The Adventures Of Space Batman — Reviewing ‘Legacy Of Vader’ #5

In the short life of this young series, it has been at its best when it leans into the fact that its protagonist is a deeply messed up person who nevertheless has an obscene amount of power (both mystical and martial) at his disposal. The previous issue was a step down in this regard, focusing, in hindsight, on doing the setup work necessary for this installment. But with that business out of the way, writer Charles Soule is free to focus on a turn of the plot that is both utterly bonkers and delightful. The end result is another strong issue for the series.

After declaring himself King of Naboo and expressing a desire for the people of his grandparents’ home world to toughen up and start fighting for themselves last issue, Legacy of Vader #5 sees Kylo Ren help his people achieve that end in the only way that makes sense (if you’re Kylo Ren…). He’s secretly training an insurgency against the very occupying force of which he is simultaneously the Supreme Leader. He basically becomes Space Batman, only the Waynes are a mafia family and Bruce Wayne is the don while he also fights crime.

After ordering General Hux to pacify the the population of Naboo, Kylo proceeds to put on some snow goggles and a scarf (Stormtroopers have such bad aim, their eyesight must not be that good in general) and attacks the ground forces he himself ordered to land on the planet. Whereas last issue was filled with lots of backstory exposition about Naboo society during the war years, here artist Stefano Raffaele is afforded more opportunities to draw dynamic action.

Kylo is a whirling dervish of action during his initial assault, dispatching the First Order forces hand-to-hand and with unerring blaster accuracy alike before deploying the dry cool wit of an action hero. Colorist Nolan Woodward shifts the palette during the attack, rendering the backgrounds in yellows and oranges to underscore the shock of the First Order detachment.

From there, Soule and Raffaele basically roll out an entire insurgency across the remaining pages of the issue, with Kylo playing both sides against the other, delivering orders to Hux before almost literally hanging up the phone and passing along those same orders to the Naboo rebels under the guise of having “an informant” on the inside. It’s all truly bananas, something only Vanae finally manages to make Kylo Ren see (when a disembodied head-in-jar is questioning your actions, you’ve probably gone too far), yet is also consistent with the book’s portrayal of Kylo Ren as a deeply damaged person with a penchant for the dramatic at war with himself.

While the issue ends such that the entire Naboo plotline looks likely to be little more than a narrative detour for the book — with Vanae not-so-subtly redirecting Kylo’s attention and ire elsewhere amidst promises of some secret power in Vader’s vault — it still stands as a worthy examination of Kylo Ren’s character and his relationship with his familial past. If nothing else, it will be remembered for its images of Kylo Ren attacking his own troops like a poorly-disguised superpowered vigilante, a person so internally divided he plays the role of both fascist and freedom fighter, sometimes over the course of the same page.