Star Wars: Darth Vader vol. 3 — The Shu-Torun War

The best part about the first two volumes (we’re not counting “Vader Down” here) of Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca’s “Darth Vader” title is how it presents the title character in a diminished state with a struggle before him, and still presents this Dark Lord of the Sith as an uncompromising badass who is not to be trifled with.  For “The Shu-Torun War,” Gillen dispenses with the struggle of the previous volumes and gives us a full volume of Vader steamrolling over every threat that crosses his path.  Which is particularly impressive given that this war is essentially the result of his own unique brand of diplomacy.  Shu-Torun is a mining world that supplies the Empire with many of the rare minerals and ores it needs for all of its projects.  In the opening story, Vader heads to the world to meet with its king and deliver a message of compliance regarding the increased quotas.  It… doesn’t go well for the king, but the new ruler is unable to properly pacify the rebelling ore barons and so the Emperor sends Vader back to end this war.  However, the scale of this operation is so great that the Emperor also sends Doctor Cylo and his proteges (who, lest we forget, are also competing for Vader’s job) along as well.

As Vader demonstrates here, such challenges are nothing before the Dark Side of the Force.  I won’t lie:  It’s actually pretty satisfying to see Vader in full dominance here.  Whether it’s destroying a mining citadel by covering it in molten rock, explaining to Shu-Torun’s queen that the nature of their deal is simply how things will be, or showing us all why Sith lords make for terrible dance partners, Vader is in fantastic form here as he’s portrayed here as less of a man and more of a force of nature.  I am implying that there’s less depth to his portrayal here than in previous volumes, but a single volume of the title character showing us why he’s the best there is at what he does still makes for a nice diversion.  Gillen also gets some great moments of (dark) comedy relief from the antics of Triple-Zero and BT, and manages to give Shu-Torun’s new queen a nice little character arc as she gets a crash course in the necessary evils of leadership.  The volume also looks fantastic as usual thanks to the work of Lenil Yu on the opening story, Salvador Larroca on the regular issues.  I will confess that I’m more partial to the former’s work here, as he thrives on tackling big and imaginative setpieces.

Vol. 3 is lacking the nuanced portrayal of the title character that has defined its previous volumes.  The good news there is that Gillen lets us know at the very end that we’ll be seeing Vader struggle a little more in the upcoming fourth and final volume of the series.  While the power of the Dark Side of the Force can easily win wars, it does tend to struggle a bit when put up against a really clever inspector.