Legacy of Vader: Reign of Kylo Ren: Part 8
What is it ? : We are introduced to Tava Ren, the new leader of the Knights of Ren, they are involved with robbing a warlord, but things go wrong when he calls in reinforcements and the Knights abandon Tava. Reaching their ship she asks what happened to the Knights of Ren who used to be feared, and they tell her the story of Kylo Ren, how he was their leader who arrived as Ben Solo, he led them to great success robbing and raiding, but they faced against Snoke, who offered Kylo better, and Kylo offers to destroy the Knights as Snoke describes them as the Rats of the Dark Side.
But Snoke tells him he should not sully his blade, and instead sets the squads of the First Order on them, breaking them with the betrayal of their leader, so they escaped not even scrabbling for scraps, but just trying to survive. Hearing the story, Tava Ren says she can fix them.
Aboard the Finaliser they detect the Buzzard, the transport used by the Knights of Ren approaching, and Kylo says to allow it to dock. Kava leaves the ship, and drops to her knee introducing herself and putting herself at Kylo's service. . . .
High Points : While I really don't like this issue, to give it something, I do think that the backstory they're giving Kylo is at least somewhat interesting. Instead of leaving Luke's training and just signing up with Snoke. We now see an inbetween time when he became a pirate and raider, perhaps somewhat copying his father. He joined a gang of Dark Side warriors, the Knights of Ren, and took to a life of crime. Only later meeting Snoke and signing up with the already organised First Order.
I'm also impressed by the flashback sequence which takes on an aged effect, with everything slightly sepia toned, which does set it apart from the current day story.
Low Points : I can only suppose Snoke wanted to make Kylo reliant on him, with no place to escape to, but Kylo himself seems really keen, and without prompting offers to kill the gang he was leading only moments before. Not offering to get them all to sign up, not having his own personal guard of allies, but just they were useful, so lets kill them.
And I really don't care about the Knights of Ren, so don't care about Tava Ren, who just seems to have turned up, swinging a lightsaber and taken control of Kylo's old gang. Maybe we'll get a history for her, but she seems really out of place in a galaxy where Palpatine destroyed Light and Dark Siders alike.
So what do you really think ? : I just didn't care. We get some backstory for Kylo, but it seems to make little sense, there's no connection with Vader, and there's little exploration of Kylo as a character except perhaps showing why he turned on Snoke in The Last Jedi so easily, because that's just what he does.
Final Words : To a degree, Tava feels somewhat like Sabe did in the Vader comic series, someone who is trying to make the main character remember who they used to be, and while it might not be fair in the first issue when the character appears, she doesn't have a personal connection to Kylo the way Sabe did, and just doesn't seem as interesting.
I'm guessing she doesn't live long anyway, as we know the fate of the Knights of Ren in Rise of Skywalker, and she isn't seen in that movie, so we can only assume that she is killed before then.
Score : 6.5/10
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