Last week saw the release of issue #48 in Volume III of Star Wars: Darth Vader from Marvel Comics, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
Darth Vader #48 begins on Caranthanax B, where Queen Amidala’s former handmaiden Sabé and her protocol droid are provoking Luke Skywalker into using his Force abilities against them. First they kidnap Luke’s acquaintance Warba Calip, then they take off in Sabé’s Naboo ship. Using his Force-jump ability, plus his current yellow-bladed lightsaber, Luke manages to get the ship to come to a relatively safe crash-landing back on the surface, where Sabé reveals that what she really wants to know about Luke is whether or not he is a Sith like his father. She continues to push him, threatening Warba with laser blasts until Luke demonstrates some anger. Meanwhile across the galaxy, the titular Dark Lord of the Sith senses his son’s sudden rise in emotion. Vader attempts to communicate with Luke via the Force, but he is distracted by attacks from the M.A.R. Corps and interruptions from his own cohorts, namely Sly Moore and the forensics droid ZED-6-7.
Vader is also trying to use the Kyber crystal he and his team stole from Exegol as a weapon in battle, but its power proves to be too much for him to control– indeed, as ZED points out, the crystal damages Vader every time he uses it. Back on Caranthanax, Luke finally uses the Force to snatch Sabé’s blaster away from her, slicing it in half with his lightsaber. She outright accuses him of being a Sith, and Luke asks if Vader sent her to find him. They begin to talk about Luke’s lineage but are interrupted by R2-D2, who brings them toward Warba, who tells them that she was actually the one hired by Vader. In that moment Luke decides it might finally be time to face his father, and uses Warba’s tracking device to send a signal to Vader. But the Sith lord is facing his own problems at the moment, when it is revealed that the M.A.R. Corps ship he brought down was being piloted remotely and that the team of cyborg rebel soldiers is still out there hunting the villains. Moore suggests killing Luke Skywalker since they now know his location, but when Vader refuses, Governor Tauntaza incapacitates him using the droid brain he recently had implanted. The other members of the Schism Imperial take Vader’s Kyber weapons and leave him stranded with ZED-6-7 and Lieutenant Pryde, the only members of the team still loyal to him.
The cliffhanger ending of this issue sees the M.A.R. Corps returning in the flesh to take on their foe, and while Vader has never found them to be much of a threat before, in his weakened state they may prove to be formidable opponents. I thought this issue was just okay, mostly because it didn’t do a whole lot to further the narrative. Basically we got Luke’s decision to summon his father and a fake-out death of the M.A.R. Corps that led to another confrontation with this squad of souped-up rebels. It seems to me that this chapter– and this will likely be the case with the next one, as well– was mostly in service of getting all the players where they need to be for the big finale in issue #50, coming up in just a couple months, and for that reason it felt like it was stalling just a little bit. And since we already know both Luke and Vader survive to fight another day, the big question here is what’s going to happen to Sabé (on the good-guys side) and the Schism Imperial (on the bad). And regardless of this being an “off” issue for me, I still find writer Greg Pak and illustrator Raffaele Ienco’s work entertaining enough for me to be excited about whatever happens next.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #48 is available now wherever comic books are sold.