Creative Staff:
Story: Kieron Gillen
Art: Salvador Larroca
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
What They Say:
VADER DOWN CONCLUSION Luke Skywalker- captured by the Empire! Darth Vader- beset by enemies on all sides! The finale of the biggest Marvel Star Wars story yet!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Running over the course of the two main books plus the kickoff special, the Vader Down event draws to a close here and it does shake things up a bit with what’s unfolding in the post-A New Hope world. This issue doesn’t quite feel like it’s rushing to get everything in order, but it does feel like it realizes that there wasn’t a whole lot to accomplish either. Part of what we get is just a sense of delayed understanding, as Luke realizes he’s never getting back to that temple to figure out what he felt there, and that has some nice grounding to it when taken into why he ends up heading to Dagobah later on as a real opportunity to learn something. With a few more misses along the way that I suspect we’ll see, his eagerness will be well earned.
With this being both Vader’s storyline and his series, he does get to dominate events here – even when he’s not fully aware, such as Leia training her pistol on him and realizing that someone who survived the destruction of the Death Star (and the hundreds of Rebels he just killed) likely can’t be taken down that easily. Seeing his fight first hand with Karbin should reinforce that as the two go at it, though again, Karbin is no match even as he plays a wannabe Grievous here. But it is satisfying to see him finally dealt with and by Aphra as she practically begs to be able to do something to get back into Vader’s good graces considering the way things have gone so badly for her. She’s such a character that you want to hate but have to love that it’s conflicting in so many ways.
While this all dominates, we do get a smattering of other events, such as the conclusion of the Wookie-fest fight, which ends kind of awkwardly as it’s Threepio that somehow saves the day. It is cute to have him being helpful and it plays out as you’d expect. Luke himself ends up captured by the Imperial Guards that Karbin’s crew had with them, but he believes it’s the Force that saves him and allows him to escape when it’s really Vader, who won’t let anyone get their hands on him before he’s ready to deal with him. It’s chilling in its own way, as is Luke’s realization that he really is marked now. The best part, and the most worrying part, is seeing Aphra making a play to capture everyone with the Falcon only to get taken captive by them. Part of me believes that it’s all part of Vader’s plan that she’s executing, but I continue to fear the end of her character at some point.
I have no idea where my murder buckets are at.
In Summary:
Problematic as elements of this installment are, and especially as a closing chapter to the arc, the Darth Vader series still manages to perform strongly. Gillen’s script works the events as best as he can to get to the desired if lackluster goals that set up for what’s next. I definitely enjoyed seeing Larroca getting time to work with more of the core cast in bringing them to life and it seemed like he had fun really working their designs. But I’m also eager to see him getting back to new creations and explorations within this series. I have no idea where the book is intending to go next – even though we know the main beats of the larger story of the character – and that’s exciting because it’s a wide open galaxy of material. Hopefully the next Star Wars event will have a little more meat to its meaning.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: January 6th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99