Dark Horse comic book series titled Knights of the Old Republic which ran for 50 issues. I collected this series sequentially starting at issue #10 and then picked up the back issues while finishing the series in 2009 when it concluded.

The quality of the artwork is quite good, although the storyline began to drag a bit at times–and it suffered a bit from too many distracting story arcs without any main plot connecting them. There are many unresolved stories in this series that are mostly resolved by the end, such as Jarael’s past and the eventual resolution of Zayne and his former master (or will he help the sith return to power after all?).

If you are a huge fan of The Old Republic and want to read the entire 50-issue series to get even more back story, then I recommend the trade paperbacks (graphic novels), released as 10 volumes encompassing 5 comic issues each. The first collection, with issues #1-5, is called Commencement. This is a good way to get the entire series without having to search far and wide for the individual comics.

The comic tie-in with the video game is not as strong as you might expect. There is mention of Revan and some characters appear, but aside from a few minor differences the time frame is not much different from the future Star Wars universe that fans know and love, featuring Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader (4000 years after the events in this series). If only the real world were as stable.

Dark Horse did a good job with KoTOR, a good series with a varying mix of writers and artists, some better than others. The main complaint I have with this series is that it was based too much on the video game rather than the original Dark Horse series from which is was derived–Tales of the Jedi. That series introduced the world to The Old Republic and is a fascinating tale, originally told in a series of 5 comic issues, now available as a graphic novel.

If you want to get the entire back-story of The Old Republic (the MMOG) and the KoTOR video game series that preceded it, then I highly recommend the Omnibus of Tales of the Jedi, parts 1 and 2 (each ~300 pages in length, all glossy prints!). You will find a lot of familiar themes and places here that are featured in the MMOG, since these two resources were used by the team while designing the game–it’s characters, planets, locations, and quests.

Fans of Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins/Dark Knight trilogy will fondly recall actor Liam Neeson playing the role of elite ninja assassin for Ra’s Al Ghul’s League of Assassins, and (SPOILER) was later revealed to be the actual Ra’s Al Ghul himself near the end of the first film. I was glad to see the film include some interesting villains other than the tired, old usual gang of the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, and Scarecrow.

As interesting as these characters are, we’ve seen them done far too often, to the exclusion of other even more interesting characters like Poison Ivy, Kingpin, Ra’s Al Ghul, and Black Mask–who are all favorably present in many of the fantastic animated films such as Batman: Under The Red Hood and The Dark Knight Returns. 

Back in 2008 or so, when I was subscribing to most of the Batman universe of comics, a story arc came along called The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul. It crossed issues of Batman 670-671, Nightwing 138-139, Robin 168-169, and Detective Comics 838-840, and was arguably a great story involving Damian being captured by Ra’s in an attempt to resurrect himself in the body of Batman’s son. Sinister, dark plot–as it should be in a Batman story.

Now the story arc has been reprinted in Graphic Novel format as a continuous story by multiple writers and arists in The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul. Though I still have the comic series, I might pick up this graphic novel in order to preserve the collectible value of the originals.

I am a big fan of comic books but have been out of touch with the goings-on in the comic industry for the last 4 years, having bought only a few graphic novels and focusing on films. Recently, I got back into comics again, subscribing to my favorites (via local store Kenmore Komics) and getting up to speed on what has happened to my favorite characters during my hiatus from reading for so long.

The last few years have been dominated by Marvel in a big way with the extremely popular Iron Man films starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr., not to mention the awesome Jeff Bridges (whose presence had a lot to do with the huge success of the first film, and mediocre reception of the second). Following Iron Man, we were treated to The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and the astounding Joss Whedon film, The Avengers, which brought them all together. As much fun as this has been, I have to admit that I need a break from Marvel–maybe I’m going through Marvel overload. So, I’ve returned to reading DC and Marvel again.

Of course, I was already used to DC Comics and Marvel rebooting their series from time to time. This happened in 2008 with DC’s “52″ event and Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” event (a cross-issue storyline that affects all of the characters by a particular publisher). So, I was not surprised to find Avengers #1 and Iron Man #1 again as the latest issues. What did surprise me, though, was the huge changes made by DC Comics to their universe!

All of the DC characters have been rebooted as of late 2011 with the “New 52” event. Every character has a new origin story set a mere 5 years in the past, and all comic series now follow a synchronous issue number (1, 2, 3, 4, etc), with all of them presently at #15. I can understand the benefit of doing this to attract new readers. Let’s face it, unless you’re a long-time subscriber or serious collector, you probably aren’t going to be able to keep track of how the various comics relate to each other, with some original series (namely, Action Comics and Detective Comics) retaining their original sequence since the 1930s (up in the 800s). I’ve always thought comic publishers should adopt a series or season number and sequentially number the issues 1 to 12, like any other magazine. Rebooting seems to attract attention, though, appealing to the amateur collector any time there’s another #1.

The scope of effect for this New 52 reboot is comprehensive across the DC universe, affecting every comic. In fact, DC officially cancelled every comic issue being published at the time and launched 52 new issues (which began in September, 2011). Here are just a few:

• Action Comics
• Detective Comics
• Superman
• Justice League
• Wonder Woman
• The Flash
• Batman
• Nightwing
• Batman & Robin
• Catwoman
• Green Lantern

As primarily a Batman fan, I am buying the half dozen or so Batman titles and a few Avenger titles from Marvel. And in fairness to Dark Horse, which has been ignored in this piece, I do read any new Aliens and Star Wars titles they release.