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selenakThird volume, collecting issues 16-19 of Gillen's Vader comic. This one, despite the connection to the ongoing storyline (i.e. Vader after being demoted post A New Hope working his way back to the not quite top of the Empire past rivals and Palpatine playing mind games), feels like a self contained adventure, which has its plus side (there's a clear beginning and end of the story this volume tells) and its downside (no Aphra! She's off stage, err, page, for the entire volume!).
The ostensible charge Vader's been given by the Emperor is to deal with an ore producing planet in revolt (though the revolt happens more for inner scheming than for freedom fighting reasons). The true interest of the story lies in new character Trios, at the start youngest daughter of the Shu-Torin ruler and deemed expendable by same, and by the end undisputed Queen of the Planet, her learning arc, and her interaction with Vader. If R2 and CPO have their evil (and hilarious) counterparts, and Aphra echoes in various ways both Han and Ahsoka in a dark manner, Trios strikes me as a dark counterpart to Padme (Leia, too, but mostly Padme). Specifically Phantom Menace era Padme Amidala. And when I say "dark", I don't mean in a Mirrorverse way, i.e Trios isn't evil. It's just that the narrative she's in isn't one that favors heroic defiance, the force user sent to her isn't Qui-Gon but Darth Vader, and there isn't really a good option for her to take. So you have the story of a young queen whom (not just ) at the start someone tries to kill, who makes it out alive partly due to the Jedi/Sith with her, who is sincerely committed to the good of her people, who rallies and leads her troops to victory and who ends up ruling her planet once more, but it's all turned upside down, and not because of Palpatine orchestrating all behind the scenes. She's very aware that in winning, she's also placing her planet under complete Imperial tyranny once more. (Which is still better than the whole planet being destroyed.) Vader saves her life at the start, but he does so by killing her entire family (not that the reader feels that's a great loss, since Gillen makes it clear Trios' dastardly father was entirely prepared to let her die in order to get rid of Vader), and, since she's been ready to die, against her will. And yet, Trios isn't presented as an agency-less character. Once she is Queen, she keeps her head and manages to make the best of a terrible situation. (For example, pointing out to Vader that if she is to be an effective ruler on the Empire's behalf, her people need to respect her and they won't if Vader doesn't treat her with respect when they're in public.) By the end, she applies what she's learned by creating her own dependent-on-her clientele in the same way Vader made her Queen. And you get the sense that she's still working for her people, not for her own benefit, even under godwawful circumstances.
I complained in my review of the last volume that the Vader-Leia encounter felt so unsatisfying while acknowledging that given continuity, there isn't much Gillen can do. Avatar/counterpoint characters seem to be a good solution here, since Trios works both as a might have been for young Queen Amidala, had she lived in the Empire not the Republic, and for Leia, if Tarkin hadn't blown up Alderan but used it as extended leverage. (Though of course Leia IS in a narrative where heroic defiance is always rewarded.) Incidentally, just to clarify and avoid possible misunderstandings, when I say Trios is a Padme counterpart, I don't mean it romantically. There is never even the slightest sense of that. The one compliment Vader pays Trios early on is a paternal one (he says her father should be proud of her), and it's later revealed to have been part of his (Imperial) agenda (when it's paralleled to what Trios does by the end of the story). Otoh the fact that here is a brunette royal, hailing from a formal culture fond of elaborate getups and rituals, defying the odds in a desperate situation can't have been lost on him.
In terms of Gillen's ongoing storylines: There's a hint that Cylo may have been the one responsible for creating Vader's original replacement body parts after Mustafar, which I guess could come up in their inevitable showdown; and speaking of Mustafar, I thought Gillen did a good job in striking the balance between keeping Vader evil and hinting at the Anakin within when after the male twin pushed the female twin into the lava, Vader pulled her out of the lava not to rescue her but to get the intel on Cylo and her brother, yet also told her the pain would end now and killed her (as opposed to Obi-Wan back in the day, ahem).
Triple O's idea /mindgame of getting around the fact droids aren't force sensitive by using human blood and the obvious play on Anakin's Vaderization (making a droid into something "more man than machine" as Triple O puts it, reversing older Obi-Wan's "more machine than man" characterisation of Vader to Luke) was a nicely creepy moment, and Vader's reaction just right. It's also the first time Triple O is used for something more than black comic relief; I'm assuming this is something he actually does want, not just something he brought up to freak the Shu-Torin troops out.
In conclusion: a good installment, but now I want Aphra to return to the on page storyline more than ever!
The ostensible charge Vader's been given by the Emperor is to deal with an ore producing planet in revolt (though the revolt happens more for inner scheming than for freedom fighting reasons). The true interest of the story lies in new character Trios, at the start youngest daughter of the Shu-Torin ruler and deemed expendable by same, and by the end undisputed Queen of the Planet, her learning arc, and her interaction with Vader. If R2 and CPO have their evil (and hilarious) counterparts, and Aphra echoes in various ways both Han and Ahsoka in a dark manner, Trios strikes me as a dark counterpart to Padme (Leia, too, but mostly Padme). Specifically Phantom Menace era Padme Amidala. And when I say "dark", I don't mean in a Mirrorverse way, i.e Trios isn't evil. It's just that the narrative she's in isn't one that favors heroic defiance, the force user sent to her isn't Qui-Gon but Darth Vader, and there isn't really a good option for her to take. So you have the story of a young queen whom (not just ) at the start someone tries to kill, who makes it out alive partly due to the Jedi/Sith with her, who is sincerely committed to the good of her people, who rallies and leads her troops to victory and who ends up ruling her planet once more, but it's all turned upside down, and not because of Palpatine orchestrating all behind the scenes. She's very aware that in winning, she's also placing her planet under complete Imperial tyranny once more. (Which is still better than the whole planet being destroyed.) Vader saves her life at the start, but he does so by killing her entire family (not that the reader feels that's a great loss, since Gillen makes it clear Trios' dastardly father was entirely prepared to let her die in order to get rid of Vader), and, since she's been ready to die, against her will. And yet, Trios isn't presented as an agency-less character. Once she is Queen, she keeps her head and manages to make the best of a terrible situation. (For example, pointing out to Vader that if she is to be an effective ruler on the Empire's behalf, her people need to respect her and they won't if Vader doesn't treat her with respect when they're in public.) By the end, she applies what she's learned by creating her own dependent-on-her clientele in the same way Vader made her Queen. And you get the sense that she's still working for her people, not for her own benefit, even under godwawful circumstances.
I complained in my review of the last volume that the Vader-Leia encounter felt so unsatisfying while acknowledging that given continuity, there isn't much Gillen can do. Avatar/counterpoint characters seem to be a good solution here, since Trios works both as a might have been for young Queen Amidala, had she lived in the Empire not the Republic, and for Leia, if Tarkin hadn't blown up Alderan but used it as extended leverage. (Though of course Leia IS in a narrative where heroic defiance is always rewarded.) Incidentally, just to clarify and avoid possible misunderstandings, when I say Trios is a Padme counterpart, I don't mean it romantically. There is never even the slightest sense of that. The one compliment Vader pays Trios early on is a paternal one (he says her father should be proud of her), and it's later revealed to have been part of his (Imperial) agenda (when it's paralleled to what Trios does by the end of the story). Otoh the fact that here is a brunette royal, hailing from a formal culture fond of elaborate getups and rituals, defying the odds in a desperate situation can't have been lost on him.
In terms of Gillen's ongoing storylines: There's a hint that Cylo may have been the one responsible for creating Vader's original replacement body parts after Mustafar, which I guess could come up in their inevitable showdown; and speaking of Mustafar, I thought Gillen did a good job in striking the balance between keeping Vader evil and hinting at the Anakin within when after the male twin pushed the female twin into the lava, Vader pulled her out of the lava not to rescue her but to get the intel on Cylo and her brother, yet also told her the pain would end now and killed her (as opposed to Obi-Wan back in the day, ahem).
Triple O's idea /mindgame of getting around the fact droids aren't force sensitive by using human blood and the obvious play on Anakin's Vaderization (making a droid into something "more man than machine" as Triple O puts it, reversing older Obi-Wan's "more machine than man" characterisation of Vader to Luke) was a nicely creepy moment, and Vader's reaction just right. It's also the first time Triple O is used for something more than black comic relief; I'm assuming this is something he actually does want, not just something he brought up to freak the Shu-Torin troops out.
In conclusion: a good installment, but now I want Aphra to return to the on page storyline more than ever!
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Date: 2016-10-10 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-11 10:21 am (UTC)Refusal to dance was Gillen's black humor at its best. Mind you, if you're near two decades into the Empire suicidal enough to insist that Darth Vader has to dance at your ball, you deserve getting whirled around by the Force, and then some.
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Date: 2016-10-11 02:07 pm (UTC)Also, my guess is it was meant for Leia, that's why he carried it with him.
Man, now I totally want that AU scene, where he gives it to her and gets himself seriously injured as a result. You should totally write that.