Darth Vader (2017) 4: The Chosen One: Part 4
What is it ? : Vader is lay at the bottom of the mountain, his cybernetics damaged from the fall, one leg entirely missing. He reaches out, his cybernetic hand malfunctioning, so he pulls wiring from the remains of Arex lay around him using the force and repairs it.
Meanwhile Kirak Infil'a returns to the main city of Al'doleem, called Am'balaar City, stating that he has returned to the world, he goes to a garage where he has stored his Jedi Starfighter, but it needs work, so the mechanics get to work, updating him that the Jedi are now seen as traitors.
Vader rebuilds his body from the parts of Arex, replacing his leg and heads off to follow Kirak. Kirak is levitating parts of the Starfighter when he senses Vaders presence and heads up to the dam that the city is built under where they begin fighting. Security arrive and call for both to surrender, so Vader hurls them off the dam with the force, and Kirak levitates them to stop they falling to their deaths.
Vader realises the weakness in Kirak's style, that he protects others, so begins using the force to cause the dam to crack threatening to flood the entire city.
Kirak holds the dam together, so Vader levitates his saber from his belt, then force chokes Kirak, levitating him to where he can see Vader fracture the dam, Kirak pleads for him to not to hurt others, but as the dam collapses, Vader breaks his neck killing him.
Vader takes Kirak's lightsaber and looks from the remains of the dam over the city he just flooded killing thousands. . . .
High Points : The later Vader comic series borrows so much from this one, learning what was done well and in my opinion doing it better. We saw the advantage of coupling Vader with a loquacious droid (in this one the droid doesn't last long, where Zed-67 lasts most of the other series), and now we see Vader repairing himself from droids (this time it's Arex, but in the later series it's the battle droids destroyed on Mustafar which seems to have more meaning to Vader as a character). But I'm putting this here, because obviously this series did these things first, so I'm giving it credit for some interesting ideas, even if they end up being done better.
I also loved that Vader learns something we've seen mentioned later, even in the Obi-Wan TV series, that Jedi can't help themselves but protect others. In the Obi-Wan series, Vader uses it to lure Jedi out of hiding, but here he uses many thousands of deaths just as a distraction, so he can more easily defeat Kirak.
I also really enjoyed the Pride before the fall motif of Kirak, he's returning to the galaxy after his self imposed exile, and is so sure of himself, he's going to hunt down Vader's master and get revenge for their destruction of the entire Jedi order, and he's going to built a new Jedi Order (with beer and hookers). He never doubts himself for a second, that he might struggle against a Sith who has wiped out the entire Jedi order, and then Vader easily manages to distract and defeat him in the remainder of this issue, it's not even a multi issue struggle, he just gets defeated quickly and efficiently.
Low Points : The series seems to be showing us how Anakin in a black suit becomes the icon that is Darth Vader, showing how he takes on not only the image, but also the powers that we associate with Vader. But here we are, him tearing down a Dam, a massive construction, and levitating Kirak's lightsaber delicately off his belt, and then force choking Kirak, all while maintaining the effort to tear down the dam. This is classic Vader stuff, but that's been the point of the series so far, that he's not classic Vader yet. While using it as a distraction is clever, and shows him learning and adapting into who he will become, the power he shows is already far greater than we see any Jedi or Sith display in the movies.
It just feels like they're so keen to show us Vader in action, they've forgotten they're telling us the tale of how he becomes Vader, but isn't there yet.
So what do you really think ? : For the most of the issue I liked it, they managed to make Kirak boastful, so even thought he's a Jedi and therefore the good guy, we're satisfied to see him beaten. The fight is well done, as Vader quickly realises that using Arex's baton against a lightsaber wielding Jedi isn't a winning strategy, so he adapts, noticing that Kirak will try to save people over defending himself, using that to win. An enjoyable issue.
Final Words : Although mentioned above, where Vader repairs himself from droid parts, while this issue does introduce the idea, I have to say that the later version works so much better. Not only is he in that story rebuilding himself from the parts left over from his first actions as Vader. But also, in that story, Palpatine is trying to break Vader down by removing everything he has given Vader, putting him crippled on the side of the lava on Mustafar as he was after the fight with Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith. So Vader falls back on his own skills, the skills he developed as little Anakin Skywalker on Tattoine, where he once built C-3PO, so he uses droid parts to rebuild himself. In this current story, he just uses the force to rebuild the cybernetics Akira style. The 2020 Vader series really brings to our attention that despite this being Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, he is still little Anakin, who tinkered with technology, building his own droid and podracer, so is easily capable of repairing damaged cybernetic limbs.
While this story introduces the idea, the later comic does it so much better in a way that explores the character and makes him so much more interesting.
Score : 8/10
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