The darkness inside!
Creative Staff:
Story: Kieron Gillen
Art: Salvador Larroca
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
Vader is lost in his inner mindscape, lost in visions of the Force! Is he truly more machine now than man? Or can he fight his way back from the brink?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With Darth Vader hitting its penultimate issue here, the book has a lot to do in order to set up a proper finale. Gillen and Larroca have executed a fantastic run of books so far so there’s plenty of trust established and earned in providing something with the right kind of payoff. What becomes fascinating is that we end up with a book that essentially blends elements from A New Hope with a couple of different parts of the prequels in the way that makes sense and has a certain smoothness that it requires. Gillen gets this character at this point and while we’ve had nods to the past from time to time, this is the chapter that digs into the process of how Vader’s mind works and why it’s so clear that Anakin is very much dead.
With Cylo having built in equipment that puts Vader under his control, the bulk of this issue is all about the war within his mind. Vader’s control over himself and his connection with the Force is what makes him who he is, so losing that control opens up so much of his mind to areas where his life was out of control. The biggest point for me was the early pages where it’s back on the world where, for all intents and purposes, Anakin died. While we get Obi-wan again lamenting that he loved Anakin like a brother, it’s also fused with the lines from A New Hope about being struck down. Combining that with the way that Anakin wishes that Obi-wan had killed him then, so that he didn’t become what he did in the years since, is certainly an interesting angle. But as Vader notes, he’s done so much evil even before that point that the chance to really stop him passed long before that.
Vader’s attempts at wresting control back face some solid challenges in here and the most obvious one is that of Padme, who appears as she was when very pregnant and doing her best to convince him to stay there with her. But as we know, in Vader’s mind Anakin is dead and this is not a place he belongs. It’s a great sequence over the course of the whole book in watching how Vader views and defines himself and has embraced who he has become, breaking free from the shackles once again as well. Of course, his breaking free doesn’t truly bring to an end the threat that is Cylo, but it gives me hope that we’ll see more of him in the future under this team’s hands. That the book sets up the final issue with Aphra being a critical player in it has me intrigued but it also has me hugely fearful as I can see her end likely coming now that she’s tussling with the Emperor. Aphra at least has a strong reputation herself and that could give her a bit of an edge in survival.
In Summary:
Focusing on the internals of Vader this time around as he works through his past to regain control of his present, it’s a really strong work from Gille and Larroca. The pair have put together some great books and I love how easily that Gillen seems to be able to blend parts of the original and prequel trilogies together that fans really wanted more of in the films themselves. Larroca has been one of my favorite Star Wars artists from the start and he’s just killing it once again in this book with all the transitional pieces to reflect the different periods of Anakin and Vader before bringing it all home. I’m excited to see what this team has in store for the finale and that they’re bringing their A game in full for it because the audience for this really won’t settle for less. I’ve got faith in them to pull it off, especially after an installment like this.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 10th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
