Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #18 (December 1): This issue is interesting for how it change the status quos of both Valance and T'onga, but the execution isn't all that elegant.
Sacks confirms that Vader has fully upgraded Valance, including replacing his failing heart, which stopped beating on the operating table. In exchange, he wants Valance to lead the "Dark Squadron" and eliminate Crimson Dawn's spies within the Imperial Navy. When Valance balks, Vader reveals his upper hand: Valance's new cerebral processor allowed the Empire to download all his memories, and Vader threatens to eliminate the Rebel base where Yura and Cadeliah reside if Valance doesn't comply. But, Vader twists the knife even further. (Of course he does.) The issue begins with a flashback to street-rat Valance encountering his hero, Captain Tarl Sokoli - the Spine Dragon of Anaxes - who liberated Valance's home, Chorin City, from the pirates who ran it. Valance's first target for Vader? Captain Sokoli, alleged Crimson Dawn spy.
Meanwhile, T'onga and her crew blow off some steam taking out criminals trying to shake down the owner of the cantina where they're drinking. T'onga isn't just upset over Valance's apparent death: she also believes that Cadeliah's location died with him. During the fight, Zuckuss stops T'onga from killing one of the criminals on Losha's behalf, reminding T'onga that Losha needs to build her own standing within the crew. T'onga is devastated when Losha reveals that she loves the bounty hunter's life and doesn't want to return to their farm.
As I said, I like where the plot winds up going, but the process getting there is rough. The art is choppy at best, an upsetting setback after the improved art that we've been seeing on this title. Moreover, Sacks has Lieutenant Haydenn, Darth Vader's adjutant, deliver a long recitation of Valance's past that isn't just boring: it does the opposite of what she intends. Whereas she keeps stressing Valance's childhood dreams of becoming an Imperial hero like Sokoli, she spends most of the time (by necessity) reminding Valance how the Empire repeatedly fucked him. When Valance points out that fact, she can only meekly offer that at least the med droids saved his life - if not his humanity - the second time that he almost died in the Empire's service. I assume that Sacks included this trip down bad-memory lane for new readers picking up this title after "Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters." But, it's weird that he did so in a way that actually undermined the plot. He only manages to get Valance to agree to Vader's "offer" after Vader threatens Yura.
Despite all that, I'm still interested to see how Valance handles this assignment. If you're reading "Star Wars: Darth Vader," you know that Ochi himself is a Crimson Dawn spy. I wonder how long it'll take for Valance to get into cahoots with Ochi. I'll be honest that I'm not too interested in T'onga and her crew, but I'm content to see where Sacks goes with them.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #18 (December 1): This issue makes very little sense. It's chaos, in art and script. I mean, I get the plot: Ochi hires a group of assassins to take out a Crimson Dawn-sponsored religious figure on Vincorba. When they're successful, Vader conscripts them into service. On Calior, the "chief regional auditor" throws in his lot with Crimson Dawn to squeeze more profits from the local populace, and three vigilantes whose families Crimson Dawn killed prepare to sacrifice themselves to stop him. (For reasons that aren't clear to me, the auditor's Crimson Dawn bodyguards are accompanied by Stormtroopers? Maybe they don't know Crimson Dawn is the enemy? As far as I can tell, Pak never explains that part.) But, Vader arrives, and they happily throw in their lot with him. Weirdly, the issue ends with Sabé, now working for Crimson Dawn, discovering the midwifery droid on Polis Massa that Vader found in issue #5. I'm making the issue appear a lot more sensical than it felt reading it.
Star Wars: Crimson Reign #1 (December 8): This series is obviously a coda to "Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters," but Soule does a solid job of establishing it as its own story. He does so by immediately revealing Qi'ra's ultimate goal: the elimination of the Sith.
The issue begins with Qi'ra addressing her troops: the Knights of Ren, Chanath Cha and the Orphans, and Deathstick and Ochi of Bestoon (the assassins). She explains that they're all some of the few sentient beings in the galaxy aware of the Sith's existence. She laments that the galaxy should be arranged as a mountain range, with many entities exerting control, but it's instead arranged as a pyramid, with Darth Sidious monopolizing control. She wants to end that. With the knowledge that she gained working at Darth Maul's side when he ran Crimson Dawn, she has a plan.
Qi'ra's agents kick off the plan by spreading rumors among the criminal syndicates that the Empire is looking to replace the Hutts as its exclusive concessionaire given the Hutt Council's attack on the Empire. (I still don't understand why Bokku the Hutt agreed to commit suicide essentially on Crimson Dawn's behalf, but it explains why Qi'ra had him launch the attack in the first place.) Qi'ra then dispatches the Orphans to take out various syndicate operations without a trace, launching a Syndicate War: since none of the syndicates could identify who attacked its operation, they each attacked all the other syndicates. Palpatine is displeased with the war, sending for Vader, as Qi'ra obviously hoped.
Meanwhile, Qi'ra dispatches Deathstick and Ochi to take out high-value targets and the Knights of Ren to steal an artifact from Fortress Vader. She also has her Archivist researching the Jedi Order as allies or bait. But, the Archivist, who serves as our narrator, informs us that this story is a tragedy, and it seems pretty clear that Qi'ra will pay a price for her plan. But, she also seems the only person capable of making this play, a play that I've often wondered why other people didn't make. As such, even if we know the ending, I'm intrigued to see how close Qi'ra comes to taking out the Sith.
Star Wars #19 (December 8): As someone who just recently finished battling his way through "Star Wars Jedi: Lost Order," I gasped when Luke arrived on Ilum. Synergy!
In "Star Wars Jedi: Lost Order," you play a Padawan who survived Order 66. After he's forced to reveal himself to the Empire to save a friend, a fallen Jedi finds and recruits him into her quest to find a holocron listing the names of the galaxy's Force-sensitive children before the Empire does. Given the game takes places 14 BBY, I've been hoping to get a sense, from a novel or a comic-book series, of how complete the Empire's control over Jedi sites is by the time of the original trilogy era. I'm thrilled that we're finally going to get that story. I'm also thrilled that it's Soule telling it.
After his encounter with Vader during "Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters," Luke decides that he's got to leave the Resistance to complete his training, since he's going to have to face Vader at some point. He begins with a list of Jedi sites that Artoo found in an Imperial archive. He begins his search at Ilum, and we learn that the Empire has complete control over the planet. (In "Star Wars Jedi: Lost Order," it had just started taking over Ilum.) Luke continues his journey, eventually arriving at the River Moon of Al'doleem, the first place that he finds where Star Destroyers aren't completely surrounding it.
After failing to use the Jedi Mind Trick on two Stormtroopers, Luke wanders Am'balaar City. He encounters a mechanic who recognizes his lightsaber, and we learn that the man is Colli, who we first met in "Darth Vader" #4 as a child. At the time, he was helping his parents fix Kirak Infil'a's ship, which, after Vader killed Kirak, his parents used to save him and his sister. Given that debt, Colli leads Luke to the Mount Pasvaal monastery, explaining that the Imps have been looting it for decades. Luke contemplates entering the monastery lightsaber a-blazin' to prove how powerful he is but, like a Jedi, instead summons his focus and successfully uses the Jedi Mind Trick to have two Stormtroopers bring the site's most valuable artifact: a holocron with a Yoda training recording.
In other words, I'm tickled pink with where we're going here. We haven't touched on Luke's need to augment his training for a while, and I'm glad that we've returned to it.
Newburn #2 (December 15): With this issue, a few themes begin to emerge. First, it's obvious that Newburn has a lot of people waiting for him to fall. Emily herself admits that part of her attraction to the job is to see how the movie ends; as one of the interviewees at the start of the issue says, it's definitely going to end. Second, it's equally obvious that a lot of the people waiting for Newburn to fall are jealous of both his access and his smarts. The Tribune editor's anger is so disproportionate to the offense - as if journalists don't routinely use mob contacts - that it's clear that he's really just annoyed that Newburn - at least for now - has a better deal than him. Finally, although Newburn may eventually get the wrong end of his deal, Emily's interviewees make it clear that, like his previous partner(s), she'll likely get there first.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #19 (December 22): I'm generally not a fan of the flashback sequences that happen with such frequency in this series. However, Pak uses them to great effect here. Vader is committed to ridding the galaxy of Crimson Dawn because it undermines order. Pak uses the flashback sequences to remind us of the moments in the prequel trilogy where Anakin came to the idea of imposing order, particularly after he failed to prevent his mother's death.
The interesting part about this issue is that Vader feels more reckless. He's treating the assassins and Revengers working for him as expendable. Vader usually does that, but he usually doesn't abandon his agents to their fates before they're no longer useful. Here, he treats them like chum, which makes it feel like he's taking this mission too personally. (He appears to kill, on a whim, the other two assassins besides Deathstick and Ochi who are working for him.)
My only real complain about this issue is that it ends with Vader accessing Crimson Dawn's database from the base that he and his team assaults, conveniently giving him a list of all Crimson Dawn's agents within the Empire. I doubt Qi'ra would make that mistake, to be honest.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #19 (December 29): Valance succeeds in killing his former hero, now-Admiral Sokoli, in this issue.
Lest we get too upset, Sacks shows us a moment when a grown Valance and Han Solo run into Sokoli as he's getting ready to teach a class at the Academy. Sokoli treats Valance with disdain: he doesn't remember liberating Chorin City and apologizes for leading Valance astray (given his obvious disappointment in the Empire) particularly since Valance's injuries make it clear that he's never going to fly again.
In the present, Valance uses his Tie Defender to crash into Sokoli's ship. He explains his story to Sokoli, who dismisses him as "one of those young converts from some backward planet [he] saved." Before Sokoli can kill him, Valance kills Sokoli. Sachs twists the knife when he shows us a flashback to a thrilled Valance meeting Sokoli on Chorin. In the epilogue, we learn that Vader didn't really believe Sokoli was a Crimson Dawn mole: he was disappointed with Sokoli complaining about the Empire, and he thought that killing him was a good test for Valance. He now considers Valance ready, which can't be good for Valance.
Meanwhile, T'onga and her crew decide to go after 4-LOM so that he can track Cadeliah's locations through Valance's previous communications. I'm sure that'll go well, too.
Also Read: Dungeons & Dragons: Mindbreaker #3 (December 15)
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