A staple of the comic book publishing world is the “crossover” storyline, where a single story embroils characters from a number of books, and you need to purchase all the titles in order to see how the story comes out. This one overlaps the Knights of the Old Republic books set in the days of the Mandalorian Wars and the Dark Times series in the days of the rise of the Empire. The crossover story concerns an ancient and very dangerous Sith talisman, and the efforts to keep it out of the hands of people who would use it.

John Jackson Miller does a good job of using the storyline to advance the main plot of the Knights of the Old Republic story. This is worth reading, even without bothering to follow the Vector plotline.

I haven’t been following the Dark Times storyline, but it looks like the characters from there are mostly bystanders providing an excuse for a viewpoint on the action taking place with Darth Vader. ( )

Throughout 2008, the Vector crossover dominated Dark Horse's Star Wars comics; it was an epic storyline that wove through all four ongoings. Finally, the first half of that series has come to trade paperback, giving us a book that is, totally unconfusingly, volume one of Vector, volume five of Knights of the Old Republic, and volume three of Dark Times. The KotOR section, like volume four before it, keeps the series focused on its strength: fun action/adventure with a touch of Dark Goings-On. I can't dislike any story that sees Zayne Carrick, bumbling padawan, and Marn "The Gryph" Heirogryph, criminal mastermind, in action together. Miller turns in yet another thrilling installment, proving that KotOR is the best ongoing Star Wars story being produced today. Scott Hepburn's art, on the other hand, was just a little bit too cartoony to work all the time; the gigantic jaws every character seemed to have were annoying.

The Dark Times segment was somewhat less successful; the Uhumele crew felt like guest stars in their own story, standing by and watching as the events of the Vector saga played out before them, not actually playing a role in shaping them. And seriously, can we have a volume of Dark Times without a character death? Yes, I understand it is the "dark times", not the "happy fun times" but the emotional shock wears thin when it comes constantly. Bomo Greenbark is still awesome, even when he is just standing around. And, of course, who can dislike Doug Wheatley's art?