– Spoiler Review –
As Vader remains unable to control his powers, Sabé must confront her decision to stay with him over her fellow handmaidens and if she wants to double down all the way or hold onto her morals, leading to a surprising development in Darth Vader #34 (Vol. 3).
At their island retreat, forced by Sabé to get him away from his ship and the Empire so he doesn’t destroy them as his connection to the Force remains out of control, Vader’s turned his dilemma around and made it hers, claiming she must decide if his hate, and hers, leads to power or suffering. She joins him then, to be safe in the eye of the storm, and begins to have a vision. Vader claims throughout it is her vision and she keeps rejecting the idea it could be, and while the issue ends without clarifying exactly who’s right, at least as far as I could tell, there are enough hints for the answer.
Sabé’s transported to the future Padmé and the handmaidens wanted, peace for Naboo, but it becomes quickly clear this version of Sabé, donning Imperial armor, has brought about such an ideal state while sacrificing her soul further to do so. It goes to the point she’s covered in blood after us seeing her advancing on Leia, Han, and Chewbacca, overwhelming them with the Empire’s might. Sabé rejects what she’s seeing, calling out the vision as something Vader’s put in her head, not one of her own, and calls him out, continuing to use the name Anakin instead of Vader. We get the quickest glimpse of the Anakin beneath the helmet, just a shadow of it, as Sabé tries to confront him, only for her to stumble into something Padmé went to her grave believing. Sabé finds a vision of Padmé and then Luke Skywalker, realizing he’s Vader’s son, and then the vision of Padmé and Luke meet, giving Sabé the rare insight that her fallen friend was right: there is still good in him. Vader’s vision to her isn’t going the way he wanted and he comes slashing in, trying to hide and destroy the truth buried within, and Sabé’s had enough, forcing herself away from him and ending the vision.
After she pulls away, he blasts her even further away and reminds her he isn’t in control and states simply, without threat, if he defies her again, he will kill her. He puts the question back to her, will his hate lead to her power or her suffering, and I’m realizing now he’s unwilling to make the choice for her and cares enough about her to want her to make it on her own, but we know the answer he’s looking for. She already chose him over her handmaidens, but since she did it to save them and their souls, it was less about choosing him and more about choosing them anyways. So when he asks her one more time, which will his hate lead to, she takes another option, as expected: if she can’t bring herself to hate, how can she choose? As she walks away, Vader doesn’t waste a moment revealing he wasn’t joking around as he throws her away with the Force, bringing in a giant wave, and drowning her beneath the seas she brought him to. Sabés dead?!!? After all that, after dozens of issues of her on and off again return she’s unceremoniously thrown into the sea and left to drown?! It certainly feels anticlimactic, even if she got to go out sticking to her morals in the end, denying him what he desired, but without seeing a body, one does have to wonder if she truly died. A glimpse into the comic solicitations I report on hasn’t quite revealed if she’ll be back, besides maybe a little line about betrayal by a trusted associate, so they are either doing a good job keeping her fate a secret or she’s well and truly dead. I have a feeling we might see more of her, but if this is how it all ends, it leaves a little be desired but like I said, she got to stick to what she believed in and saw Padmé was right all along, at the very least.
And then suddenly a ship of rebels and/or opportunists arrives, a contact of theirs supposedly telling them he’s out of control, but it’s not clear how they knew where he and Sabé went. They bring their ship in for the kill and he uses the Imperial shuttle he and Sabé came in on as a shield, then next a hidden energy shield on his mechanical wrist, and lastly some type of staff or maybe one of the weapons from the shuttle. This weapon ignites and splits their ship in two, destroying this latest threat, and he reveals to of the crew, about to die, he only needs hate to win. So at least he’s answered his own dilemma and is all in on his hate, burying the good inside Sabé saw.
Adam Gorham returns for one more issue, alongside colorist Federico Blee and letterer Joe Caramagna. I loved Gorham’s work in the vision more than anything else, as his style has an ethereal feel from how the characters are drawn sometimes, but there was something special about seeing Vader’s form turn into wisps of smoke, a cloud broken by the wind, that left me wondering when his presence would return to strike fear or stop the vision. Also, the little panel where one can just barely make out a human face inside the mask, the little bit of Anakin in there we’ve seen in Star Wars Rebels and Obi-Wan Kenobi, is haunting, as not inside his head can Vader fully escape what’s still inside of him. Blee’s colors paint everything in the vision with a gold tint, a sort of misty coloring over what’s being shown, as if it’s the ideal outcome from everything, the gold standard, borrowing the golden-era ideal from the High Republic. At a few moments it turns to a sinister red though, like when we can see Anakin’s face outlined in the helmet or Padmé initially disappears when Sabé tries to reach out to her, pointing out the ideas and pieces of Vader’s mind he doesn’t want have seen, wants banished, as they aren’t the rosy future, but the tainted, red past we’ve often seen throughout this series, always tinted in red. Caramagna’s “Padmé!” word bubble when Sabé shouts it after seeing her in the vision is heartbreaking, as the jagged lines of the bubble feel desperate, unbelieving she had Padmé back and lost her again so quickly. SFX gets really intense once the attackers come for Vader, as it highlights the power of their ship’s laser he’s blocking but also of his little staff/broken off weapon’s abilities to tear their ship in two. The image of Vader holding up the damaged Lambda shuttle on the beach, laser pounding it, lives rent free in my brain.
Here is one other thing:
- Doctor Aphra and eventually the murderbots are set to come to the Vader series in the next two issues, bringing things full circle from where it all started with the initial Vader comic and Aphra’s first appearance way back in 2015! Interestingly enough, there is a little confusion on when the events of the crossover will take place compared to Aphra’s series, as she just kidnapped Luke Skywalker, though Luke is off on his own journey in the Star Wars series…I know it’ll all shake out, but just know we might have to be patient for clarification.
Darth Vader #34 (Vol. 3) seemingly brings the saga of Sabé’s return to Vader’s life to a somewhat anticlimactic, yet fitting end…if she’s well and truly dead.
+ Interesting visions allowing Sabé to see what her friend hope
+ Art team’s wispy visions
– ….Is this really how Sabé’s long story comes to an end?
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.
DARTH VADER (VOL. 3)
Dark Heart of the Sith: #1-5 — Into the Fire: #6-11 — War of the Bounty Hunters: #12-17 — Crimson Reign: #18-22 — The Shadow’s Shadow: #23-27 — Return of the Handmaidens: #28-32 — Unbound Force: #33