The Rise of Kylo Ren: Chapter Four
What is it ? : The Knights of Ren have arrived at a moon of Mimban and are torturing natives to find out where the Mindsplinter is, but Ben suggests a better way and uses a technique taught to him by Snoke to read their mind and discover it's location. But the Knights just slaughter the natives when they've got the information and Snoke explains to Ben through his mind link that the Knights just do whatever they want, the Jedi had rules which they thought made them stronger, but he thinks just made them more rigid so they broke.
As they go to find the Mindsplinter, Tai and Voe confront them, and when Ren asks who they are, Ben says they're the past.
Ren fights Voe, while Ben fights Tai, and the other Knights keep slaughtering all the Mimbanese in the facility. Tai tells Ben they're connected, but Ben says he wishes they weren't. Tai tries to convince Ben that he needn't abandon the path of the Jedi, but Ben says this is his path now.
While Voe tells Ren that he came here to take from the weak, but she is not weak, as she was taught by Luke Skywalker. Ren says he has fought an actual Jedi master, and Voe responds that Luke told her about that, and that he sent them running away crying.
Ben tells Tai that he doesn't have a choice, even his name wasn't a choice, that neither Luke nor Snoke see him as a person, just a legacy, a set of expectations. Ben disarms Tai, and Tai says to kill him if he has to, or don't, but to be the man that Tai knows Ben can be. And then Tai's neck breaks as Ren uses the force to snap it.
Ren confronts Ben, telling him Snoke was wrong, Ben is fighting the Shadow at every step, but Ben tells him that he is the Shadow. They fight, and Ren tells Ben he's never fought properly before, Luke always coddled and protected him, and he's never had to fight someone that wanted to kill him before.
Palpatine senses this, and says now they will see truly who Ben is, as Ren and Ben fight, Snoke also senses this and urges Ben on, Leia senses it and realises her son is making a mistake, Rey senses it as coldness, and Palpatine urges Ben to strike down Ren and take his birthright.
Ren tells Ben that he's killed lots of people who think they're special, but Ben rejects that idea, telling him everyone else thinks he's special, but he doesn't, but that means he can do whatever he wants. And he strikes Ren down killing him.
Voe exclaims that Ben has killed Ren, but Ben tells her of course because he's a murderer, and he tells her she's not a Jedi, and never will be because there's no one left to teach her, and he stabs her and the Knights of Ren fall to their knees in submission to their new master.
On the Knights ship, Ben removes the crystal from his lightsaber and bleeds it, causing lightning across the entire vessel. When he places the crystal back in his saber it melts the casing. So he uses the three lightsabers to build himself his signature crossguard lightsaber as Snoke asks him in his mind "What is your name?", and shirtless Ben poses with his new lightsaber. . . .
High Points : The very first Star Wars expanded universe thing I ever read was The Splinter of the Minds Eye, and it's still one of my favourites all these years later, so when they're on a moon of Mimban, searching for the Mindsplinter, it was an obvious reference, so I liked that, even if they do nothing with the idea.
Anyway, I do like that we're seeing Ben's fall to the Dark Side in a very different way to Anakin's. Anakin made mistakes and justified them, his fall was justified by bringing peace to his new Empire and things like that. Whereas Ben's is him following Snoke's guidance, like a new smoker, he's doing it because he thinks it's cool, but he's really not enjoying it yet. But we do see the moment when he finally snaps and does an evil act of his own volition, killing Voe. Although that said, he never really liked her, and if Ren hadn't killed Tai, there's a good chance that Ben wouldn't have fallen completely and could have been redeemed.
I was also impressed by Ben's awareness that Snoke is using him, he comments that neither Luke nor Snoke sees him as a person, they both just see him as the legacy of the Skywalker family, and expect him to live up to that potential. it's such an interesting revelation, which the comic does absolutely nothing with after he says it.
Low Points : According to Grandea in the Legacy of Vader series, Jedi can't read minds, but here Ben does exactly that thing. Now it's possible that she doesn't know everything, because Ben was taught this ability apparently by Snoke, who might have access to powers Grandea was not aware of. But the fact that she tells this to Ben/Kylo and he accepts it as fact, despite what he does here earlier in the timeline, seems a little contradictory.
I was bothered by one of Ben's complaints being that not even his name is a choice, because mainly names aren't choices, they're something given to us. He's being upset by being just like everyone else.
I know they were trying to make Ben's fall to the Dark Side, his fight with Ren as super important, but was it really necessary for half the galaxy to be sensing it. Leia and Snoke I totally get, but Rey sensing cold at that moment, and Palpatine cheering him on from Exogol? They didn't feel like part of the story, just as cameo's to make the moment feel more important that it really is.
So what do you really think ? : So the ending of the story does try to do something a little different, after showing us every issue Ben haltingly taking each step towards the Dark Side, being more performative than actually evil, and trying to find ways of achieving Snoke and Ren's goals without actually harming or killing people. But here he finally strikes out, killing Voe. And despite her being the Student he actively disliked, so the easiest for him to kill, following the pattern of previous issues he could have found a way of not killing her, casting her aside as not being a Jedi, that she would never be a threat so is beneath him needing to bother killing her as there are no teachers which would make her a threat to him. But he doesn't, he just kills her while she lays on the ground as no threat to him.
Final Words : So Rise of Kylo Ren, it's a really frustrating series, there's some amazing ideas in it, that Ben has had Snoke corrupting him throughout his life, that Ben was actually good inside and only became Dark Side because of Snoke. Leading to us potentially reframing the entire sequel trilogy, that Luke's failure wasn't really his, as there was no way he could know about the corrupting voice within Ben. That Ben's redemption was more down to him striking down Snoke and not having this dark voice in the back of his head, so he could return to the light in a more natural fashion.
But most of the story is just about his encounter with Ren, and a fight so he gets his new lightsaber, a much more conventional and dull story.
Score : 7.5/10
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