Darth Vader (2017) 2: The Chosen One: Part 2
What is it ? : At the mid-rim Jedi Outpost, Brighthome, some Clone Troopers are clearing out the outpost as one plays with a Lightsaber proclaiming himself a Jedi, although he fellow Clones say that if he was, he'd be dead. They toss holocrons in a box for shipment to Coruscant, but they detect an incoming ship, a ship the reader recognises as Vaders.
They scramble ARC-170's and tell him this area is restricted, and although the droid on the ship with Vader offers to broadcast an authorisation code, Vader arms his weapons and attacks destroying them.
The Clone Troopers aboard the station prepare to repel boarders, wondering if it is a Jedi, as only a Jedi could have destroyed all 4 fighters with such ease. As Vader starts to crush the airlock to break in, the Clone Troopers discuss being allowed to join the Royal Guard if they take down this intruder. Vader smashes into the room, evading their fire, and uses the force to grab a lightsaber from a storage alcove, and the Clone Troopers agree he's definitely a Jedi.
Vader heads to a control room with his droid, and orders it to retrieve data on all Jedi that took the Barash vow before order 66. The droid questions as to why he wants this data, and although he doesn't expect to explain everything he decides to the droid, it explains that it can perform it's duties better if it knows why it's looking for such data.
Vader explains that the Barash Vow is taken as a type of penance, and removes the Jedi from all normal Jedi activities, so any that have taken it wouldn't have been involved in the Clone Wars so won't have been taken out by Order 66, and they won't have responded to any distress calls either, so his order to kill a Jedi and take their lightsaber is more likely to succeed if he can find such a Jedi.
A grenade is thrown into the room and Vader holds in the explosion with the force, and takes out the Clone Troopers that charge in, only releasing the explosion when his droid has finished it's work and they board Vaders ship and leave the station.
The droid explains it has located a Jedi, Kirak Infil'a, who took the vow because he was only in the order for fighting. And we see Kirak Infil'a levitating with two large scars across his chest. . . .
High Points : I do quite like the premise that Vader isn't known by anyone yet, so since he doesn't use his identification codes the Clone Troopers assume that he's a Jedi, and Vader takes advantage of this to do a little wholesale slaughter.
And it's good to see Vader partnered by a droid that talks way too much, in a similar fashion to the way he's partnered by Zed-67 in the 2020 Vader series, they obviously learned from this series that having Vader who is usually silent, partnered with someone that does all his exposition for him is a great technique in keeping Vader strong and silent.
Low Points : The Jedi space temple, Brighthome, is ridiculous, it has statues on the outside and inside of it, it even has an entrance archway with a set of steps leading up to it, on the outside. It makes it reminiscent on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, but the steps exist for no reason, unless people are just going to park next to it, put on a space suit and take a wander up the steps when the station has perfectly serviceable hangars that we see Vader use.
So what do you really think ? : There's a lot of nothing in this issue, Vader fights some Clone Troopers, not because they stand in his way, but because he wants to kill something. He spends an entire issue finding the location of a Jedi to fight, and although it's nice to see a Jedi from the High Republic era hanging around, the issue doesn't really tell us anything about this quest or the characters we couldn't have been told in the intro text.
Final Words : That's not to say the issue is bad, it has it's moments, the Clone Troopers are fun, they want to impress Palpatine to get the prestige role of a Royal Guardsman, they are messing around with all the Jedi stuff they've been assigned to catalogue (I do love the casual way they toss a holocron into a storage box, these mystical devices that we've been shown Jedi paying such respect to through the media of the past 20 years, just treated as so much junk). It's an unessential tale, told skilfully, so hopefully is being used to set up useful story beats for later in the series rather than being a total waste of time as it kind of appears to be.
Score : 7.5/10
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