Darth Vader sets about feeding the monsters to the other monsters as “Crimson Reign” continues in Star Wars: Darth Vader #22 written by Greg Pak, art by Raffele Ienco, colored by Alex Sinclair and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
If last issue was all about secrets and who knows what, when, then Darth Vader #22 is all about loyalty. To what, and to whom, are the characters loyal? To the Empire? Crimson Dawn? Themselves? Darth Vader, for his part, appears to be loyal above all to the concept of order, a notion which appears to be making a strange convert of his dead wife’s doppelganger, the handmaiden Sabé. But first, in his quest to instill order, he must upset more than a few apple carts, raising questions of loyalty along the way.
The issue begins with a return trip to Naboo. Having learned of Sabé and Ochi of Bestoon’s apparent allegiance to Crimson Dawn last issue, here Vader provides them with an object lesson. Vader deposits the pair near the decaying body of the Sando Aqua Monster Vader killed in issue #4. Sabé and Ochi are quickly besieged by a swarm of crab dinosaur dog monsters feasting on the dead sea creature. Those monsters are, in turn, targeted by giant eyeless side-tusked snakes, a riff on the assertion from The Phantom Menace that, “There’s always a bigger fish”.
It’s a sequence which plays to artist Raffele Ienco’s strengths and calls back to the Dark Side Kaiju battle from earlier in the series. Kudos as well to colorist Alex Sinclair in this sequence, for casting the creatures in otherworldly colors that still fit the overall muted color scheme of the series. Vader’s overall point: kill one monster, and more will simply rise up to replace it. Instead of killing Vader, Sabé should be working with Vader to instill order in the galaxy (it’s Vader’s version, basically, on the notion of the devil you know being better than the dozen or so devils you don’t).
His pitch is enough to get Sabé to flip on Crimson Dawn and throw in with Vader – and also to arouse her suspicions about who Vader really is. This leads to an extended sequence of setups and apparent betrayals, as Sabé leads Vader to her cell of Crimson Dawn so he can take it over by force. Meanwhile, Ochi seemingly betrays Vader to General Romodi, hoping to stay in the Empire’s good graces now that Vader has apparently joined Crimson Dawn, and uses Valance and his team of hero/assassins as bait. But that, in turn, is revealed to all be a setup orchestrated by Vader himself, to draw all the various forces – Imperial and Crimson Dawn – into open conflict so they can wipe one another out, and leave the survivors (Valance and his crew, pointedly rescued by Ochi, as well as the watching Romodi) with one remaining notion: be afraid of Vader.
It all reads as being more twisty and turny than it actually turns out to be, in part thanks to the work writer Greg Pak has done in building up Vader and Ochi throughout the series, the former seemingly unbending in his devotion to order, the latter perfectly willing to throw in with whatever cause promises to keep him alive. Thus, Pak is able to use reader expectations to his advantage: it makes sense for Ochi to run to Romodi after swearing allegiance to Vader (again) in order to cover for himself, so we believe it. And we can see how Vader would be willing to put his mandate to wipe out Crimson Dawn aside in favor of using them to bring about order, because his devotion is to that notion more so than the Empire itself, only to learn in the end, his alliance with Crimson Dawn allowed him to both further both his personal and professional goals, so to speak.
The one remaining wild card in this is Sabé. Here, she professes to want the same thing Vader does – order – but it is unclear if her sentiment is genuine, or expressed due to an Ochi-like knack for changing with the shifting winds to stay alive. Her allegiances are further complicated by the issue-ending reveal that she’s figured out Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker. She suggests this knowledge as an explanation for why she couldn’t possibly be afraid of Vader, but the question remains: does knowing Vader is Anakin make her more or less likely to stay by his side?
While many of the series’ previous faults persist – Valance continues to be criminally-underused, the assorted assassins/would-be heroes continue to be non-factors – the way Pak keeps the action rooted in the core characterization of Darth Vader as an unstoppable force for order and Ochi of Bestoon as his delightfully-oily and self-centered right hand man serves Darth Vader #22 well. It allows for the plotting to feel more byzantine than it actually is, to surprise even when, in hindsight, what happened shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. And with Sabé’s revelation, there’s the promise of more probing of the relationship between Anakin and Vader which makes a series like this so much fun for Star Wars fans. Alliances shift, apparently and for real, throughout this issue. But the one constant through it all, as it should be, is the notion of Darth Vader as an unstoppable force.
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
