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Knights of the Old Republic 8: Flashpoint, Part 2

What is it ? : Zayne, Elbee and Gryph clamber aboard the Last Resort as it is stolen by a Mandalorian, but they lose track of Camper, who has already headed to the cockpit. He ambushes the Mandalorian stealing the ship, attacking him with Jarael's spear, and Zayne and Gryph are surprised as the warrior is thrown into the cargo bay by the bezerk Camper, and Zayne tells Elbee the Mandalorian is responsible for damaging him, so Elbee restrains the armored figure.
In a prison cell, Jarael awakens, and tries to tell her jailors that she isn't a Jedi, and comments that it's probably the Force punishing her for impersonating one.
In orbit around Vanquo the Republic fleet led by Saul Karath detects the Mandalorian ship with Jarael aboard fleeing the battle raging around the planet, and then spots and recognises the Last Resort following, raising alarm that the Jedi Padawan killer is now heading into Mandalorian space, and Karath swears to bring Zayne to justice himself.
Zayne discovers that Camper has a tracking bug in a bracelet that Jarael wears and he is following that bug, to which Gryph comments that they're either following Jarael, or a piece of jewelery that a Mandalorian took a liking to.
They question the Mandalorian as to where Jarael is being taken, and he tells them that all Jedi are taken to Flashpoint, where Demagol a Mandalorian Biologist is experimenting to find out where a Jedi's powers come from. They ask him if he's a deserter when he was stealing their ship and fleeing the battle, but he explains that he is trying to find out the cause of the War between the Republic and the Mandalorians as while he is willing to fight, he is willing to fight only when he knows the reason, and no one seemed to know.
They ask him why the Mandalorians have attacked in force now, and he tells them that it is due to the events on Taris, the Jedi have abandoned that world and it was seen as vulnerable.
Zayne has an idea, and due to the slow speed of The Last Resort, he figures he's got time to prepare before they arrive at Flashpoint.
Jarael awakens in the prison at Flashpoint, which is built close to the star behind force fields, so if anyone escaped they'd be vaporised by the heat as soon as they exited the shielding. She realises that all the other prisoners are Jedi, and meets Squint a Jedi who has been suffering in the Mandalorian experiments. They speak briefly before a scientist comes for Jarael, but recognising that she is not a Jedi and would not survive the experimentation, Squint volunteers instead, telling Jarael telepathically that he has powers the Mandalorians are yet to discover which might help them escape. . . .

High Points : The story moves on in a rush and there's a lot of elements here, we're introduced to Saul Karath a character from the Kotor video games, to Flashpoint a Mandalorian prison where they experiment on Jedi, and to Rohlan Dyre who gives us a glimpse at the Mandalorian culture we've never seen.
The issue moves along quickly, there's some good humor from Gryph as usual, and it all looks great.

Low Points : But the story is a bit muddled without too much actually happening, they start on board the Last Resort and finish still aboard and still in transit to Flashpoint. It might have been better to keep Jarael's side of the story a mystery at the moment, so we'd see Zayne's plan taken a little further, without actually knowing if she was alive or not, which would have raised the tension.

So what do you really think ? : A fairly solid issue, but one which feels a little underwhelming as it does reveal a lot, but doesn't take the story much further as Zayne is just following a kidnapped Jarael.

Final Words : It just feels like we're still introducing elements to the plot, where we're already 8 issues in out of 50. We should be past the introductions by now and getting on with the story. But it feels as if the cast is still being added to, and plot lines for later are being added without any of the already existing ones being taken any further.
Zayne does discover that the Jedi Masters from Taris have all been recalled to Coruscant, so a clue to where he is going to have to go to track them down, but this is just one line in the entire comic which builds on the ongoing plotlines.

Score : 8/10

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