Darth Vader (2017) 22: Fortress Vader: Part 4
What is it ? : Vader levitates the helmet off the corpse of Lieutenant Roggo, who is lay with a broken neck, he glances at the plans for the fortress, and levitates the helmet into the cave with him, and we see it's walls are covered with runes and glyph's.
He questions the helmet, that reveals it is Momin, and shows him Momin's life, as a child he killed the family pet to make art of its entrails, the people of his town locked him up. But he was rescued by a Sith, Lady Shaa, and he made this very helmet as she trained him. She called herself his Master, but he never felt right about that title, so killed her to prove that he was second to none.
He never took an apprentice as he was too busy travelling the galaxy to learn all he could, and eventually built a superweapon, as the force instructed him to destroy a city. The superweapon could burn the city to ash, but his plan was more, to freeze the city in time just as the weapon was burning it to hold that moment forever. However Jedi came, and he was forced to move his mind into the helmet to survive. Vader finds himself putting the helmet on, but throws it aside just in time.
Outside some Mustafarians are patrolling on Lava Fleas, where they spot Vader standing with the helmet levitating beside him. Vader attacks and the Mustafarians defend, but Vader kills one and captures another placing Momin's helmet on them.
Momin tells Vader that the cave is a gateway, and the fortress he designed is the key, and that beyond that gateway exists Vader's wife. Vader force chokes him, telling him he has been lied to before about the force's ability beyond death. But Momin promises that he will not throw away the opportunity Vader has given him to create his masterpiece. . . .
High Points : Momin is at least a different type of Sith, firstly like Revan, his Darth name is just his normal name with Darth in front of it, which amused me, but he seems insane in a way we've not seen Sith be before. Normally Sith are almost comically evil, like Palpatine, or they are fooled into becoming Sith, like Vader. But Momin seems to believe that he is creating art, by destroying cities and holding them at the moment of destruction, by cutting apart animals and using their entrails, by hearing the force telling him to do things. This makes him quite fascinating as we have no idea what he's really planning and what he really knows, but also an interesting foil for Vader who is so direct, I think we could be in for an interesting few issues before the end.
Low Points : While I guess that Lady Shaa sensed that the child Momin had a connection to the force so was worth while teaching, it does seem as if she just found a troubled kid who'd butchered the family pet and decided to make him a Sith apprentice. I suppose this is just the story from Momin's point of view, that his art with the entrails attracted her to rescue him from jail and to train him, but we get nothing from Shaa to explain really why she chose him, which I feel would have fleshed out the story to show the difference between reality and Momin's perception of it. But this is Vader's story, not Momin's, so perhaps asking that his backstory be fleshed out properly is asking too much, but they did decide to tell his backstory and spend half an issue telling it, so it's kind of their fault that I'm questioning it.
So what do you really think ? : Momin seems interesting, and hopefully will be used well over the next few issues, but spending almost an entire issue introducing him, just seems a bit much on a character who won't last beyond the end of this series. But finally we're set to start building Fortress Vader after 4 issues have been spent on the why (because Palpatine wants him off Coruscant), and the where (On Mustafar because Vader believes there is power there to save Padme).
Final Words : As mentioned above the backstory on Momin is interesting, but is light on information, and I'm left wondering exactly when he was a Sith Lord. He built a superweapon, only capable of destroying a city, which doesn't seem that powerful (in KotoR, Darth Malak has his ship lay waste to the entire surface of Taris), so perhaps he predates that, going back to even earlier in the history of the galaxy. Which does make some sense, as at this point Darth is still just a prefix like Lord or Prince, added to your normal name. According to Wookieepedia, he's 1100-1000 years BBY, which makes him a contemporary of Darth Bane, leading into the Jedi vs Sith Wars which bring both orders to the brink of elimination, but we see none of this in the flashback.
Score : 7/10
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