Star Wars: Darth Vader #1

[nate_abril96]

If I had to pick my favorite character in all of a fiction, it would be...



Superman! But if I had to pick my second favorite character it would be Darth Vader. Ever since I was a little kid Darth Vader was always my favorite character in all of Star Wars. I mean do I even need to explain why? He's Darth Vader! So as you can imagine, Star Wars: Darth Vader #1 was a must buy for me. Is it a worthy story for cinema's greatest villain? Let's find out.

The story picks up after the first arc in Marvel's current Star Wars series. Darth Vader is on Tattooine for a meeting with Jaba the Hutt, and also kills two of his guards for daring to ask him questions about what he's doing here. Cause that's just how Vader rolls. Anyways, Jaba notes that Vader is a day early.



Vader tells Jaba this is a personal matter, and that it will end to his personal satisfaction. Jaba tells Vader to not even bother with his Jedi mind tricks, and tries to lure Vader toward his trap door to the Rankor. Fortunately, Vader is no fool. Jaba asks him whether he is "brave or foolish?" Vader's response:

"Are you?"

Jaba then dispatches his guards to take on Vader, but Vader (naturally) makes quick work of them. Jaba ask Vader to not be hasty. Vader then responds that Jaba is a fool for assuming that he uses mind tricks. After all, mind tricks are not of the dark side...



The story then flashbacks to one day earlier, where the Emperor is confronting Vader over the destruction of the weapons factory from Jason Aaron's Star Wars. The Emperor notes that he is disappointed in his failure, and brings up the destruction of the Death Star. He states that without the Senate to maintain order, and the Death Star to force it, the Empire is drawing closer to anarchy. As punishment, the Emperor places Vader under the orders of Tagge (the man Vader force chocked in A New Hope), and gives him his orders to visit Jaba the Hutt for a partnership. As they enter Palpatine's office, Vader notes a mysterious man...



Vader then recalls the events of A New Hope and his confrontation with Luke Skywalker, specifically that Obi-Wan gave him Vader's lightsaber. Vader tells his master, "Nothing to trouble yourself with..."
The story picks back up in the deserts of Tattooine, where Vader is having a meeting with Jaba's best bounty hunter...



Vader then orders Fett's "Chewbacca" (named Black Krrsantan) to hunt down the Emperor's new partner. He wants to speak with him. Vader then orders them to start immediately, as he has been delayed on this planet long enough, with the next page revealing that he has murdered an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders.

The overall story is okay for the most part, but I feel like it's covering old ground. I was not too familiar with Dark Horse's Star Wars, so can someone explain to me if there was ever a story of Vader seeking Luke after the events of A New Hope? Besides that there were parts I enjoyed. I particularly liked Vader force choking Jaba, and noting that mind tricks are useless to him as he prefers "force." I also liked the scene of Vader punishing the commander from the first story arc of Aaron's Star Wars, with the Emperor not impressed as they're bad guys who do this on a daily basis. What I was not happy to see was Bobba Fett. Bobba Fett, to me, is the most overrated Star Wars character. Although I did like that he has his own "Chewbacca." I was also not a fan of the art. I will admit that there are parts where it looks decent and straight out of the movie, but the action scenes are where it suffers the most. It feels too stilted and staged, and does not feel very dynamic. Overall I still prefer Aaron's Star Wars, and its presentation of Vader (even if his voice is off sometimes). It gives him better scenes of him being evil. I'm starting to get the feeling that Vader only works if he's the villain of the story, instead of the central focus. I don't know that's just me. Who knows? Maybe my opinion would change over time. I hope so.

Comments

[nyadnar17]

Fett is one of the few non-Force using badasses in the entire Star Wars universe. If for nothing else I would love him for balancing out the tendency of Star Wars to make all non-force users second class citizens.

[reveen]

I don't know, I'd take the Rogues, the Wraiths. Or hell if we're going pure movie just Wedge and Lando over Fett any day.

[nyadnar17]

Pilots are a bit different since there are so few force using fighter ace's out there. That said where any of them allowed to beat a Jedi in battle? Comics, Movies, books, whatever. Did that ever happen?

[cainofdreaming]

Jagged Fel might have... but it's been so long since I read those particular comics that I don't really remember much of them.

Pilots-wise I don't recall

[chortles81]

But the old canon reason for Jango Fett being the clone template was because he'd downed a dark sider before Episode II.

[sagrada]

I'd love if there were only a slim handful of Force-users, and they were like wizards. People who were often far from civilization, spoke in riddles, and existed to help the non-powered heroes get on with their space-adventure either as distant antagonists or remote and obscure sages.

That would be a problem with Star Wars stories' ability to depict scale

[chortles81]

The "many" Jedi wouldn't have seemed so plentiful had the prequels and associated media not continually focused on them with non-Force-sensitives being relegated to "a day in the limelight" stories.

At least the canon revamp means that most of the depicted Order 66 survivors' stories aren't current-canon yet.

[night4345]

Compared to the number of people in the galaxy Force users are exceptionally rare. Even Pre-Clone Wars there's only over 10,000 jedi. It's so insignificant to more than 100 quadrillion lifeforms in 70 million star systems just in the Galactic Empire.
As Obi-Wan says: "You must remember that there are over a hundred thousand inhabited worlds in the Republic, and there are now only a few thousand of us. Billions of beings have never seen a Jedi. Millions have never even heard of our Order. Or of the Force. When we do appear, we can be killers, but also healers. Thank the Force for that."

[sagrada]

That's true, though too easily abused as an excuse to focus on the handful of name-character force-users. Superhumans are a vanishingly small fraction of the population in their worlds too, but they take up a disproportionate amount of space. Even in Star Wars comics alone(JUST the comics) Jedi and Sith take up a huge amount of narrative real estate. I wonder if that and the superhero comic dominance in America have something common?

Of course, several of the most important main characters in the movies used the Force, and they did decide a lot of what happened, but still...that was THAT story.

[night4345]

The Force is what makes Star Wars universe unique and the people that can destroy small armies and control minds should justifiably have a big part in the galaxy. It's not like there aren't books dealing with the non-Force users (the Han and Lando trilogies, the Tales series, Fett novels, Clone soldiers novels, and the X-Wing series not to mention most of the 'Force user books' have plenty of plot points and subplots dealing with things happening elsewhere to non-Force users).