Darth Vader: Issue 38: Dark Droids: Executor Extirpatus
What is it ? : Vader continues fighting the attacking droids, while his team attempts to shut down all droids across the Executor, meanwhile Piett informs him that a small fleet of Star Destroyers have arrived likely to stop the spread of the droid threat by destroying the Executor.
The fleet is commanded by Admiral Corleque, but we discover that in the past when his life was in danger, Piett delayed a shuttle to allow Corleque to escape, and he returns the favour by delaying the assault on the Executor to try to give Piett all the time possible, and sends shuttles to evacuate Piett.
Spotting the incoming shuttles, and with all systems down, Piett sends troopers onto the hull to physically message the shuttles a warning about the droids. But they do not heed the message, and the droids are taken over as soon as they board the Executor.
Vader finishes off fighting the droids attacking him, and hears a message telling him fighting is pointless as there will always be more droids to take control of, and he is almost one of them anyway, and one of the small probes attempts to take control of him and his cybernetics, but Zed-67 stops it.
More droids attack, but Vaders team activates the shut down, and all droids deactivate, including his own team. Vader leaves aboard his Tie Advanced, and Piett updates Corleque, who discovers that his ship is now infested with the hacked droids.
Piett doesn't give Corleque more than a few seconds, and opens fire destroying his Star Destroyer.
Meanwhile on Mustafar, Vader arrives, dropping off the heads of his loyal droids to be rebuilt, and he heads underground to see the Eye of Webbish Bog, who he tells he needs power. The eye asks him if he is Jedi or Sith, to which Vader responds Sith, and the Eye asks why therefore isn't he taking the power he needs.
Vader remembers being told the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise by Palpatine many years before, and the Eye asks him who was the Apprentice then, and who is the Apprentice now?
Vader returns to the surface and to his shuttle where his droids are already waiting for him, except for Zed-67 who has gone to explore the Lost Techno Union Droid Factory on Mustafar where he meets with a Octuptarra tri-droid which speaks with the same voice as the controlled droids. . .
High Points : There's a couple of moments in this one which stand out, the Eye of Webbish Bog asking why Vader is asking for power if he's a Sith, and therefore should be taking power, and that it shows him how Palpatine siezed power, suggesting to Vader that perhaps the time has come for Vader to destroy his master and take his place, the eternal cycle of the Sith.
I also really liked the idea of Admiral Corleque delaying his attack and ignoring orders because he felt that Piett had given him a chance before. His crew even question, because all Piett had delayed was 4 seconds to save Corleque, yet here he is ignoring orders to a far greater magnitude. But when the return comes about, when Corleque is once again in danger, and pleads for the thousands of crew, Piett only gives him 4 seconds and then opens fire. I really like that it shows us while there is some honour and comradery among the Empire, it's extremely limited, and you don't get to a high rank without being extremely loyal to the Emperor and his political allies rather than to the men beneath you.
Low Points : I'm still very unsure what's going on, the idea of small droids reprogramming all the droids across the empire is interesting, and we seem to be getting a hint that perhaps this dates back to the Clone Wars and the Confederacy using droids, but there just seem to be too many ideas getting thrown around and then forgotten.
I'm also confused as to how the Executor opens fire on Corleque's Star Destroyer, as it was hinted that only the bridge hadn't been taken over by the controlled Droids, so the rest of the crew, tens of thousands had been slaughtered. Yet somehow there are people available to man the guns when Piett gives the orders to fire, where were all these people and why weren't they fighting droids only minutes before?
So what do you really think ? : There are so many storylines hanging over this series by now, what was the disruption in the Force which led to Vader (and others) losing control? What's going on with the Handmaidens of Padme, we had Sabe as Vaders sidekick only issues ago, but now she's completely missing. And now we've got a Superstar Destroyer almost completely taken out by Hacked droids, and another Star Destroyer having to be destroyed to stop the spread.
And once again I feel I've got to point out, and all of this happening in the period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, it's a busy few months for Vader.
Final Words : I'm getting really frustrated with this series, what started as an interesting exploration of Vader, linking Anakin Skywalker with the person he became and showing us the steps towards redemption as he turns on the Emperor for the betrayals that made him Vader in the first place.
He got to peek inside his head and see how the events of the Prequels motivated Vader towards the end of his life, and how he discovers and turns on Palpatine after being his puppet for so many years. I even loved the way they were weaving Ochi from Rise of Skywalker into the story to fit him into the role as a Sith Assassin working for Palpatine that we were told about in the movie.
But the series has become a jumbled mess, with Force Waves, Droid Armies, and the interesting themes, where Vader was witnessing the corruption of Sabe towards the Dark Side because she believes it is for the greater good, echoing his own fall, and now long behind us, with Sabe not having been in an issue for around 5 issues now and no sign of her return.
Score : 8/10
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