– Spoiler Review –
When “Fortress Vader” was first teased for Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith, we learned it would uncover the origins of Vader’s Castle on Mustafar (as first seen in Rogue One). As the solicitations rolled in, we also learned it would dive into the story of the mysterious Sith helmet known as Lord Momin (first introduced in Soule’s Lando miniseries), and later the unfortunate news came that it would be the final arc for the series. As consistently exciting and impressive as the series had been, could writer Charles Soule and art team cap off the series in an expansive, 7 issue finale? While it might not have started out strong, “Fortress Vader” ended on such a fantastic high note it easily continues the success of the creative team.
At 7-issues, “Fortress Vader” is the longest story arc of the comics to date, and Charles Soule stated he set it up as a three Act structure, with the 7th issue as an epilogue. Issues #19+20 made up Act I, 21+22 were Act II, and 23+24 Act III, making 25 the epilogue. How did this Act structure fair in the grand scheme of the arc’s story? Did each part feel necessary or padding? After I finished reading #25, I didn’t quite understand how Act I’s issues really mattered to the overall story, but when thinking about it for this review, I figured out how they fit. The first two issues are concerned with the dwindling Jedi hunt, a purge which most of the series had shown us, and how Vader, running out of opponents to take his anger out on, started taking it out on the Inquisitors. I have no doubt his real point to cause such destruction across Coruscant when killing some Inquisitors was to soften ol’ Sheev up into giving into a wild demand: getting his own planet to further study the dark side, with his ultimate goal to see if bringing Padmé back from the dead is within the Force’s grasp. Act II focuses on Vader coming to understand Mustafar and the gift Palpatine gave him, the helmet of Lord Momin, an ancient Sith architect willing to help Vader with his plans to harness the planet’s dark side energy by creating a castle to channel the Force there. Act III is Mustafar and Momin fighting back, with Vader gaining control of the situation and finally getting to use his Castle to test the limits of the Force. Issue #25 goes deep into his mindscape, in a fitting, epic finale to both the series and the arc. I will continue to tout Soule as one of the best writers for Star Wars comics to date, but I did feel like Act I, while fun and interesting, didn’t quite feel necessary for the overall arc, as we could’ve started with Palpatine telling Vader he needed to cool his jets (some quick, genius Giuseppe Camuncoli and team flashback panels giving us a hint of what he did) then Vader requesting a planet, and we wouldn’t miss much, but they are still great issues that I’m happy we got; Soule strikes again.
Overall, the arc does properly build up to the bizarre (in the best way possible) finale. Throughout the series, Soule, Camuncoli, Daniele Orlandini, David Curiel, and more garnered trust through the strength and wit of their work, making longtime readers ready and willing to see where “Fortress Vader” was heading as things got more and more mystic, à la the Mortis Trilogy in The Clone Wars or the World Between Worlds of Star Wars Rebels. But the function of earlier issues of “Fortress” actually helps make it easier for new readers to jump in, as while the arc manages to reference and honor little things from the entire series, anyone joining to see what the fuss is all about (or learn about Vader’s Castle) wouldn’t have felt like they missed much. This might be one of the strengths of the entire series, as most arcs can be read without much prior knowledge, but that Soule and team managed to do it for the final arc, while still rewarding those whom have read since issue #1, was an impressive feat proving the strength of their work.
Those looking for background on the castle Vader had erected on Mustafar, first glimpsed in 2016’s Rogue One, should be both satisfied and surprised; satisfied because it reveals its purpose, but surprised at what it all meant and led to. In an effort to test the limits of the dark side, with plans to see if he can bring Padmé back, Vader sets out to tap into the locus on Mustafar where he bled Kirak Infil’a’s kyber crystal to create his first Sith lightsaber. To help (or hinder) Vader’s efforts, Palpatine “gifts” his apprentice with the helmet of Lord Momin, first introduced in Soule’s Lando miniseries (set canonically after this series), due to the ancient Sith architect’s proclivity for dark side monuments. In issue #22, we got the full lowdown on Momin’s history, an intriguing glimpse into an ancient time, whetting some fans appetites and opening up the hope for more stories from the galaxy’s past, while it really showed the breadth and depth of the art team’s talents ahead of the stunning finale. So the Castle was built to hone in the locus of dark side energy beneath the surface of the planet, which is an intriguing enough answer for its existence, but what the doorway it opens brings is the surprising part. Momin, after many iterations of the design of the castle (shown in a funny montage of the helmet possessing new bodies after each failure), creates the one we all know from Rogue One, allowing Vader to open a doorway to beyond the veil as it properly harnesses the dark side locus. But Vader gets called away to deal with a Mustafarian assault on the Castle, as they are not pleased with how he’s meddling with the planet, allowing Momin to use the doorway to bring his own body back from the dead, but Vader swiftly and brutally ends both the assault and crushes Momin’s body, leaving the helmet at his mercy. Free from distractions, Vader opens the doorway and steps through, experiencing one heckuva vision.
As Vader passes through the doorway, he leaves his corporeal body behind, manifesting as the body we’ve seen in previous issues where Vader is meditating, a swirling red and black body with negative spaces for his mechanic limbs; I’ve really enjoyed this visual representation of Vader as he sees himself within his own mindscape and I loved how Camuncoli and team played with it here, morphing a young Anakin into the hellish look and adjusting it to reflect him as he grows older, adding negative spaces as he loses limbs. Vader’s vision quest here takes him through the past, present, and a bit of the future, like his fight with Ahsoka on Malachor, but considering this is more of a trip through his own mindscape according to Soule than a dark side World Between Worlds as I originally theorized about, stuff Vader sees like Palpatine hovering over Shmi Skywalker’s pregnant belly shouldn’t be taken as fact. All of issue #25 focuses primarily on Vader’s vision and it’s a powerhouse in storytelling and art, as there’s barely any dialogue, besides some pulled from across time and space, and the art does the heavy lifting, showing the true prowess of the art team readers were blessed with for this entire series. Vader’s journey through the vision after revisits his own story has him facing many of the Jedi he’s already killed to having his mentors Palpatine and Obi-Wan fight over him via a nice riff on the “I am you father” line, and it all ends with him finding Padmé. But she’s not willing to come with him because the man she loved is dead, and as she backs away, falling off a ledge, she’s struck from the vision by a deadly bolt of lightning. Vader is banished from his vision shortly after, by a mysterious Jedi figure heavily resembling Luke Skywalker. The great thing about the vision sequence here is how open to interpretation it can be, as my original takes focused on how I felt seeing Luke tied into issue #18, where Vader tasked Tarkin to hunt him, and how this helped Vader understand he’s still the chosen one, as it confirms everything that happened was meant to happen. I was close to what Soule envisioned for this scene, revealed in his interview with the official site, where he feels this is Vader coming to terms with what led him to this point, hence the usage of Kylo Ren’s The Last Jedi line, “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to,” as Vader finally lets go of trying to get Padmé back and wondering if he made the right choices, now accepting this is his life. As Soule puts it, he turned Vader from a “No” man to a “Yes” man, both literally and figuratively, as Vader’s first word in the series is his infamous “No” from the end of Revenge of the Sith, symbolizing his anger about what happened, and his final word of the series is “Yes,” showing he’s accepting what happened.
Giuseppe Camuncoli (pencils/layouts/breakdowns), Daniele Orlandini (inks/finishes), David Curiel; Dono Sánchez-Almara; Erick Arciniega (colors), Cam Smith (inks issue #25), Terry Pallot (finishes issue #22). This team has shown it can produce big, devastating moments, like the battle for Mon Calamari in “The Burning Seas” arc, or the quiet, contemplative meditations between the action, and all their great work built up goodwill, garnering them a deep trust with myself and readers alike for whatever they wanted to try and bring to Star Wars’ visual lexicon next. Be it the unique and bizarre curiosities Momin encounters on his journeys, Vader’s destruction of the Mustafarian invading force and subsequent survival of a lava tsunami, the funny panels of Momin possessing new bodies as Vader punishes him for each failure, or the entirety of his vision beyond the veil, this art team finished their pedigree for stunning work with their best yet in the series’ finale. I hope they are brought back soon, and pronto, because they make you want to drink in each new panel and consistently delivery.
Here are a few other things:
- A big mystery has appeared from this arc: the structures DEEP beneath Vader’s Castle, glimpsed in the panel when Vader destroys the stone, sending shockwaves and spewing lava across the planet. Story Group Matt Martin has teased we’ll learn more about it in the future, with one of my theories being we’ll see more of it in the upcoming VR series Vader Immortal, while others have wondered if it ties into Momin’s actions in the past, or something else altogether. I guess we’ll find out at one point but it’s a fun mystery to have for the time being.
- Speaking of Jedi: Fallen Order, the upcoming 2019 video game from Respawn that follows a Jedi in the wake of Order 66, “Fortress Vader” is supposed to be hiding some type of tie-in to the game but what it might be is elusive for the moment. I do have some ideas: the Inquisitors are moved to a new planet due to Vader’s actions in the Act I issues, so maybe the Jedi character you play as finds themselves on said planet during the transfer, and of course lightsabers clash; one of the Inquisitors we’ve met will be included in the game somehow, possibly the two who died (but that would be anticlimactic to have enemies you as a player don’t end up killing, unless the story bends so that you join the Inquisitors…); or maybe something to do with the aforementioned ancient structures far below Vader’s Castle. We might get a better idea at Star Wars Celebration Chicago in April, as I’m sure we’ll get an update on the game there (if not, there’s no way it won’t be at the EA Play 2019 presentation in June).
- Hopefully before the end of the month, Chris and I shall have a joint retrospective on the entire Dark Lord of the Sith series, much like we did for the original Darth Vader series and more recently Soule’s Poe Dameron series.
Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith‘s “Fortress Vader” (Issues #19-25) was a fitting, epic finale for the series, as well as a solid, contemplative arc that both stood-alone and honored all that had come before.
+ Three-act structure
+ Turning Vader from a “No” to a “Yes” man with an epic vision
+ Fantastic showcase of art team’s talents
+ Finale long to be remembered
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
All images credited to Marvel/Lucasfilm
Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith
The Chosen One (#1-6) | The Dying Light (#7-10) | The Rule of Five (#11-12) / Arc Review | Burning Seas (#13-18) / Arc Review | Fortress Vader: #19 | #20 | #21 | #22 | #23 | #24 | #25 | Annual: #2 | Full Series Review (by Chris and Ryan)
CURRENT COMIC SERIES REVIEWS:
Doctor Aphra
Aphra (#1-6) | And the Enormous Profit (#9-13) | Remastered (#14-19) | The Catastrophe Con (#20-25) | Worst Among Equals (#26-31) | Annual: #2
Star Wars
Ashes of Jedha (#38-43) | Mutiny at Mon Cala (#44-49) | Hope Dies (#50-55) | The Escape (#56-61) | Annual: #4
Age of Republic (miniseries) | Tales from Vader’s Castle (IDW miniseries)