And here comes the final showdown between Darth Krayt and all those who oppose the Sith rule of the galaxy, led by none other than Cade Skywalker! I can't imagine reading this as it came out in single magazine issues, since they totally set the reader up for the final battle to happen when the Sith attack the hidden Jedi temple, but then have the Allies barely manage to escape from the Sith Troopers. It was pretty obvious while reading the collected edition though that things were far from over, since there was still 2/3rds of the book to go! As much as this was a really entertaining conclusion, there was far too much of it that was taken from the original trilogy to make it truely interesting. Cade goes up against Darth Krayt in single combat, as his friends fight what seems to be a losing battle against the Sith Troopers, but he survives the manipulations of the Dark Side to emerge triumphant and having found his place in the Galaxy as a Jedi. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't continue the story though, since many of the Sith are still alive, and are basically forming a plan to take over the galaxy through chaos... Oh well, fodder for some other author, I guess! ( )

The final volume of Legacy sees Cade Skywalker speeding to a confrontation with a revived Darth Krayt, on which the fate of the galaxy rests-- of course. Cade finally chooses his side... again, in what feels like a slight relapse given the events of Monsters. At the same time, Nyna Calixte makes her move, the Sith attack the Jedi's Hidden Temple, Roan Fel invades Coruscant, and more. It's decent, even exciting sometimes, but is somehow less than the sum of its parts; flipping back through it to write this review, I am struggling to find things to say about it. It brings Legacy to a nice conclusion, but that is all it does, perhaps because it ultimately had too much it had to try to do. It was okay, but I wanted it to be better than it was, given what it was about.

I will say that 1) the Antares Draco plotline was still lame and 2) I really appreciated the return appearance by Joker Squad. Joker Squad is a Sith Imperial stormtrooper squad that was the focus of a story in Shards, the second Legacy collection, and though they've never been a focus again, I always appreciate their brief reappearances when stormtroopers bear down on our heroes; it personalizes the bad guys in a small but effective way.

On the whole, I enjoyed Legacy more than I didn't, but it definitely peaked with its first few volumes; Broken, Shards, and Alliance are still the best. Cade Skywalker was never quite interesting enough, and I always felt like the best parts of the story were happening where he was not. The first volume clicked perfectly, but after that, Cade's storyline span its wheels a lot while we got tantalizing glimpses of the wider universe. Broken remains my favorite for having revealed a world full of possibilities while also telling a good story, in a way the series never quite managed again. I don't think the best overall story that could have been told in this world was told, though the one that was got was usually decent, sometimes good, and occasionally great.