Canon Comic Review: Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith #25

– Spoiler Review –

Does the creative team continue to deliver even in its final hour? You damn well bet they do! Issue #25 of Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith brings the villain’s second, exceptional series to a fitting, contemplative ending which will leave fans something to mull on for years and years to come.

With nothing standing in his way, no Momin nor more Mustafarian revolts, Darth Vader is free to open the doorway beneath his Castle and step on through to the other side. When he does, his corporeal body collapses and his spirit within, the haunting image seen when he meditates, a body covered in swirling red and black with white spaces for his mechanical limbs, passes through the door, which slams shut behind him. Sith have always been obsessed with life, hence there’s a story about one who has the ability to stop death itself, so it makes sense that Vader’s physical form couldn’t go into this dark side World Between Worlds, but his spirit can, as in his current form and state of mind, he’ll always be tied to physical world no matter what doorway he enters. Only a Jedi can let go, accept their end in the physical realm, and meld into the cosmic Force, so Vader’s journey here was always destined to end with his return, even if we hadn’t already known his fate.

Until he comes back, what does he experience? As I said earlier, the doorway he steps through leads him to a dark side version of the World Between Worlds, a mystical realm revealed in Star Wars Rebels’ final season as a manifestation of the Force binding the galaxy together, but where Ezra’s journey gave him doorways into the past, present, and future, the dark side version leaves Vader with fleeting glimpses of events already done, without any doorways to access, and a quest with an unavoidable ending. His time beyond the veil starts in the most auspicious of ways, words from across time and space telling Vader to fulfill his destiny, and thus his entire time within is seeing how every moment led him to the path he’s on, one he can’t deviate from or see alternates of even in this dark World Between Worlds (WBW). The next step is a vision of Palpatine manipulating the midichlorians to create him within Shmi’s womb (though this isn’t confirmation he did/Shmi was already pregnant in the vision when Sheev shows up), followed by a young Anakin dreaming his shadow is Vader, mirroring the iconic poster (which I still own to this very day!) from The Phantom Menace (see the interview link below if you don’t know what I’m talking about). He goes through the paces of his life after that, including a full spread on his confrontation with Ahsoka in Rebels, leading him up to his Castle within the vision, which turns into the Jedi Temple. Before it stands a plethora of Jedi, some he’s killed in this series like Jocasta Nu, Farren Barr, and Kirak Infli’a, and other recognizable ones like Mace Windu, Shaak Ti, Yoda, and even Yaddle (!!). After he slaughters them all, my favorite part of the vision comes next, as when he enters the Castle, before him stands Palpatine and Obi-Wan, with the words of the biggest twist in cinema history hanging between them, used for a whole other purpose: “I am your father.” Here, those words reference how the two men before him played parental roles as a father to him, making it such a neat, delightful twist on a well-worn line.

After them, Vader finally comes upon Padmé, but considering Anakin Skywalker is dead, she wants nothing to do with him, jumping away and struck from the world of the dark WBW by a giant bolt of lightening, never to be saved again. Vader strikes a familiar pose in his spirit body, yelling “NO,” but something soon catches his attention: a blue blast at the farthest reaches of the realm, where an outlined individual appears, a Jedi by the looks of him, igniting their lightsaber. I’d feel safe in guessing the Jedi is Luke Skywalker of course, as it both makes sense and the person looks eerily reminiscent of how Giuseppe Camuncoli drew Luke Skywalker in issue #10. This Jedi banishes Vader from the dark WBW and back into the material world.

Upon exiting the realm, Vader awakes, calls his lightsaber to him, and demolishes the stone, forever destroying the doorway. He calls Palpatine, whose faux concern can be heard from here, saying he was almost getting ready to find a new apprentice (which, thanks to the first Vader series, we know he already was), and then asks Vader if he found what he was looking for. Vader doesn’t answer him directly, cutting the connection, but the final shot contains his answer: Yes. But what does “yes” mean, exactly? What about his journey and time beyond the veil would he feel was successful? This is left a little up to interpretation, but here’s what I took it to mean: last issue, Momin revealed Vader still believes, deep down, he’s still the chosen one, and I took his yes here to mean his journey confirmed his belief, as it showed everything that has led to this moment was meant to happen, as even now he still can’t save Padmé, as hard as he’s tried by testing the limits of the dark side (a theory of mine from last issue!). This means he knows for sure now Palpatine lied to him, as while the dark side is a pathway to many abilities some consider unnatural, it still can’t bring back his beloved Padmé, thus invigorating his quest to overcome his master. But I believe his yes ties into the fantastic self-contained story of issue #18 as well, where Vader tasked Tarkin with hunting him to see if there were any worthy opponents left after the Jedi were mostly extinguished. Tarkin basically managed to win, but Vader still had the final move, and vision quest here ends with a Jedi who obliterates him from the realm and sends him back. In a way, this proves to him there’s still a match for him out there; a Jedi who’ll be powerful enough to either beat him or help him beat his master, which the art heavily hints at is Luke as I mentioned earlier, showing him his fate can potentially end with a worthy opponent.

That’s what I took away from it at least, and there’s a spoiler-heavy interview with Charles Soule on the official site today, something I’m not reading until after I finish my thoughts here, but I’ll cover here once I do: In the interview, Soule seems to suggest this is more of Vader’s own mindscape he’s going through than something like the WBW, and doesn’t mind discussing things but purposefully and thankfully stays vague so many of the events within can stay up to interpretation. Also, he points out something I missed, but the first line of the series was Vader yelling “NOOO!” since it picked up at the end of Revenge of the Sith and the last line is him saying, “Yes,” as Soule turned him from a no to a yes man. And as for what Vader is saying yes to, it’s more about accepting that the path he went on was inevitable, something I kind of hit on in my thoughts above, but Soule places much more emphasis. The interview, as always, is well-worth your time to check out!

The creative team really went out on top, as Soule’s mostly wordless script never would’ve worked without the trust he and the art team built with the readers, as Giuseppe Camuncoli (breakdowns and pencils), Cam Smith (inks), Daniele Orlandini (finishes), and David Curiel; Dono Sánchez-Almara; Erick Arciniega (colors) take us on a visual treat panel after panel, from their reworking of the iconic teaser poster, how the glowing negative space for Anakin’s mechanical parts returned as he “grew older,” to the vision of an angel that was Padmé before Vader/Anakin lost her all over again, they’ve been turning out some of the best work in Star Wars comics and they blew it out of the water when they were needed most. It’s not the just the story here that is now an iconic part of Vader’s tales, but the artwork will be too and it’s what the series needed to ever be considered so great in the first place.

Here are a few other things:

As we already have the solicitations out until March, that’s three months in 2019 without a Soule-written comic and already I can feel the void forming after this ending. However, he’s teased and promised he’ll be back and I can’t wait to see what he does next!
If you’ve not had your Vader fill yet in comics, then look for Vader – Dark Visions, announced as a replacement for the other Vader miniseries which was unceremoniously cancelled. Check out the solicits for the first two issues in March’s recent reveal.
The series might be over but the reviews will keep coming: there will be an arc review for “Fortress Vader” next, followed by a full-series joint retrospective between Chris and I (much like we did for Soule’s Poe) before the end of January!
UPDATE: Mid-Thursday, Matt Martin of the Story Group teased that readers hadn’t mentioned a subtle moment in this issue. Alex of Star Wars Explained offered a few guesses, one of them being what appears to be buildings deep below the surface of Mustafar, seen in the panel of the Castle/planet reacting to Vader destroying the stone monument. Honestly, I saw those buildings but just assumed/hand-waived them to be where Vader was standing, but it appears that Alex was correct and that’s the subtle element teasing some future development! Could this be the Jedi: Fallen Order connection, 2019’s video game from Respawn? Or is it something we’ll see delved into more in the upcoming Vader Immortal VR Series? Or something else entirely?!? There’s even been speculation it’s the city Momin tried to destroy, but it seems more likely it’s a Sith Temple referenced in the Rogue One Visual Guide as being deep beneath the surface, which makes me think it could be a Vader Immortal tie-in, if anything. Eager to find out

Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith #25 is the ending this series deserved and the ones fans were lucky to have, thanks to an all-star creative team which took us on a wild journey and never really disappointed.

+ Vader’s journey and how he comes to understand his fate
+ Art team shines in a mostly silent issue
+ Fitting, contemplative ending

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.

Canon Comic Review: Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith #25

+ Vader’s journey and how he comes to understand his fate

+ Art team shines in a mostly silent issue

+ Fitting, contemplative ending

Check out the rest of our Canon Comic Reviews here!

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