Graphic Novel Review | Star Wars: Darth Vader - Dark Lord of the Sith #1 - #6 by Charles Soule and Giuseppe Camuncoli

I’ve recently reconnected with a very old friend who’s keen to extol the merits of Marvel comics despite my mounting obsession with the DC Universe. I think he expected me to take up him up on his kind offer to loan me some of the much-loved X-Men titles gathering dust in his garage, but instead, to what I’m sure is a mix of both indignation and intrigue on his part, I’ve started down a very different path with Marvel, picking up the first volume of Charles Soule’s (Daredevil, The Death of Wolverine) highly-regarded Star Wars: Darth Vader - Dark Lord of the Sith strip which collects together the first six issues of the run (all six instalments of “The Chosen One”), under the – potentially confusing – umbrella title Imperial Machine.

Soule’s Dark Lord of the Sith series is very much in the public eye presently, given the upcoming release of its potentially contentious final issue on 19th December. Not to be confused with Kieron Gillen’s earlier run, which takes place after Soule’s series in the new Disney canon, Dark Lord of the Sith actually begins before Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith has even concluded, with (at least) this opening six-issue story taking place between the often-lambasted, “Noooooooo!” Vader wake-up scene and the Sith apprentice’s more composed, more imperious, presence on the bridge of a Star Destroyer alongside Palpatine and Tarkin nearer the end. It’s a critical chapter in the story of the Dark Lord, and as such, one that’s been told before, most notably in James Luceno’s frustrating but insightful 2005 novel, Dark Lord – The Rise of Darth Vader, which “The Chosen One”, and no doubt Soule’s subsequent stories in the series, will now overwrite.

Despite both stories sharing the same goal, and even walking a very similar path, “The Chosen One” succeeds in almost every area that Dark Lord failed – but unfortunately the reverse is also true. In Luceno’s book, the eponymous Sith Lord is absent from the narrative for great swathes of the action, but when he does appear we are privy to every aspect of his inner turmoil and physical agony. Luceno devotes considerable chunks of prose to Vader’s gradual acceptance of his mechanical limbs and life-support suit; he even delves into the Dark Lord’s built-in colostomy bags and details the daily, painful skin-scrapings that he must endure. Yet Luceno’s novel lacks anything even approaching shock or spectacle – something that “The Chosen One” delivers relentlessly. It does so, however, at the expense of finesse, and so at times it proves to be just as maddening a read as Luceno’s Dark Lord.

Buoyed by the jaw-dropping, cinematic artwork of Giuseppe Camuncoli (Hellblazer, The Amazing Spider-Man), “The Chosen One” proves instantly irresistible. Its receding opening crawl effortlessly sucks the reader back into that galaxy far, far away where they see a recognisable scene playing out... with a twist. Here, on that stormy Coruscant night in Palpatine’s medical tower, Vader doesn’t limit his wrath to medical bots. As the famous scene continues beyond the film’s curtain-close transition, he uses the Force to throw his master right out of the panel – an act that would surely have earned any other man an on-the-spot death sentence. Darth Sidious strikes back, of course, and in so doing makes his apprentice’s first assignment all the more pressing: the construction of a Sith lightsaber. Vader must carry out his mission alone, and without a ship. He’ll have to take on Imperial Forces, and he’ll have to find a living Jedi whose lightsaber’s crystal he’ll need to “make bleed”. And he’ll have to do it all whilst acclimatising to a suit that’s seemingly unable to tackle rough terrain without one of its legs breaking off.

It’s an arresting, urgent start to the story; one that puts an exciting new spin on the Vader/Sidious relationship whilst expanding upon Sith mythology in a fascinating way. Where it falls down, ironically, is in its breakneck pace – a trait that Dark Lord sorely lacked. Events move so quickly that the reader doesn’t have the chance to process them, never mind Darth Vader himself. In one panel he’s bringing the whole might of the dark side down on his master as he rages against the death of the woman who meant everything to him – the woman that he burnt down the Jedi Order, and indeed the Republic at large, to save – and six panels later he’s chosen life. And that’s not me arbitrarily bludgeoning in a Trainspotting reference just to plug my old Irvine Welsh reviews; he literally, explicitly choses to live without Soule us offering any real clue as to his motives.

The remainder of the story lives and dies in the same vein. Vader’s Jedi hunt is the stuff of many a fan’s fantasy, and the fact that he’s battling Imperial forces with a green lightsaber for half of it only serves to make it all the more illicit and alluring. The trouble is, we don’t know what’s going on in Vader’s head. Even when he has a droid to talk to, his dialogue is purely procedural, and when he has someone to fight, any lines the calibre of, “When I left you, I was but the learner...”, or even the pithy-but-powerful, “Impressive. Most impressive,” are eschewed in favour of utterances like “Hssssssk!” and “Nnnngh!”, which I don’t recall existing in James Earl Jones’ goosebump-raising repertoire.



The key attribute that “The Chosen One” shares with Dark Lord is the notion that Vader is, as you might expect, really rather feeble at this time in his life. The guy’s just been burned alive and lost his remaining three limbs, not to mention the ability to breathe unaided. Even when pit against weaker opponents on paper, he’s hopelessly outmatched, as Luceno explores through prose and Soule and Camuncoli depict pictorially. Both interpretations see Vader gradually develop both his suit and his mastery of it, so that by the stories’ end he is on the cusp of becoming the seemingly invincible enforcer of the first Star Wars trilogy, but there is one key difference in his journey between them: the role played by Emperor Palpatine in his transaction from crippled Jedi traitor to eponymous Imperial machine.

Luceno’s novel depicts Sidious as an almost fatherly figure to Vader, continuing along the Anakin / Palpatine trajectory as if they hadn’t just conquered the galaxy together to perpetuate an evil sect. When Vader looks up at his master through burned, hollow eyes and asks, “Are these the faces of victory?” in Dark Lord, he receives a surprisingly stirring pep talk from his master that could just have easily come out of Yoda’s mouth. In “The Chosen One”, much more logically, Sidious drops this fatherly façade, abusing and belittling his apprentice at every turn. He shocks him with lightening. He maroons him without weapons on a barren world. He scoffs at him as he bathes naked and limbless in a bacta tank, ridiculing his ruin. As such, the progress that Vader makes in “The Chosen One” is all of his own making, and it’s all the more potent for it.

And as Soule and Camuncoli’s assault on the eyeballs reaches its crescendo, it finally offers us a fleeting glimpse into Vader’s fragmented psyche. Having retrieved a kyber crystal from the blade of a Jedi that he’s defeated, Vader pours every ounce of his angst into it in an attempt to make it bleed red. And he fails.

The next thing we see is Vader marching into Emperor Palpatine’s office, green blade in hand, the wreck of his armour revealing an exposed eye gleaming with murderous intent. Within the space of a few spectacular panels, the broken body of Darth Sidious is lying on the ground and Vader is walking away triumphant. When we next see Vader, helmet in hand and prostrate, he’s begging Obi-Wan Kenobi to end him, and if there had been any doubt it’s now crystal clear that the mystical act of bleeding the kyber crystal is forcing Vader to confront the part of Anakin Skywalker that still exists within him. He must either surrender to it or bury the former Jedi’s impulses for good, and of course we all know how that story ends.

Were “The Chosen One” a Doctor Who story, it would probably be labelled ‘fanwank’, because it delivers pretty much everything a fan could possibly want from it, but often at the expense of plot or character. The story’s emphasis on shock eventually becomes jaded, and whilst Vader’s development is not without substance, in the absence of any meaningful dialogue or thought boxes it leaves our tormented protagonist’s motivations largely a mystery. Yet the sheer visceral force of Camuncoli’s artwork, coupled with Soule’s inspired reimagining of the Sidious/Vader relationship, ultimately gives these six issues the edge on the novel that they’ve ousted. Indeed, Star Wars seems innately suited to the comic-book medium, and if this series can demonstrate just a little bit more logic and transparency, I can see how it could have developed into the all-conquering juggernaut that it’s now purported to be.



Star Wars: Darth Vader - Dark Lord of the Sith: Imperial Machine is available to download for £8.49 from the iTunes Store or £7.49 from Amazon’s Kindle Store. A trade paperback is available to order from Amazon for twice the price. Alternatively, Star Wars: Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader is available to download for £4.99 from the iTunes Store and Amazon's Kindle Store. A paperback is available to order from Amazon for £8.39 plus delivery.