The fruit of their labors has ripened, and Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca choose wisely to harvest it. This is the conclusion to Darth Vader Volume 4: End Of Games, and of the Darth Vader series itself.
On board the Executor, Dr. Aphra is revived by Triple Zero. Tulon Voidgazer’s neurotoxin attack on the ship has left everyone but droids and aliens unconscious. Taking advantage of this, and the apparent destruction of Darth Vader, Cylo and his minions have boarded the Super Star Destroyer and are about to make a getaway. However, their escape is thwarted when they lose control of the engines; Darth Vader is alive and on board, “I am coming for you,” he tells Cylo. Morit Astarte wants to go confront the Sith, but Cylo tells him to avoid Vader by going outside the ship, get to the engine room, and restart the engines. Realizing he has precious cargo on board, Cylo sends half his men to go retrieve the Emperor and bring him to the bridge. Aphra is just about to board her ship when she hears this order go out. She knows that escaping now only delays the inevitable retribution from Darth Vader. “We’re not leaving, Master Aphra?” Triple Zero inquires. “Not yet,” she says, “I’ve had another one of my patented never-go-wrong ideas.” Morit is outside the ship on his mission to bypass Vader and fix the engines. Darth Vader, eager to do away with another would be usurper, is not to be avoided. Having anticipated this move, he is also outside the ship, waiting. Morit launches at him, he misses his mark and Vader manages to disable at least one of his rocket boots. Morit lands on an exposed girder and Vader uses the Force to break it off and send Morit plunging into the atmosphere of the planet below. So, basically, like his sister before him, he burns up. Back inside the ship, Aphra, Krrsantan, and the Killbots take out Cylo’s men as they try to breach the Emperor’s quarters. Krrsantan, by the way, makes it clear that he is only helping because Aphra owes him money. In the middle of the fight, Cylo’s guys break off and pull back. Darth Vader is nearing the bridge and he makes short work of them before finally coming face to face with Cylo. “Your machines are insufficient,” he tells Cylo. “Perhaps,” the scientist responds, “But you forget, you are one of my machines, too.” Cylo presses a button and Darth Vader stops in his tracks. Cylo tells Vader that he was unsure if his private access to his cybernetic systems had been disabled in the intervening 20 years, so he was hesitant to rely on this maneuver; but now he knows. He gloats that Vader is indeed more machine than man.
Anakin was probably a lot lighter without legs and an arm.
As Darth Vader is frozen and on his knees, he flashes back to that fateful encounter on Mustafar. But this isn’t merely a memory of past events. This time a maimed Anakin shouts to Obi-Wan, “If you loved me, Obi-Wan, you would have killed me.” “Would this have been better?” Kenobi shouts as he picks his friend up and throws him into the river of lava. From the river arises the familiar form of Darth Vader. He strikes his former master down just as the other man disappears in the same way that he had on the Death Star. Vader then encounters Anakin Skywalker, as he appeared just before his fall. Their lightsabers clash, and Vader inflicts the same injuries on him that Obi-Wan did. “How could you do this?” asks young Skywalker. “You were a child,” Vader replies as he drags Anakin toward the lava, “I am well accustomed to killing children.” The Sith walks away to the familiar shout of “I hate you.” A different voice now: “Turn back, Ani; stay with me,” from a very obviously pregnant Padme. “You don’t need to go on. It can be over. You know you don’t want to leave.” “No,” is his only response. We see Padme begin to choke and slowly fade away. “Anakin is dead,” Vader says, “I killed him.” Vader struggles to break free of chains binding him to the operating table where he was re-born. At the same time, Cylo witnesses his nemesis moving, standing, and calling his lightsaber to him; “Impossible!” he exclaims just before Vader impales him. “Nothing is impossible for the Force,” is Darth Vader’s response. Out in space, in what remains of Cylo’s whale fleet, Cylo-VI, the next clone to embody the scientist’s personality awakens. He knows that his predecessor is dead, and that he must escape. Vader tells the Emperor that the Executor is freed from Cylo’s control and that he is on the way to deal with one final problem (Cylo-VI). Then, Aphra appears in the Emperor’s quarters; “I’ve got things you need to know.”
Tagge, you're it!
Vader, in his TIE fighter, makes his way on board the whale ship wherein Cylo-VI is attempting to escape. He mows down a bunch of guards, then gets to the lab where he takes pleasure in killing a bunch of “in case we run out” Cylo clones. Vader finally comes to the bridge, where Cylo-VI has learned nothing from what just happened to Cylo-V: “I transcended the laws of nature and the trap of the Force. I made myself immortal.” Darth Vader makes a familiar gesture with his hand, “I will make you ash...you will fly into the sun.” Cylo thinks he was talking to him, but he wasn’t. We see the space whale’s brain become active. As Vader departs, the whale plunges itself into the sun. Darth Vader returns to the Executor, and in the Emperor's throne room he finds that Aphra has gotten to Palpatine first and told him (nearly) everything they’ve been up to. Sheev lists his apprentice’s transgressions: creating an Empire within the Empire, robbing Imperial treasuries, killing all who might expose him. Aphra thinks she has the upper hand now, that Vader will surely face retribution from his master. Palpatine, however, is most pleased with Vader’s performance. He let his anger and pride guide him to the darkest places. That is the way of the Sith. He has proven himself a most worthy apprentice. The Emperor turns Aphra over to Vader and departs for the bridge. Aphra tries to explain to Vader that this was really her only option, she says she didn’t betray his real secret about “whatever’s going on with that Rebel kid,” and anyway didn’t everything work out okay in the end? Remember back when they first met and Aphra basically said to Vader, “look, I know you’re probably going to end up killing me at some point, just don’t do it by flushing me out the airlock”? Well, he flushes her out the airlock. Not to worry, this is not the end of Dr. Aphra. Krrsantan and the Killbots are standing by to rescue her using the same trick they did when they robbed the Imperial ship of the credits. This was all part of the not so good doctor’s plan: the only way Vader was going to get off her back was if he thought she was dead; and she knew he would never be kind enough to just kill her with the lightsaber. Back on the Executor: Grand General Tagge now finds himself demoted by the Emperor and placed under the authority of Darth Vader as a result of his recent failings. The Executor is now Vader’s ship. Tagge tries to smooth things over and is Force choked by Vader. So, he’s dead now for real. Vader tells Adm. Ozzel to have the ship ready in 2 weeks. He tries to protest, but is quickly reminded of the dead guy two feet away. Ozzel learns his lesson and I’m sure he will have no further problems with Darth Vader. As Vader looks out the window of the Executor, he has a vision of himself reaching out to Luke Skywalker, and Luke reaching out to him. “Soon,” he says.
Notes: Issue 20 (reviewed last week) contains a bonus short story called The Misadventures of Triple-Zero and BeeTee written by Gillen with art by Mike Norton. It’s a delightful story that sheds some more light on the history of 0-0-0. His matrix dates back to the Old Republic. It was brought out of quarantine by the Tarkin Initiative, got loose and terrorized the Universe for 3 years before being caught again prior to its “liberation” by Aphra. Issue 25 includes a short story called Coda which tells of a Tusken Raider who survived Vader’s slaughter of a village as depicted in the first issue of the series. Max Fiumara provides the art.
Review (Part II)
Darth Vader Issue 24 Cover A
I recall that in an interview Kieron Gillen said one of his goals in this series was to show how Darth Vader went from being the lone survivor of, and only person left to take the blame for, the destruction of the Death Star at the end of A New Hope, to the officer murdering leader of Empire Strikes Back who answers only to the Emperor. I would say that goal is fairly adequately met with this series. We start with Vader in a place of uncertainty. He is put under the command of Tagge and challenged in his place as the Emperor’s right hand/apprentice by Cylo and his creations. In this position, Vader cannot meet these challenges with brute force; and so we see Vader use his cunning, the strategy that served Anakin Skywalker so well as a Jedi. We see Vader adopt allies, which is not something we are used to. Nevertheless, there is still much opportunity for Vader to kick butt in this series. There’s plenty of action, plenty of great lines. The conclusion, End of Games delivers on what the series sets up. We know Vader is going to defeat Cylo, that’s basically a given. That Vader bests Cylo is not the point, but how he does it. He does it by asserting the human side of himself. He overcomes Cylo and his machines by using the Force, something they cannot do. Even though there is no redemption for Darth Vader until ROTJ, even though he declares Anakin Skywalker and his past dead, I think we see the seeds of that redemption here. Despite appearances, Darth Vader is not a machine. But what of Aphra, and the threat of the Emperor learning of Vader’s schemes? I think it’s handled quite well. We could have ended with Palpatine never learning of it. The fact that he does, and his reaction, shocking as it is to Aphra, is great. It’s that closure of a story thread that can be so appealing. Speaking of Sheev, one of my favorite things about this series is the interaction we see between him and Vader. There is nothing, I mean nothing, but manipulation on Palpatine’s part. You can’t take anything he says or does at face value. You can’t believe any explanation he gives for his actions. I can’t say for sure that Vader only learns this about his master during this series; but I like to interpret it that way. Of course Vader has known that Palpatine is evil since he became Darth Vader; but it is here where he learns that their relationship is purely a power dynamic. The Way of the Sith is all he has. Anakin Skywalker is dead. Although the son of Skywalker lives, Darth Vader sees him, at this point, not as an opportunity for redemption but as a way to gain more power. One final note: In my review last week I criticized the space whales by saying they really don’t serve any purpose that can’t be fulfilled by a normal ship. I obviously forgot about the ending where Vader uses the Force on one of them. I’m sorry, space whales.
