Ochi helps Dormé investigate Sabé while Sabé makes a fateful decision. Darth Vader is also there, in Star Wars: Darth Vader #29 written by Greg Pak, art by Luke Ross, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Who is the main character of this series? Darth Vader is the title character, of course, but Darth Vader #29 makes it clear that we’re now in the midst of a story that is principally about Sabé moreso than her dark benefactor. She is the driver of the narrative in this issue, whether we’re watching her actions on Skagos Minor, or watching Ochi guide Dormé as she tries to determine if her fellow Handmaiden has truly broke bad or just running a long con. Putting Sabé at the center of the story instead of its title character isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least for awhile, and though Darth Vader #29 still finds the series struggling to focus on a macro-narrative, it is at least an improvement on the previous issue.
Darth Vader #29 succeeds because of two things. First is the return of Ochi to a more central role in the story. Vader is most often a deadly serious character (when he’s not making dad jokes, at least). That seriousness, not surprisingly, tends to permeate his series. Even this story, which is more about Sabé than Vader, is all about Sabé becoming more like Vader, that is, becoming darker, humorless, more dour. A story with Vader at its center needs a lighter character, someone not necessarily comedic but at least sardonic and able to hang a lampshade on the cloak of sturm-und-drang in which Vader wraps himself. It’s a role Doctor Aphra rode to stardom, and while Ochi is no Aphra, it’s a role he’s filled in this volume of the series with aplomb.
Having him back in the mix immediately brings that much needed energy to the series to counterbalance the dark happening swirling around Vader and Sabé. Ochi is also not a predictable character. Is he leading Dormé into a trap? Will he sell her out to Vader? Is this all some part of a con he himself is running? Other than knowing that Ochi is always first and foremost looking out for one guy (Ochi), and will thus sell out anyone to save his own hide, we don’t know what he’ll do next. That unpredictably infuses the scenes he’s in, and the issue is better for it.
That same unpredictably is present in the second way Darth Vader #29 is an improvement over the previous one. Sabé is becoming more like Vader, the more time she spends with him. The degree to which that transformation is sincere — and the motivations behind her transformation — are the central question of this story. Putting those questions at the heart of this issue means we get to see Sabé to have some measure of a character arc in the issue, and the issue is better for it.
How far gone is Sabé? That’s the question Dormé is trying to answer as Ochi sneaks her aboard the Executor and, inadvertently, into a confrontation with Vader. And it’s the question Sabé herself is trying to answer in the other half of the issue. Tasked with hunting down rebel leader Juul Tambor, she is able to get close enough to him to learn his story and hear his pitch for striking back at the Empire. This also means she gets close enough to kill him, as ordered. The question of what she’ll do, kill him and prove her descent into darkness to Vader, or join Tambor, in some capacity, as the latest step in her plan to use Vader and his darkness to do good in the galaxy, is a specific example of the more overarching question Dormé is trying to answer in parallel. As with Ochi’s unpredictability and snark, the basic “what is she going to do?” tension in Sabé’s immediate plot gives Darth Vader #29 the narrative energy the previous issue lacked.
Of course, taking a step back, things still feel relatively far afield from both the overall purpose of the series — an exploration of Darth Vader — and the ostensible overarching plotline the series is meant to further at this point — Vader’s efforts to break Crimson Dawn. Over the last half dozen or so issues we’ve gone from a series about Vader trying to restore order in the galaxy by taking on a vast criminal conspiracy, to one in which he enlists his dead wife’s lookalike to help him root out conspiracy, to one examining the extent to which that lookalike has committed herself to Vader and his way of doing things. Writer Greg Pak does bring back Gee Ninety, the rolly-polly assassin droid that was part of the “hunt down Crimson Dawn!” team earlier in the series, suggesting he still has some sense of that overarching plot in mind, but otherwise, the series seems to be moving in an entirely new direction.
And that may not be a bad thing. Sabé represents a connection between Vader and his past as Anakin, and that has proven useful material to mine for the series. The mythology Pak is continuing to build surrounding the handmaidens and their commitment to their deceased charge is also intriguing and filled with potential, while the Crimson Dawn material has always felt like an odd fit in this book. The series may be missing the forest for the trees at the moment, but at least Darth Vader #29 is a step in the right direction in terms of making one of those trees entertaining in the meanwhile.
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
