Plots spin within plots as Sabe return and plays Vader like a fiddle (or does she?!?) in Star Wars: Darth Vader #20 written by Greg Pak, art by Raffele Ienco, colored by Alex Sinclair and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Two things help set this issue – in which Darth Vader, after retrieving a list of purported Crimson Dawn sleeper agents in place throughout the galaxy, sets about eliminating them with extreme prejudice – above the previous two chapters in the “Crimson Dawn” era: the return of Raffele Ienco on art, and the return of Sabe, Padme’s former handmaiden, to the narrative.
The former brings a measure of comforting familiarity back to the series, as is the case with the return of any regular artist to their book. But Ienco’s presence also helps the newer characters amongst the Revengers and the assassins introduced in the previous two issues pop a bit more: there’s a greater level of detail, for example, in the Gee-Ninety (the big sphere droid)’s various components and in Chilla Zin’s overall bug-like look. The characters are still largely ciphers (aside from their collective division as “assassins” and “not as bad as the professional assassins”), but they at least pop visually on the page more.
Sabe’s return, meanwhile, both calls back to the plot lines of earlier in the series (she is joined by a reprogrammed ZED-6-7, the forensic droid Vader brought with him to Naboo), while injecting more personal stakes into Vader’s quest. Now, we’re not just rooting for Vader and Ochi (whose overall goals are, theoretically, at odds), but also Sabe and her quest to learn the truth about Padme’s death and get revenge on Vader (which, of course, is filled with the added tension readers bring to that quest by knowing more than she does). The means by which she re-enters the series – as a Crimson Dawn agent (a revelation she treats as nonchalantly in-universe as readers likely do, given the whole arc of the current publishing initiative) who plants a half-true list of agents for Vader to find – also injects another agenda into the proceedings.
The end result is wheels within wheels, as secret Crimson Dawn agent Ochi plots against Vader alongside Administrator Moore while rooting out his own peers alongside Vader as Sabe watches from afar, believing she is pulling everyone’s strings. Readers are left wanting to see several characters succeed whose success can only come at the failure of the others. At the center of it all is Vader, who alternately seems duped and the one doing the duping. It’s a delicate balance struck by writer Greg Pak, but one which manages to make the character feel both at risk and coolly in control at all times. The best Vader stories are the ones where he overcomes obstacles by becoming a sheer force of nature, and we see some of that here, as he storms into the Emperor’s throne room and starts executing a bunch of those doofus old guys who somehow got an action figure back in the 80s. Were they all Crimson Dawn sleeper agents? Did Vader know either way? Ultimately, he doesn’t much care.
The issue isn’t perfect. Pak’s efforts to build out the cast are admirable, but the further removed things get from Vader, the less engaging they become. There’s still too many characters running around, with Valance technically appearing in the issue but quickly becoming a non-factor. It also remains hard to care much about the moral struggles of the Revengers on anything more than a base level (in this issue, they are tasked with hunting down a reported Crimson Dawn agent who turns out to be innocent of working for Crimson Dawn but guilty of being a bad guy nonetheless), or even to remember anything about the assassins aside from their cool visual looks (robot ball, bug man). But with the narrative refocused on the central schemers and their schemes and the title character positioned as a wild card in all those schemes, a refocusing ably assisted by a pair of returns to the book in Raffele Ienco and Sabe, the series feels like it’s getting its groove back.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
