Force Matters — Emo Ren Is Back And Looking Better Than Ever In ‘Star Wars: Legacy of Vader’ #10

Just one comic out the week of 11/5 — Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #10 — but it’s a good ‘un, packed with great art, intriguing lore, and Kylo Ren at his emo best.

Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #10

By Charles Soule and Luke Ross

Kylo Ren returns to Castle Vader in the hopes of ridding himself of the looming presence of Luke Skywalker.

• Luke Ross is back on art, and it makes all the difference. In addition to some of his now-patented inventive layouts/spreads, his return, along with a return to the series’ arch-plot involving Vaneé’s machinations and Kylo’s efforts to master Vader’s legacy makes the last few issues feel more like fill-in issues. Is this also because the series is building to its conclusion with issue #12? We’ll find out soon once the February solicits come out!
• One such layout involves a full page spread of Kylo Ren’s attempt to get into Vader’s vault, which is rendered as a massive spiral that spits him back out at the top.

• Kylo’s vision quest occurs inside Darth Vader’s meditation chamber, which appeared in The Empire Strikes Back (or at least one like it).
• The Zombie Heads On Spines that attack Kylo during his vision represent Han, Leia, Chewbacca, Luke, Lando, Rey, Snoke, Vader and Voe, one of Ben Solo’s fellow apprentices at Luke’s Jedi school whom he killed in Soule’s Rise of Kylo Ren miniseries (she’s the one with three lines of braided hair).
• Both the boggy, Dagobah-esque Dark Side locale and the later “Jedi Heaven” setting are, as far as I know, new places/unnamed anywhere else/non-specific representations of the Force (at least at this point in time).
• Big “there’s still good in him” energy throughout this sequence (which we know from Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker to be true); Kylo manifests both a red and blue lightsaber during his fight with the Zombie Heads on Spines, makes his way into Jedi Heaven, much to the surprise of Luke, at which point, he is only carrying the blue saber.
• When Luke mentions coming from a long line of teachers, he nods at three Force Ghosts over his shoulder; we can’t see faces but based on their silhouettes, one is clearly Yoda, another is likely Qui-Gon (he has kind of a triangle head, a result of Qui-Gon’s longer hair). The third is the most indistinct, but is likely Obi-Wan.
• Unclear who the hooded figure with the red lightsaber who attacks (and physically wounds) Kylo is (and it probably doesn’t ultimately matter), but, again, given what we know from Rise of Skywalker, wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was Palpatine.
• Kylo ends up floating in Vader’s bacta tank (as seen briefly in Rogue One) with the same kind of Vader-esque breathing mask, suggesting (along with the next issue tease) Vaneé’s plan all along has been to recreate Kylo in his old master’s image, literally as much as figuratively.
• Seems like as good a place as any to mention the Hunt for Ben Solo film which, if you’re a Star Wars fan who has somehow missed this news, was a story for a film pitched by Adam Driver and director Steven Soderbergh that would have revived Ben Solo following Episode IX that LucasFilm gave the greenlight to but was ultimately shot down by larger Disney brass. News of this recently broke, inspiring a not-insignificant fan backlash at the idea of not moving forward with a Soderbergh-directed Star Wars film starring the best actor of the Sequel Trilogy. It even has its own Wookiepedia entry now.

After a couple middling issues, we’re back to doing what this book does best: having Kylo Ren throw petulant hissy fits as he tries to be the baddest bad guy around in the face of reminders about what a poseur he really is, all gorgeously rendered by Ross and colorist Nolan Woodard.

Tales From the Bookshelf

Legacy of Vader #10 is the only comic out this week, but there’s a bunch of book and collected editions out as well.

We get three republished Legends novels with new covers (featuring the “Essential Legends Collection” trade dress):

• Choices of One (2011) by Timothy Zahn, a Mara Jade solo novel set during the Original Trilogy and serving as a sequel to the author’s Allegiance.
• Razor’s Edge (2013) by Martha Wells, a Leia solo novel set during the Original Trilogy.
• Honor Among Thieves (2014) by James S. A. Corey (of The Expanse fame), a Han-centric book that is one of the last of the old Expanded Universe books to be published before the LucasFilm acquisition by Disney. It and Razor’s Edge are part of a duology that was meant to be a trilogy of novels featuring the “Big Three” along with the Luke-focused Heir to the Jedi (which ultimately became one of the first official canon novels of the Disney Era).

Choices of One is the only one of these I’ve read, though I don’t remember too much about it. Zahn Mara Jade stuff is always reliable for a good time, though.

Additionally, three comic book collected editions were released this week:

• The High Republic Adventures vol. 5, the final volume of Dark Horse’s High Republic-set series, collecting issues #17-20.
• Jedi Knights vol. 1: Guardians of The Republic, which collects the first five issues of the series.
• The Old Republic Omnibus vol. 2., which collects a bunch of the old Dark Horse miniseries set in that era (basically, everything Old Republic that’s not the John Jackson Miller-penned series).

Cover of the Week

I can’t seem to find an artist credit anywhere, but I dig the new cover to Honor Among Thieves. Good sense of movement with a fun retro style.