The heretical path.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Giuseppe Camuncoli, Daniele Orlandini
Colors: David Curiel
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
DARTH VADER returns to the place of his birth as he seeks the path to his destiny. Echoes from the past reach out to him — both from his own, and from the dark history of the SITH.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The fortress storyline is one that got off the ground a bit awkwardly but is delivering on the smaller moments that I crave from the comics, the filling in of bits and bobs of the Star Wars universe. Charles Soule has put some good material into this previously in this series and his Lando series and it’s one of the big draws to following this Vader book. The other are the great looking designs and the flow of the book from Camuncoli and Orlandini as they give us time on Coruscant and on Mustafar. The back and forth works well but the draw is in watching how events take place on both with its distinct cast and what they bring into those individual worlds through the designs.
The Coruscant side of the story works well as we get Palpatine giving him both the world and the ship to get there but also making clear he wants to know why. The tantalizing aspects of what he discovered there previously with his kyber crystal is at least some of what’s driving him but Palpatine also knows there’s aspects to his past that must still be rooted out there with Amidala. In fact, we see a kind of beautifully twisted visual when he’s on the ship heading to Mustafar where we see young Anakin from his first time on here but his face his partially twisted into the mask of Vader. It’s a haunting piece that sets the right tone for the inner turmoil that he’s facing and doing his best to ignore and eradicate.
His time on Mustafar is intriguing from the start as he has a couple of Imperial architects with him that have been ordered to come and design his fortress for him. He gives them no guidance and they get caught up in a different subplot along the way but I just love the dialogue between Brenne and Roggdo as they talk about Imperial clients and the way she tries to figure out what it is that he needs. The time on Mustafar hints at greater things to explore here as we get a few brief but really tantalizing panels with the natives that see his arrival as ominous as well as more of his time where he faced some of his demons. This place, as he says, is a locus for Sith energy. And with one more artifact having arrived at Palpatine’s insistence, more of the Sith backstory may be in our future.
In Summary:
Darth Vader continues to be a really solid book with all the things that it’s exploring and I’m enjoying the shift to Mustafar here. The previous material has been pretty good overall but now that we’re here and exploring more of what Palpatine is actually orchestrating and what Vader himself is looking to discover there’s even more to like. Solid writing with some welcome nods to the past along with good artwork and layouts that keeps it moving and engaging with lots of neat little moments and designs. I can’t wait to get more of this arc to see where Soule wants to take us.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 12th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
