Darth Vader – Black, White & Red: 1
What is it ? : A comic series illustrated in just Black, White and Red, claiming to tell stories of Vader as we've never seen him before, to show us the side of Vader which everyone fears. It contains several stories in each issue, with some continuing across multiple issues.
Hard Shutdown: Part 1
Vader arrives in the Horux system at abandoned Mining Colony HS-197. He is looking for Doctor Sendvall, one of the scientists that rebuilt him after his fight with Obi-Wan, making the suit and cybernetics which transformed him into the Darth Vader we know. Having been told Sendvall is here, he believes it is just a lie to lure him into a Rebel ambush, but it is partially true as Sendvall is here, in a grave, and while there is an ambush it is not by Rebels. The attackers take out Vaders escort, but Vader hacks off arms holding blasters, which continue firing at the attackers as Vader levitates them. Eventually meeting the man who is leading the attack, a cyborg who shows Vader a code printed on his arm, and Vaders suit and cybernetics shut down.
Later Vader is strapped to an operating table while the man speaks to someone called Syn, telling them the shutdown worked perfectly and to prepare the chop shop and have saws ready.
Inescapable
In a story without words, a girl sees a pile of skulls, one of which transforms into a skull faced version of Vaders helmet. She is haunted by skeletal arms, and this skull faced version of Vader. She shoots this Vader and he raises his hand to block it and the blaster blows a hole in his hand, but a giant version of him appears stabbing his lightsaber down, with it's blade thick enough to engulf the girl, and she is torn apart in the beam. She seems to awaken in a bed, but an eyeball connected by nerves to two plates, which makes the form of a Tie Fighter looks down upon her from space.
Dissolution of Hope
On the world of Torku an Imperial Officer rushes through an art exhibition, his wife asks him about Vader, the attendance of Palpatines right hand man will bring status to her exhibition, but the officer says that Vader is not coming, that he is unhappy with their progress and with malfunctions which he believes may be sabotage. The man is met by a woman who promises he'll be safe.
Elsewhere, a group of Rebels wait for a signal, discussing how the security breaches they're exploiting all begin with indifference. When a tower in the city centre suddenly explodes as a blast emerges from one side of it.
The Imperial Officer realises the woman has a blaster pointed at him, and offers money, or secrets if she'll let him live, and she comments how could someone so small have built something so big, before throwing him down an open liftshaft.
The Empire diverts security from the base to the city centre to deal with the blast, which gives the Rebels the opportunity they've planned. They sneak into the base, but when they are discovered they have to fight, allowing only the scientist with them to be the only member of the team to get to a control room.
Vader watches with his team as the scientist, whose family were killed in the uprising fixes the weapon, and targets it onto the base itself. Vader kills the remaining Rebels and enters the control room, revealing to the scientist that he planned this all along, only this scientist could get the weapon working, and now Vader will take control of it, thanking the Scientist for his service. . . .
High Points : So three stories, and three subjects of Vader being scary. The first story is the best, although is only the first part of four, detailing how someone has found a weakness in Vader, his technology. It's an interesting enough tale, but teases us with so much more, so hopefully the later parts will build on this.
The third story is pretty good as well, although doesn't flow very well (I'm unsure how the Imperial officer and his wife figure into the overall plot except as an exposition dump on the failure of the weapon to be functional), I do like the fact that Vader has let the Rebel plan to seize the weapon, get it functional and turn it on the Empire, just so they can fix the weapon for him, and then he'll take them out and regain control.
Low Points : The second story isn't impressive for anything except it's art, it looks very nice, the stylised Red Black and White artwork is twisted into some pretty horrific images, but the story itself isn't up to much except "someone has nightmares about Vader", and I was always taught that "it was all a dream" is the weakest form of storytelling.
And as mentioned above, the third story is a little confused in it's storytelling, spending a large part of the beginning dealing with how corrupt the Empire is, so easily turned against itself, but then totally ignoring that in favour of Vader being behind everything and manipulating the Rebels into doing the Empires work for them (or perhaps it's Palpatine, as luring people into traps does seem a Palpatine kind of thing to do).
So what do you really think ? : The ongoing story seems like it could be pretty interesting, but the idea of it being various tales of Vader being scary is kind of broken by the second tale just being a nightmare.
Final Words : It'll be interesting to see where this one goes, and getting a bunch of Vader short stories is pretty fun, even if I'm worrying that they've tried to lead with their best, and it wasn't great.
Score : 8/10
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