This week’s new issue of Star Wars: Darth Vader from Marvel Comics is a crossover with the Dark Droids event.
Darth Vader #37 begins with the title character’s flagship Star Destroyer Executor having been overrun by droids infected with the Scourge virus, as seen in the pages of the Star Wars: Dark Droids miniseries. The droids take out stormtroopers, followed by most other organic life aboard the vessel, causing the power and life support systems to go out everywhere except the bridge. While the remaining officers are holed up there, Lord Vader himself is advised of the situation while still on the lava planet Mustafar, where he recently (sort of) regained control of his powers thanks to the somewhat reluctant help of Dr. Aphra (see the previous issue for more on that). Anyway, Vader makes it his goal to take his newly acquired droid army– made up of old Battle Droids from the Clone Wars– to the Executor and reclaim the ship. Upon his arrival, the remainder of the issue becomes a big battle sequence between Vader’s droids and the Scourge-possessed ones aboard the Star Destroyer Executor.
That brings me to my one major complaint about this issue of Darth Vader, and once again it has to do with the cover. You may notice that the main artwork (I’m not talking about any of the issue’s variant covers, mind you) features the visages of Jedi Masters Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, both of whom had a hand in training young Anakin Skywalker in his days before becoming a Dark Lord of the Sith. Unfortunately the actual contents of the issue itself just barely feature Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, in flashbacks to the events of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and last year’s live-action Disney+ series Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi. They pop up in Vader’s memories as one of his servant droids reminds him to embrace the Jedi Order’s admittedly more subtle usage of the Force when combatting their enemies. But Vader sees these visions and pretty much immediately dismisses them, destroying the droid in question and reverting back to his usual tactic of utilizing brute Force, if you will. Now I get that cover artists Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho likely wanted to keep things interesting by highlighting characters that don’t often show up in this series, but I just feel bad for anyone picking up this issue hoping to see those two Jedi Masters featured throughout in prominent roles.
Either way, the regular Darth Vader writer/artist team of Greg Pak and Raffaele Ienco are still doing a really good job here, and I’m enjoying seeing their take on the Dark Droids storyline, with Vader being given another opportunity to let loose on an enemy with his now-super-focused powers and droid army. There’s a twist ending here of Grand Vizier Mas Amedda giving the order to destroy the Executor (and everyone on it) to prevent the further spread of the Scourge virus, but we all know how that will turn out, considering Lord Vader definitely lives to see more days past this point– these current Marvel comics being set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. But it’s a fun cliffhanger nevertheless, and I’m sufficiently curious to see how the Dark Lord gets out of this particular scrape and continues to factor into the Dark Droids crossover event as it continues.
Star Wars Darth Vader #37 is available now wherever comic books are sold.