2020 was a time of upheaval for everybody’s favorite Dark Lord. Coming off a highly (and rightly) critiqued mini-series that seemed to revel in some dark fantasies, it seemed like fans weren’t so keen on yet another story featuring Darth Vader. Thankfully, a new creative team, led by writer Greg Pak, was able to steer Vader from the murky waters in which he was left and bring new life – and vision – to the series.
“Dark Heart of the Sith” follows Darth Vader’s first mission after losing Luke Skywalker on Bespin, as his search for the man he knows to be his son starts in full force. In canon, we don’t know a lot about what happened in the six months between the Battle of Hoth and the Battle of Endor, so the three major Marvel ongoing series, Star Wars (Vol. 2), Darth Vader (Vol. 3), and Doctor Aphra (Vol. 2), all follow our favorites heroes, villains, and hero/villain as they deal with the fallout of Cloud City and the Rebels’ disastrous loss on Hoth. Darth Vader, in this series, is on a hunt for revenge: someone made his son weak, and whoever that was must pay for their sins.
Greg Pak, who previously wrote a handful of issues in the Age of Star Wars maxiseries, and the final arc of the first volume of the Star Wars series, deftly handles a new iteration of the Dark Lord’s comic, taking a slightly different approach than both Gillen and Soule had done before. Kieron Gillen, the author of the first volume of Darth Vader, wrote Vader as mostly a stoic character, described more by the characters around him than by his own inner monologue, more of a force of nature than as a character. Charles Soule, who handled the faster-paced, post-Mustafar Darth Vader, gave us more of a troubled and conflicted Darth Vader, one recently bequeathed with the title of a Dark Lord. Greg Pak’s Vader is a bit of a combination of both: he doesn’t say a lot out loud, but we do see that he is a man rife with conflict, anger, pain, and hurt.
This story is perfectly designed to bring out this pain and anger, letting Vader unleash on his enemies while also figuring out exactly what happened at the end of the Clone War. You see, Vader wants to see what happened to his son, Luke; he wants to know both why Luke would reject his offer to join him and figure out what exactly happened to Padmé. As he figured out from Boba Fett, Sheev Palpatine lied to him about what exactly happened to his late wife, and he is now trying to figure out what else the Emperor has lied to him about. 
On his mission, he is accompanied by a droid named ZED-6-7. ZED is a wonderful combination of the best elements of droids like C-3PO and Triple-Zero. ZED’s fanatical devotion to Vader – no matter what the Dark Lord does – is both funny and maybe a bit distressing. Sometimes, ZED acts as a forensics droid, helping Darth Vader literally read information from a room. Sometimes, ZED acts as Vader’s spokesperson, telling people how to act around Vader if they would rather keep their life than lose it. ZED is a fun droid counterpart, and honestly, I think ZED stands out a bit from quite a few of the droid counterparts we’ve had recently. He’s unique in terms of personality (as in, he’s not yet another murderbot to add to the pile) and function, which makes for a somewhat more memorable character. That being said, ZED doesn’t have the charisma or likeability as Doctor Aphra, who set an incredibly high standard for future side characters. (That may be unfair, but hey, it’s my review, so I’ll talk about them as I like!)
Darth Vader and ZED change direction on their mission after finding information from Padmé’s apartment on Coruscant. The pair, operating under the nose of Emperor Palpatine, find Padmé’s apartment riddled with clues about what happened on the night of her death. The apartment, which we’ve seen in films and Clone Wars, is mostly untouched, despite the two decades that have eclipsed and the dissolution of the Imperial Senate, which is good news for Vader. It almost makes you wonder if that apartment wasn’t left up intentionally, with the hopes that an aspiring Lord of the Sith would stumble in and find something…in fact, the entire arc hints that Vader’s plan is not as secret from Sidious as it seems, but it might also be encouraged by him. From Coruscant, Darth Vader and his crew travel to Vendaxa, where they are attacked by creatures and a small Rebel force. But nothing can come close to the shock that Vader receives at the end of the very first issue: a face-to-face reunion with Padmé Amidala.
Sabé’s introduction comes as a massive shock, but not for the reasons you might think. At the end of the first issue, Darth Vader comes face to face with a woman who bears the face of his late wife. The shock is immediately palpable to him, as even he is surprised by seeing her and isn’t totally sure who she is. This plays up the major storylines of Queen’s Peril, Queen’s Shadow, and The Phantom Menace, as the handmaidens’ job is explicitly looking like Queen Amidala in order to protect her, if someone wanted to do her harm. It just goes to show how successful they are in doing their job when the Dark Lord himself is confused and tricked, even for a second.
Of course, the trick does not last very long, as ZED-6-7 confirms that this isn’t Padmé, but in fact her closest friend, Sabé. This trick plays pretty well in terms of connecting the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy even more. It seems as if one of Pak’s unstated goals with the series is to bring all of the movies into an even more coherent storyline, starting with this arc, linking Vader to the handmaidens and Naboo, followed by the next arc, which takes place on Mustafar and features Ochi of Bestoon. In terms of connections, this arc has a ton: the latter half of the arc features a lot of familiar faces for fans of TPM, while the front half is full of action pieces with creatures from the seas of Naboo. It’s definitely a lot of fun seeing these pieces fitted together so nicely, and one of the strengths of the medium being used to its fullest extent.
After the confusion of Sabé’s identity is solved, Darth Vader convinces her to work with him, planning on exploiting her love for Padmé as a means by which they could gain more information on what happened to her. As it turns out, Sabé is also looking for the person responsible for the deaths of both Padmé Amidala and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. As the two work together further, Sabé introduces the Dark Lord to a group called the Amidalans. Rather than acting as a separate Rebel cell, like Phoenix Squadron, they are Naboo loyalists devoted to the late Queen of Naboo. The legacy of Padmé is one of love, as she was so loved by her people that they spend the next twenty years trying to both figure out what happened to her, and planning vengeance on whomever caused these deaths.
This is a great way to celebrate Padmé, despite her being dead for twenty years, and explore more of the impact she has had on the galaxy than we have seen before. The series also helps us compare the way that Leia and Vader interacted with her memory: Leia’s latent Force-sensitivity kept bringing her visions of her mother, while Vader was forced to re-live his past mistakes by interacting with people that Padmé knew. While Leia is confused, but maybe comforted a bit, by these visions, they only seem to drive a knife deeper into the Dark Lord’s heart, leaving him more conflicted, angry, sad, and alone than he was before.
Unfortunately, for Vader (and a little unfortunately for the Amidalans), the group believes Darth Vader is the cause of both of their deaths, and they lead him into a few traps designed to kill him. First, they put him into battle against an aqua monster, followed by an all-out blaster fight, and a direct assault by means of starfighters. All of these battles come with intense visuals, and the art style is perfectly suited for these bigger splash pages.
One of the things that I think a lot of readers worried about, which proved to be pretty well-founded fears, was pacing. The first issue was jam-packed, and a few other issues had quite a bit of dialogue and quite a bit going on as well, but some issues felt like a lot of action. While I don’t think that the series suffered because of this interplay of action and dialogue, the story did seem to wrap up really quickly. While Vader doesn’t uncover much more information about Padmé in the long run, keeping the fact that Leia is his daughter still a mystery to him, he does find out more about how much Padmé meant to the people whose lives she touched, which, in ways he may not even understand himself very well, touches him deep in his soul. The pacing does begin pretty strong, helping the series come off the bench swinging, but the second half fizzles a little bit. Though, in this case, your mileage may vary: remember, this series was delayed heavily due to the coronavirus, so readers were treated to a months-long cliffhanger due to the virus. If you have the chance to read these in one go, the pacing may feel a bit better.
But this arc seems less concerned with every aspect of the interactions between Vader and the Amidalans, and is far more concerned with Vader’s inner thoughts and inner monologues. Quite a few times in the story, an event will happen in the present which unlocks a memory about himself as Anakin, usually with Padmé. These flashbacks seem to be especially distracting, and he frequently is caught off guard by how pressing these memories are to him. This sets the stage beautifully for the Battle of Endor, where the love of Luke begins to turn his heart back to the light side of the Force.
Darth Vader (Vol. 3) is put together by a team that really works in sync with one another. In addition to Greg Pak as author, Raffaele Ienco handles both the penciling and the inking, with letters by Joe Caramagna, with colors by Neeraj Menon, covers by InHyuk Lee, and edited by Mark Paniccia. The heavily stylized art style of Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith might not have sat right with everybody, but I liked it for the story that the series was trying to tell. Ienco’s style is a bit more realistic, matching the darker and more somber tone of the series. The coloring is appropriately gritty when called for, but can turn luscious in a moment. One particularly striking scene features Vader in the middle of a Naboo pasture, a dark shadow standing out among the beautiful rolling fields of Naboo. Another great touch by Caramagna was giving Vader and Death troopers unique text bubbles, showing their difference visually.
One of the best touches, a truly collaborative effort between all of the creatives involved, is the way that the flashbacks are handled. These are cast in a red hue, reminding us of the red hue that Vader is forced to see the world through. These flashbacks are framed excellently, usually overlapping with a previous one. We’ve included a sample panel to show this effect, but they are even more powerful in the context of the story. So good.
All in all, Darth Vader’s third volume comes off pretty good. Those afraid of the repetition of another Vader series will be happy to know that the post-Bespin galaxy is rife with new avenues to explore, and Vader is in such a vulnerable spot that this doesn’t feel like it’s been rehashed too terribly. And those rightly upset by the previous Darth Vader mini-series will be happy to know that a lot of the violent fantasies have been reigned in, giving Vader a more subtle approach to dealing with the book’s antagonists. As this series moves from Naboo to Mustafar, Greg Pak and the creative team are proving themselves as capable of handling a fun new series, one worth following along.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!
DARTH VADER (VOL. 3)
Dark Heart of the Sith (Reviews by Ryan): #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5