Force Matters: ‘Legacy Of Vader’ Concludes On Artistic High Note

It’s another quiet week in Star Wars comics — and a sad one, as the best series of the current line reaches its conclusion.

Star Wars: Legacy Of Vader #12

By Charles Soule & Luke Ross

Kylo Ren confronts the specter of his grandfather in the Vader’s vault.

• The specter of Vader inside the vault describes it, in part, as a place where, “the only voices you will hear are those you bring with you,” which calls to mind the cave/tree on Dagobah where Luke has his vision of Darth Vader, another place of concentrated Dark Side energy.
• Ross turns in one final bravura large scale yet intricate action sequence.

• The way the Vader specter positions Vader’s attack on Palpatine in Return of the Jedi as an act on the same level as his joining the Jedi Order, marrying Padme, and avenging his mother makes a lot of sense, but I’ve never considered it in that context before.
• Also, the Vader specter doesn’t know Palpatine survived his destruction at Vader’s hands, per Rise of Skywalker, which makes sense since re: the first bullet point, all of this is ultimately a reflection of Kylo Ren’s mind and experience, and he doesn’t know that yet.
• The flashbacks to previous events in the series are colored with the same oppressive red as the earlier flashbacks to Kylo Ren’s childhood, but one final flashback of Han, Leia and baby Ben gets a pleasant blue filter.
• This is the last issue of the series, though Soule does end things on a bit of a cliffhanger (or at least, on an ambiguous note). He mentioned in his most recent newsletter that there is more to this story; hopefully he’ll be given the chance to continue it (and hopefully Ross will be able to join him for it, as this book was at its best when they were working together.

One its own, this is a bit of a disappointing finale to the series, largely because of the shoulder-shrug of an ending. But Ross still makes it entertaining, thanks both to the full page action sequence and the reveal that the first few pages are all taking place on the body of a giant Darth Vader. Ultimately, nothing here is so bad as to take away from the overall quality of series, which still stands as my favorite of this post-Jedi batch of books.

Cover of the Week

Baldemar Rivas channeling one of Ross’ fun visual tricks in the issue.