Several people learn the hard way there’s no keeping secrets from Darth Vader in Star Wars: Darth Vader #21 written by Greg Pak, art by Raffele Ienco, colored by Alex Sinclair and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Not surprisingly in a story built around the idea of rooting out Crimson Dawn double agents working against the Empire, secrets have been at the center of this series of late. Similarly, it’s not surprising to learn that Darth Vader has been further in the know regarding those secrets than readers had been led to believe: this is his book, after all, and much of the tension in his stories isn’t about if he’s going to prevail, but how. Yet for all that, this issue – in which the hunt for Crimson Dawn and the various machinations swirling around Vader start to come to a head – still has at least a few surprises in store, albeit some which are executed better than others.
The airing of secrets kicks off right at the start of the issue, with a confab between Sabe, Ochi and Administrator Moore (enforced by Sabe’s reprogrammed forensic droid Zed). All three share the same general goal (some combination of “take down Vader” and “survive”) but each are approaching it differently, and their conversation is basically meant to get everyone in line with Sabe’s current efforts. The key takeaway here is Moore’s point that simply killing Vader is a fool’s errand: he always finds a way to survive. That aura of invincibility is a foreshadow of things to come.
This leads to a semi-convoluted sequence of events in which Ochi, at the direction of Sabe, directs Vader towards a group of Imperial soldiers who participated in the massacre of the Amidalans (the group loyal to Padme introduced in the series’ earliest issues, led by Sabe). At the same time, Ochi tips off Imperial general Romodi, angered by the recent indiscriminate purge of his soldiers, to Vader’s intended whereabouts, laying a trap for Vader on the planet Tranchar. Sabe’s goal here is for the Imperials and Vader to take each other out. Not surprisingly, Vader survives the trap (executed by a legion of robotic Dark Troopers) and only slightly more surprisingly, reveals that he’s well aware Ochi is working for Crimson Dawn. The most surprising bit of it all is that Vader doesn’t much care (at least for now) that Ochi is a double agent, as Ochi unintentionally leads Vader back to Sabe, where he declares he is now going to use her.
Again, the appeal here is less the twists and turns of the scheming, and more the visceral thrill in seeing Vader slice through all the obfuscation like an unstoppable force of nature. Ochi’s cockroach-like ability to consistently evade consequences is also entertaining: he makes it clear during the initial confab that he only threw in with Crimson Dawn as a survival tactic, and by the end of the issue, he’s running for his life from Vader to a comically-exaggerated degree. Yet he still lives to grovel another day, thanks to (inadvertently) leading Vader to Sabe. The Vader/Ochi partnership – similar to the Vader/Aphra pairing in the first Darth Vader volume – continues to pay dividends and remains a highlight of the book.
The subplot running through this issue is the continued development of the crew of assassins and vengeance-seeking heroes overseen by Valance. The rotund assassin droid Gee-Ninety is having attacks of conscience, finding his “hero” teammates’ approach to doling out lethal justice appealing. When the team discovers the Imperials on Tranchar conducting horrific experiments, Gee-Ninety intervenes to cut down the Imperials (despite that not being the mission the assassins are being paid to conduct), only to have its act of altruism cut short when Vader enters the fray and slices Gee-Ninety in half.
It’s meant to be a (legitimate) surprise, delivered via full page splash, but artist Raffele Ienco stages it awkwardly, mucking the transition from wide angle to zoomed in such that Vader looks less like he’s cutting his way through Gee-Ninety from behind and more that he’s emerging from inside, as if Gee-Ninety is some kind of killer egg. Similarly, writer Greg Pak continues to do his best to make this group of characters interesting, but there simply hasn’t been enough space to develop them beyond their visuals (ie “there’s the bug one”, “the big robot ball one” etc.) and the “kills for money”/”kills for vengeance” rift. Then there’s poor Valance thrown into that mix, once one of the most compelling original-to-comics characters, now little more than a glorified babysitter for this crew.
The desire to build up the book’s cast is admirable, but it remains overshadowed by the Vader/Ochi pairing, a pairing that continues to pay dividends even as Ochi’s true nature becomes ever more exposed. This issue is ultimately about exposing secrets and shifting allegiances, but for all the machinations and revelations seeded throughout, that pairing remains at the center of the series, and it remains all the better for it.
Force Facts
- The Dark Troopers are, of course, relics of the old Expanded Universe ported into the new canon by The Mandalorian. Their appearance here seems slightly ahead of schedule, given they seemed to be under development in the post-Return of the Jedi era of The Mandalorian.
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
