Comic Book Review – Knight Rider (Lion Forge)

I’m fairly easy-going about adaptations, especially compared to the internet at large.  Still, there’s something that doesn’t sit right with me about Lion Forge’s version of Knight Rider.  If you squint, it sort of resembles the source material.  There’s a talking car, and a guy named Michael Knight is driving it.  Aside from that, this Knight Rider has a lot more in common with the reboot/continuation that was attempted in 2008.  More guns, more government agency stuff (with goofy Chess themed names), and the car – which is not even technically KITT at the beginning – feels way off.  That’s the thing they always change, not one of the attempts to bring Knight Rider back ever gets KITT right.  Look, I get it, things need to be updated if they want to base the series in the modern age.  I mean, talking to your watch isn’t even that strange now with all the smartwatches out there.  But if you screw up the guts of the show, the friendship and banter between Michael and Kitt, you’ve chucked the best part of the show.  There was one way this would’ve worked: as a period piece.  Continue on from the show in the same vein as Batman ’66.  The 80’s setting would be fun, and you know there are artists out there who would kill on that hair and those fashions.  This, this here just had zero appeal to me as a fan of the previous show.

Thanks go to NetGalley for the review copy of Knight Rider Volume 1, by Geoffrey Thorne and Jason Johnson.