– Spoiler Review –
A little change in perspective for Darth Vader #14 (Vol. 3) brings to light the newest conspirators against the Sith Lord, while revealing his own machinations to counter it as he intensifies his search to kill…Luke Skywalker!
Starting off in the not too distant past, roughly around the ending of issue #12 when Vader’s rebuilt, perspective shifts to Sly Moore and how she reacts to Vader’s survival after the events of Exegol. Turns out Palpatine sent her to kill Vader (during the previous arc) knowing she’d fail, which brings her down in status and rises up Mas Amedda, a Sheev flunky through and through, leaving her to plan her next move to regain her place and continue to secure the Empire. I enjoyed this shift, as we get a glimpse of some bureaucracy within the Empire and between her and Amedda, while meeting her co-conspirators reveals more about Sly herself, and it helped flesh out some of the politics around Vader at this time. Unfortunately, as has been the case with the series so far, it felt like we didn’t get enough time with Sly and this view of the Empire, as it’s not long before we’re caught up to the end of last issue and into the events shown in War of the Bounty Hunters #2/Doctor Aphra #12 (Vol. 2) and then the issue is over, more eager to catch us up than stick with the new view. This feeling stems mostly from lacking any clarity on Moore and her group’s ambitions, as it seems to be safeguarding the Emperor from interior threats like Vader, but there’s not a whole lot of why they’d want to. Save their positions of power? Not end up dead themselves, as they all fear and end up dead anyways before we even get a name besides Sly’s? I had hoped they’d be something fresh and exciting in Vader’s way, but they’re dead besides Sly and the series moves on with Vader back in control, so far, once again. I know we’re never supposed to care about these characters, all blood in the margins of Vader’s story after all (thanks Aphra, for that line!), but if can keep cutting through everything put in front of him without much set back, it lessens any of the series’ thrill.
I made an incorrect assumption with last issue, assuming Vader knew about the auction for Han Solo alongside Crimson Dawn’s return, but it seems he and Ochi only uncovered Crimson Dawn is a thing again. So when Vader somehow tracks IG-88 to Sly Moore and her associates, cutting through them quickly, Sly is able to prolong her life by revealing the auction for Han Solo. As much as she wants Vader dead, she understands there’s no way for her to defeat him, but if he wants to go after Luke Skywalker, she’ll be happy to help him because she believes Luke could beat Vader. It’s a tricky and fun arrangement, as she offers to bid on his behest so his plans are secret from the Emperor, hoping Vader having Han brings Luke to him and they can battle and Vader can lose; the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing. Made clear in War of the Bounty Hunters #2, if not already clear, Sly is Force-sensitive, so she tries it a few times this issue, be it messing with Amedda so he doesn’t remember she downloaded Vader’s suit specs to give to IG-88 (which we saw the results of last issue) or attempting to use it on Vader (which he slices her hand for), but at the auction she uses it for more than holding other bidders back: she figures out Bokku is Vader’s puppet at the moment. It seems Vader isn’t all slash and kill again, using more of his tactical sense with these two conspirators, using Sly to force Bokku to bid high, putting him in the sights of Jabba while Sly looks even lower and more useless than the Emperor already feels. Why fight them when they can destroy themselves? It’s a great reveal and refreshing moment for the series, while it raises a great question of what, if anything, Sly can still do.
This issue doesn’t surpass the events of WotBH #2, so we’re at a stand-still in terms of what happens next now that Vader has arrived uninvited and not necessarily to Qi’ra’s carefully laid plans. We know it bugged Chelli Aphra quite a bit, unfortunately for her, and Vader won’t end up with the Han-sicle, so I’ll be very curious to see where this all goes and how much the Vader series gets to tell things over the miniseries. Especially since Raffaele Ienco is a mastermind with Vader, though it felt like he enjoyed the chance to have more characters with faces, giving Sly plenty of intense reactions in close-up panels, like her despair realizing her demotion, the glint of an idea as she talks Vader out of killing her immediately, and the confusion as the auction does not go as she planned. Ienco can frame Vader in ways that betrays his inner feelings, helped by the panels of his interior thoughts, and he proves he’s just as proficient when masks aren’t around. I also loved the look of Sly and Co’s meeting place, the dark, dead trees and the glimpses of life in the flowerbeds, as if to represent how they are the life to a dead, dark thing like the Empire. Jason Keith’s colors really shined in the two full pages of Vader swinging his lightsaber, as when he slices IG-88 there’s a purple behind the swing and a violent red near where the saber’s placed, and those colors are flipped in the second one, though it gives lots of weight and finality to his swings and the people unfortunate enough to be their targets. Letterer Joe Caramagna has some dashing SFX for those pages as well, providing a loud, deep swing sound you’d expect from Vader slicing and dicing, while I loved Ochi’s laughter, bigger and louder than anything in bubble really before it, only helping to make me kind of like the character finally.*
Here are a few other things:
- With July winding down, we’re almost done with the latest month of the War of the Bounty Hunters crossover, so expect our Hunters’ Guides to round up all the events, from every issue involved, before the next months-worth of story arrives. We have some hints on where it’s going and the ending is promise to change Star Wars comics forever, per the recent October solicitations. Quite the promise to make!
- As the Imperials run Sly through some of the minutia of the day-to-day of the Empire, there’s little references to other parts of canon. The mention of Governor Adelhard on Bespin connects to the story of the Uprising mobile game, brought to an end of sorts through the Aftermath Trilogy; and Lanz Carpo is a location from writer Greg Pak’s brief but fun run on the mainline Star Wars comic.
- *Alright, I might finally be okay with Ochi now, as reading him as a Deadpool-ish snark and Vader’s hype man has made him funnier than I expected. And also, he’s not saying “of Bestoon” every sentence again!
Darth Vader #14 (Vol. 3) delights with a new POV, but it quickly catches up to the rest of the War of the Bounty Hunters to its own detriment.
+ Seeing the Empire through new eyes…
+ Vader’s smarter gamble
– …though the view is over before it gets interesting
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS CROSSOVER
July: Bounty Hunters #14 | Doctor Aphra #12 | War of the Bounty Hunters #2 |
June: War of the Bounty Hunters #1 | Bounty Hunters #13 | Star Wars #14 | Darth Vader #13 | Doctor Aphra #11 / Hunters’ Guide for June
May: Alpha #1 | Star Wars #13 | Bounty Hunters #12 | Darth Vader #12 | Doctor Aphra #10 / Hunters’ Guide for May
DARTH VADER (VOL. 3)
Dark Heart of the Sith: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 / Arc Review — Into the Fire: #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11