Star Wars: Darth Vader #11 by Greg Pak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Vader finally reaches Exegol and confronts his master in a battle that is, quite simply, epic. It involves giant Lovecraftian horrors and hordes of Sith acolytes and, yes please, this is what I want from visits to Exegol.
We also get to see that Palpatine is already working on Snoke and the Sith fleet, and that he has someone’s severed hand in a jar. Oh, I wonder who that could possibly belong to… I suspect that this is simply an Easter egg and that nothing will come of Palpatine apparently having Luke’s hand…but you never know. Still, it’s not like Star Wars fans to wildly speculate over the meaning of one tiny detail…
The art is superb and the writing is top notch. I’ve really enjoyed this deep dive into the nature of Vader and Palpatine’s twisted relationship. What we’re seeing is that Vader’s betrayal at the end of RotJ didn’t come out of nowhere, but whereas his tendency towards betraying his master previously came from a place of rage and hatred, in RotJ it comes from a place of love…from the Light Side, and that’s why he succeeds that time. I think.
This series so far has beautifully woven together aspects of all three trilogies, which is no mean feat.
It’s a shame that our visit to Exegol is being cut short by the impending War of the Bounty Hunters, but hopefully that will prove just as rewarding.
Random Ramblings Of A Ragamuffin 