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Knights of the Old Republic 40: Dueling Ambitions, Part 2

What is it ? : Zayne is taking part in the Semifinal of the Swoopduelist races, called by fans, The Cull, with Goethar's son, Auben on the back. He wins, losing his swoop in the process, and the announcer declares surprise that Auben, known as Goethar's Shame is through to the finals.
Meanwhile, Rohlan is fighting in another race against Goethar himself, but the two are the last standing, so also progress to the finals.
Jarael finds herself somewhere, facing against Rohlan, Alek, Zayne, Demagol and Adasca, they accuse her of hiding the truth from them, with Demagol saying he'll dissect her to find it. She awakens from her dream aboard the Hot Prospect, and hears a voice, following it she discovers Zayne talking to Elbee, informing the droid that Goethar is just trying to protect his son.
As she asks about what he was saying, he shows her a recording of Goethars Retirement Speech, and they realise that Goethar is a slave, and his son is too, so they must fight to the death in the races for peoples entertainment.
Zayne goes to speak to Goethar about this, and Goethar reveals that he has had his horns cut off, as their owner believed that Gotals can detect evil, and he is wearing prosthetics, and has learnt to sharpen his other senses which serves him well in the races.
Zayne spends some time teaching Auben Jedi methods of blocking out senses, but Rohlan overhears and wants to know why he helps a stranger, but won't teach Jarael, and Zayne tells him it's because Auben asked for help, where Jarael hasn't.
Elsewhere, Jervo Thalien, the owner of the station they're on has realised the connection between the new racer, Zayne Carrick, and the criminal, Marn Hierogryph. And is worried that Gryph is organising a scam, and will bankrupt him. But they arrange an "accident" to put Zayne out of the races to end Gryph's scam.
Overhead, Gryph is in an airduct listening in . . . .

High Points : The issue starts on action, dealing with everything set up last issue, with Zayne being forced by Goethar to get his son through the Swoopduelist races. But Zayne builds on this, discovering the circumstances which have forced Goethar into this, and even helping his son learn to deal with the things his horns sense. This builds on the storyline well, and although much of the rest of the issue is explanatory text, it seems to be building to a interesting climax.

Low Points : The story isn't hanging together particularly well, the main characters are all acting independently, with Gryph, Zayne, Jarael and Rohlan all doing different things, with none of them except Zayne being particular well defined. What is Gryph trying to do apart from generically making profit. Why is Rohlan taking part in the Swoopduelist fights? What is Jarael concealing that is haunting her nightmares. To get into the story I want to be involved in the characters plans, and know their motivations, but I'm getting none of that here.

So what do you really think ? : The issue is well done, but it feels as if we're getting a lot of infodumps, without the story itself progressing, and without the heroes doing much. We find out that Jervo is planning an accident for Zayne, that Jarael is hiding something, that the Swoopduelist's are slaves, but we don't get any movement in those things, we just get them revealed in dialogue.

Final Words : Well, the next issue is the end of this story, so I guess everything will have to come together then, so at least it should all give us an action packed climax, and the heroes will actually get involved.

Score : 8/10

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