There’s twists and turns aplenty as SabĂ© finds herself in a pickle while her fellow handmaidens make a deal with the devil in Star Wars: Darth Vader #30 written by Greg Pak, art by Luke Ross, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Generally speaking, Darth Vader isn’t a series which relies too heavily on plot twists. It’s not a book that sets up elaborate mysteries or teases future events before backpedaling to reveal how things get there. It has plots, of course, and storylines, but for the most part, they unfold in measured ways. They are ultimately more about their impact on the characters than twisting the plot for the sake of a twist.
All of which is to say, by the standards of this series, Darth Vader #30 is an especially twisty issue, with reveals and reversals coming across its pages at a pace that is nearly breakneck for this book. It’s not necessarily something it can sustain, nor should it â while twisty, these turns aren’t exactly shocking â but the change in pace is nevertheless refreshing.
It picks up where last issue left off, with Padme’s remaining handmaidens trying to rescue (or execute) SabĂ© (depending on whether or not she’s acting of her own volition), and with DormĂ© caught red-handed by Vader while she was posing as SabĂ© (i.e. DormĂ©, whose job was to look and act like PadmĂ©, is pretending to be SabĂ©, just so we’re clear). Meanwhile, the actual SabĂ© ended the previous issue seemingly fulfilling her mission to execute rebel leader Jul Tambor, despite seemingly taking a shine to his operation. That leads to the first twist of the issue, as we learn Jul isn’t dead after all! SabĂ© just shot him in a way that made it look like she killed him, but wouldn’t actually kill him.
This twist is fairly routine, the sort of resolution to a previous issue cliffhanger that is standard for the genre. More surprising is the next twist, where it turns out this is all part of Tambor’s plan to get close to Vader and execute him, with Tambor and his droid armor taking control of SabĂ©’s ship and capturing her. The hunted has become the hunter.
Meanwhile, in their efforts to rescue the now-captive DormĂ© (before they can get back to the work of saving SabĂ©), the rest of the handmaidens come into direct conflict with Darth Vader (Ochi of Bestoon is still there too, a delightful Greek chorus of sorts who gets casually tossed around by Vader). Through a series of their own twists and turns, they manage to seemingly get the upper-hand on Vader, threatening to blow up his command ship. But then he plays his trump card, revealing SabĂ©’s capture by Tambor. To save her, the handmaidens must ally themselves with Vader.
What makes this turn work so well is the way it mimics the journey SabĂ© is already undertaking; the handmaidens are now doing the very thing they’re suspicious of SabĂ© for doing. Vader has gone from ‘the enemy of my friend is my enemy” to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in the eyes of the handmaidens. Just as SabĂ© initially allied herself with Vader because she felt the ends justified the means, that she could use Vader’s power and influence to bring about justice and order, here now her “sisters” are falling into the same trap, putting aside their hatred of the man who killed their queen in order to save one of their own. But as SabĂ© herself has found out, it’s a slippery slope from “manipulate a bad guy into doing good” to donning Mara Jade cosplay and being tasked with carrying out political assassinations.
Outside of SabĂ©, the handmaidens remain an individual collection rather than a collection of individuals; very little is done yet to make them distinct entities in their own right, as they continue to act as one and move towards the same collective purpose and goals, which makes it difficult to care about them outside the machinations of the plot. Depending on how long they’re going to remain in the picture, this is something that is going to need to be addressed to make them work as characters.
But while “the handmaidens throw in their lot with Vader” isn’t a cliffhanger on the same level as, say, “How will the character survive this seeming death?” or even last issue’s “Oh crap, has SabĂ© gone dark?”, it does leave us hanging, as we wonder how their journey will be similar to and different from SabĂ©’s, and whether they can find her before Vader corrupts them further (or before, you know, SabĂ© is killed either by Tambor, or by Vader for failing to kill Tambor). It’s a twist that works not because of how it advances or recontextualizes the plot, but because of the way it raises questions about how the characters central to the series â Darth Vader, and now SabĂ© and, to some extent, the rest of the handmaidens â are going to react to the twist.
Force Facts
- Jul’s plan involves buying Clone Wars era battle droids that Darth Vader destroyed, using their memory banks containing footage of how they died to analyze his fighting style, and then repairing the droids to fight against Vader, and I just have so many questions about how all of that is supposed to work.
- Similarly, it remains unclear to me whether or not the other handmaidens know Darth Vader was Anakin; I suspect not.
- I didn’t review Star Wars #30, which came out last week, for a couple of reasons, but largely because there’s not a lot to it, but it does seems to be setting up the current “use old Nihil technology to find fuel for the Rebellion” story as an almost Star Trek-like adventure (or one from Marvel’s original Star Wars comics), in which the characters have to find their way out of a naturally-occurring predicament using guts and science as opposed to fighting Stormtroopers and whatnot, which at least makes me eager to read what happens next.
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
