The Power of the Dark Side

Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol 1-3.
Written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Salvador Larroca and Adi Granov.
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna.

With a new Star Wars movie landing this month, I wanted to take a look at Darth Vader’s comic book interquel series from Marvel Comics. I was curious about what the creative team was going to do with it.

There is a long history of comics and Star Wars: from adaptations of the shooting script to promote the movie in the 70’s, to decades of original material created to sate the thirst for new stories between movies, to that stretch in the 90’s when no one knew when, or if, there would ever be more movies in the Star Wars saga.

When Disney took charge of the Star Wars franchise, they looked at the volumes of authorized stories in prose and comic book form of what could have been happening between and after the movies, and did a bit of Death Star-style spring cleaning to declutter things.

So now the new Marvel Comics team has been charged with writing new Star Wars stories to tie in not only with the movies, but with the original saga and the prequel series. I thought the most challenging of these monthly series would be the Darth Vader one. In a series set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, shouldn’t Vader be rather boring? You’d think his series would be about always chasing Luke, Han, and Leia only for them to escape at the end of every issue, because they have to. We know that they have to because everybody and everything has to be in place for Empire.

Well, I’m glad to say I was pleasantly surprised that the team at Marvel came up with a rousing serial adventure despite the seemingly restrictive borders of an interquel series centered around a villainous protagonist.

Vader himself, as Obi-Wan described him, is more machine than man now. His characterization is what it was in the first two films and Rogue One: the dreaded enforcer for the emperor and twisted remnant of the bygone chivalric and mystical age of the Old Republic, a golden age, that he was crucial in ending. Now he is an anachronism within the Empire he helped found.

Having fallen into disfavor with Emperor Palpatine after the destruction of the Death Star, he charts a bold but narrow course of serving both as the Emperor’s ruthless catspaw and gathering his own allies and power base so that he might discover the truth of the mysterious pilot that bested him at the Death Star, and one day take the imperial throne for himself. Yes, his face is always a cipher but you can’t help but hear James Earl Jones’s voice reading every piece of dialogue with the bluster and menace that made this character so iconic.

In addition to Imperial Officers and the famous bounty hunter Bobba Fett, Vader winds up with an entourage that are dark reflections of the heroes of the rebellion. And here’s where the series finds its stakes. While we as readers know what is going to happen to Vader, we don’t know what will happen to his quirky band of underlings or anyone that gets in their way. With Vader’s history of telekinetically choking his colleagues and minions, Vader himself might be the greatest threat to anyone in his circle. The life expectancy of Vader’s minions is something the Sith Lord’s first recruit, Doctor Aphra, is very much aware of and even embraces with a certain plucky devil may care attitude.

Aphra is a doctor of archaeology in the pulp tradition; with a blaster strapped to her thigh, she cuts a roguish figure as she robs tombs, pulls heists, and leaves mayhem in her wake as she chases after fortune and glory. She is a dark reflection of the George Lucas-style criminal anti-hero...in that she is an unapologetic criminal with no heart of gold underneath. The series even references that she is a doctor of archaeology that goes in search of relics of mass destruction in order to give them to fascists, the inverse of another famous archaeologist created by George Lucas. Vader needs her for off-the-books research projects, like finding out who that farm boy that blew up the Death Star is, or repairing a pair of very dangerous droids...

"I'm 0-0-0 or Triple-Zero, if you prefer. I'm a protocol droid, specialized in etiquette, customs, translation and torture, ma'am." - Triple-Zero   “Bleep!-Bleep!-Bleep!” -BT-1

When I first heard that the Darth Vader series would feature “evil” doppelgangers of beloved, long-suffering droids C-3P0 and R2-D2, I really didn’t expect the idea to work. But once I saw them on the page I couldn’t imagine the series without them. Leaning full tilt into the evil droids idea, this diabolical duo steal every scene that they are in. BT-1 is a squat droid on wheels that bristles with hidden weapons. Triple-Zero is a protocol droid, which, while programed to be loyal to his masters, is unapologetically delighted at the suffering of organic life around him (even more so if he’s the one causing it). A running gag is that Triple-Zero has concluded that the reason that organic life can use the Force while droids cannot is that the former has blood. So if droids drain the blood of organic life they would become force wielders, QED. He's the Renfield of robots. The voice of Anthony Daniels as C-3PO is as ingrained in my mind as James Earl Jones is for Darth Vader, so hearing this effete robot casually mention torture, dismemberment, and exsanguination is quite disorienting.

And speaking of disturbing subversion of the familiar, remember Chewbacca? Remember in A New Hope when Luke, the droids, and the audience first meet Chewbacca the Wookie? The hint of danger that this massive creature, always baring its teeth and growling, might actually rip somebody’s arms off if it doesn’t get its way? Well, what if that sense of danger and unease never went away? What if the big hairy monster was just as wild and brutish as it first appeared.

The bounty hunter Black Krrsantan is the 800-pound space gorilla that throws his weight around to get what he wants and lives to brawl and dominate. As a bounty hunter in service to the Hutt crime family lent out to Vader as hired muscle, he’s a brutal weapon for Vader to deploy when needed.

The adventures of Vader’s motley crew as they blast, backstab, and assassinate a bloody swath through the margins of Star Wars lore make for great pulp action. And since the first three volumes are all available in digital format, I highly recommend downloading them in case you want something to read during the long wait in line for the Han Solo Movie. Or—if the film doesn’t scratch your Star Wars itch—during the movie.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 12, 2018. Check it out at www.watchcityfestival.com.