Darth Vader (2017) 17: Burning Seas: Part 5
What is it ? : Ferren Barr has just given Order 66, the Inquisitors defend themselves telling the Clone Troopers that they're not Jedi, but the Clone Troopers attack the Lightsaber wielding warriors and leaving the disarmed Jedi and his follower alone. Ferren Barr reminds his follower of the training he's given her in the Force, and they flip over the Clone Troopers and flee. In the skirmish, the Tenth Brother gets gunned down, and as the others flee, the Sixth Brother slices the Ninth Sisters leg off to slow her down, wishing her well and saying she was always his favourite even as she vows revenge.
Ferren Barr sends his follower away, telling her that he still has one fight left, and it's one he intends to win.
In the Mon Calamari command bunker, Vader fights his way through the defenders, reaching the King, who fires his blaster at him, but Vader reflects the bolt back shooting the blaster out of the Kings hand. He communicates to Tarkin he has the King, and Tarkin orders his Star Destroyers to fire on the underwater cites, the enormous firepower destroying one city at a time, killing millions.
The King refuses to order a surrender, saying this changes nothing, as Ferren Barr enters the room and he and Vader begin fighting.
In the southern polar region, Raddus receives information about the destruction of the cities, which is up to five now. His fortified ships are uneffected, and the Empire is working in the north so they are likely to be safe for a while, but he recognises that his shields will only hold for a few hits, so orders his ships to unlink and to scatter into space.
As they fight, Vader senses pride from Ferren Barr, and realises that he killed the Imperial Ambassador triggering this war. Hearing this the King realises that he was deceived and orders the surrender of Mon Calamari, which Tarkin accepts but doesn't stop firing on the planet.
As he continues fighting, Barr begins laughing, and when questioned why he is laughing by the King, he responds that this incident will be the fire that starts a rebellion against the Empire, that the billions of deaths here will inspire trillions to fight back. As the Mon Calamari ships launch into space, he tells the King that these ships will form the backbone of a mighty fleet which will bring destruction and downfall to Palpatine and the Empire.
The Mon Calamari ships are fired upon by the Star Destroyers, but by reinforcing their rear shields it gives them a chance to escape into Hyperspace. As the fighting grinds to a halt, the King pledges that Mon Calamari will rise again, but Vader tells him that Mon Calamari is gone, there is only the Empire, as we see Ferren Barr's body lying dead on the ground. . . .
High Points : And so the Imperial Attack on Mon Calamari comes to an end, a victory for the Empire, and one that lays waste to many Mon Calamari cities, billions of deaths, and a world brought in line behind Imperial rule. But we see Raddus escaping (not Ackbar) with the Mon Calamari ships which will serve in the Rebel fleet in the Battle of Endor. Rather strangely though none of them look like Raddus ship from Rogue One.
But my favourite moment of this issue is the death of Ferren Barr, which happens totally unseen. He's fighting Vader, we see the rest of the battle winding down, and then he's dead. But his death isn't a surprise, he's a padawan fighting the Chosen One, he knew Vader was Anakin, and he knew that Anakin is a skilled and powerful warrior in the Clone Wars, where as Barr hadn't even completed his training. His vision does seem to come true, Mon Calamari will inspire the Rebellion, the cruisers which escape will form the backbone of the Rebel fleet, but his dead is certain against this opponent, but that is kind of the point, he's not trying to win, he's trying to make a statement and become a martyr to what comes later, to be the inspiration that destroys Vader and Palpatine even if he cannot do the task himself.
It's also rather nice that Barr turns out to be pretty insane, laughing as he fights Vader because he thinks his plan will succeed, causing the deaths of Billions of Mon Calamari to make that plan happen. He's broken in a way we've not seen, using the enemy's tools against them, in a way reminiscent of Luthen from the Andor series but taking it to a much further extreme.
Low Points : Verla, Ferren Barr's apprentice seems like a loose thread, and reading up she later crops up and meets Luke Skywalker (and is horrified when she finds out he's Vader's son). But at this point, her being sent off to try to find Obi-Wan or Yoda or Quinlan Vos, all of whom he tells her have no death records, she just seems like she probably should have died, she's just another Jedi who has a grudge against Vader, something she shares with every single surviving Jedi.
At the start of this, I commented that Vader connection to Mon Calamari and King Lee-Char had potential for an interesting story, and we come so close, Ferren Barr is right there in the room with Lee-Char and Vader, but decides calls Vader by that name, not revealing to the King who he really is. Why do the writers feel it necessary to protect Vader's secret identity from Lee-Char? He's just led an uprising against the Empire, so his days are numbered, and it's not like he's going to tell anyone. We could have had a moment, with Lee-Char realising that Anakin who one helped save his world is now the conqueror come back to seize it for the Empire. This could really have been a moment of destroying Lee-Char's faith in the Jedi, if he first realises who Vader is, then discovers Barr's actions in triggering this invasion. It could have been so more powerful, but just wastes the opportunity to keep the number of people who know Anakin became Vader down, even though the comic series keeps having people work it out.
So what do you really think ? : A fairly solid end to the Burning Seas storyline, the moments I enjoyed was the bravery of the writers to put Ferren Barr's death unseen, telling us how unimportant it really is compared to the surrounding events. And of course I continued to enjoy the Mon Calamari resistance, with Raddus realising the reality of events and fleeing the planet. Although I was somewhat disappointed we didn't see the same events from the viewpoint of Ackbar, and whether he was captured, or also managed to escape (if he's captured it might play back into the old Expanded Universe storyline where Ackbar was a slave of Tarkins who learned Imperial tactics before escaping).
Final Words : This has been a very enjoyable part of the Vader series, although it disappoints in several ways, with Ferren Barr feeling a little pantomime villain, rather than Vader actually having to fight against a world he once helped liberate and discovering it still stands for the same values, it's him that's changed. Instead he helps put on display the evil schemes of Ferren Barr, and Mon Calamari falls in line because the King realises there should have been no war, it's all Barr's fault.
Score : 8/10
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