Lit Comics Darth Vader by Greg Pak, February 2020

I feel that way about Maul moreso than Vader in canon. In Legends he was mostly an attack dog, whereas the view seems to be now that he was more of a genuine attempt at an apprentice who was tutored in the arts of political manipulation and the mystical history of the Sith. He’s basically Darth Sidious Jr.

 

I get that but to be fair to me Vader and Maul always felt the less Sith.

Dooku on the other hand I felt would have been a genuine Sith, studying the texts and what not.

(Honestly sometimes I think Plagueis might have had better long term luck courting Dooku as his apprentice than Sidious)

 

Hence why i don't like the 2017 Vader stuff post-ROTS, it gets too caught up on the OMG LOOK DARTH VADER IS SO COOL! aspect of it, showing him do impressive stuff, or being a badass, instead of actually focusing on exploring his depressive state and broken state of mind, the scenes where we get that are mostly the exceptions not the rule, it's all about how cool Vader is, there is no balance attempted.

I actually doubt the poster of that tweet knew anything about Vader in the old EU, we get stuff like The Lost Command or The Cry of Shadows, or The Dark Lord novel, things where the primary focus was his character not the action figure,it's almost the complete opposite of what they're saying, it's the more recent material that falls on the mistakes of focusing too much on Vader being a slaughterhouse, not the post-Episode III material, ironically.

Writers in 2005-2012 had better hindsight than in 2017-19, how can it be?

Luckly the 2020 comic is doing pretty good so far with balancing out the two sides of Vader, showing him do cool stuff, while also focusing primarly on his psychology and how pathetic his existence is.

 

I mean i disagree but whatevs ...different taste and all that. But like i've said i'm not a big fan of Legends era stuff in general.

 

The Lost Command was genuinely the first thing that came to mind when I read that tweet.

 

It is funny but happened... in Legends Luke married the Emperors Hand... In Canon it was the other way around.

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Luke's hand married the Emperor?

 

I mean when you mix two strandcast of DNA together.....

 

It took a while but the new issue was worth it. I do like the Exegol concept. It is very Palpatine to have a secret planet full of ships and science experiments, even though I dislike how TROS handled the conclusion. The issue handles the Palpatine/Vader dynamic well. Palpatine is stronger, but through sheer grit Vader is able to survive.

 

I do hope James returns for one last farewell novel. The man is the most gifted Star Wars author out there. I do hope we get one last testament to his fabulous writing.

 

It’s Palpatine’s handy spare hand.

 

As a big fan of the 2017 comic, I have to answer this and respectfully try and explain the other side of the coin, haha. While I agree with the importance of showing the Vader character, I'm not so sure that the idea of the comic was to go and say "ohh, look how cool Vader is". It was more of a thing were we finally got to see Vader again as he was presented in the OT era, instead of this character that was constantly defeated by his own shadow, reminded of being a failure, and somehow magically still retaining the favor of the most cruel man of the galaxy. It had showed us Vader in the process from a very traumatized Anakin to the uncaring being we see in the OT; it showed us his obsessions, his cruelty based in nothing but resentment and anger, and his inability to learn from a terrible ordeal and try to build a better future for himself.

To me, the idea that Vader lost all his power and that's why he is "a loser" is not as strong as the notion that he got the power he wanted, but the happiness he strived for didn't came with it. Vader has power, but its empty, lonely and full of misery for him. It wasn't worth it. That's a powerful message for a young kid getting into Star Wars these days, and that´s what I got from watching the OT as a child: some very big messages about right, wrong, and the ability to improve the lives of those around you. That's why the comic made sense to me...

 

I can see why you think that way about that depiction of Vader, and i appreciate your point about his great power coming through unsatisfactory means.

But i think it lacked balance and it didin't have that focus from the feeling i got from reading it, it wasn't focused enough on his character and how his transition changed him, but more on him being a badass killing machine, and most of the time possibly emotional moments got undercut by being drowned in the "COOL" factor (for example the moment where he enters Momin's machine), his character is meant to exhert power, but also to be somewhat pitiful due to his constant suffering, especially right after Episode III.

I wasn't referring to him being a "loser" as in the combative sense, but as that the stories should focus more on his vulnerabilities and the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith and how it left him, instead of reverting back to how cool and powerful we, the viewers, see Vader during most of his time as a Sith, because post-ROTS era stories about him should be about the transitional period from Anakin to Vader, it shouldn't show a Vader that is in his regular OT self, the 2017 Vader run, for me, just flips the switch on the character and the moment he puts on the mask, he acts like OT Vader all the time, even in his most vulnerable moment, when he learns Padme has died, instead of the version we saw in the old EU and the movie, where he screams in agony and powerlessness, he just says "no" one time and chokes Sidious, i just... Don't find that very compelling, and it looked to me like it was appealing to Vader fans too much by making him a badass in every situation, but rarely focusing on his mindset and how he sees his change in life.

And it's not a tradeoff in the level you're saying at all, you don't need to have Vader being weak to show his vulnerabilities, Legends Vader was still a badass, even in his earlier years where he struggled a lot (and we also got many instances of him being so in the later years).

It's not that he has to be "weak", it's that the main focus of the stories has to be this.



To show him being in a dark place, to show how broken he is inside, how much Anakin Skywalker has fallen.

It did show us him gaining the Dark power through his suffering, but that suffering also drained every motivation to live from him.

And i find a Vader that initially struggles with adapting to his new life much more compelling than one that is unfazed by the traumatic transformation, it's much more human, in my eyes.

But i'm happy that you got a lot of enjoyment out of the 2017 run, despite not quite doing it for me, i know i'm in the minority here, since most people love it.

 

There is a popular line of thought that says post-RotS Legends weakens Vader too much, but it seems primarily based on characters surviving crossing paths with him.

I'm not convinced the material backs that up, Ghost Prison and Purge shows a fearsome Vader and even Corusant Nights has the heroes narrowly escaping by pure luck, with Vader pretty much dominating the narrative.

The best guilty contenders? Probably Zahn's Allegiance and Choices of One.

 

Which are Rebellion Era stories set post-ANH, not Dark Times.

And it is Zahn, after all.

 

I’ve heard things about Zahns writing of Vader

 

Not the most stellar depiction of the character (in the later works that is, in earlier stories like "Side Trip" his Vader is actually good).

But granted, most of it feeling that way is probably due to him looking bad compared to Mara more than anything else.

 

Anakin wasn't tho

 

I really think only the one scene where, I think when they're the library together, is the only time Zahn actually made Vader look bad. The whole fight thing where Mara just turns out the lights and Vader's electronic vision doesn't adjust well to sudden changes in light? Ridiculous. Also it's very funny that Vader basically went to the library computer to type "Skywalker" into Google, and then left the window open.

 

And that is how Palpatine got the upper hand on the galaxy.

 

Oh absolutely, I think we very much agree, its just a different side of the same coin. I completely understand what you mean and makes total sense, with the loser comment I was just thinking on a period when it seemed fashionable for certain fans to reduce Vader to just that, but gladly that seems like a bygone era.

Curiously, I felt that the 2017 comic was jarring to some because he portrayed, actually, a different Vader than the one we know. It made sense to me: what we saw in the 2017 comic was Anakin mutating into Vader, and that's why he sometimes act like an irrational, out of control being capable of lashing out at anyone and everyone, including his so called allies (Sidious, the Inquisitors, the clones...). He is, deep down, a young man unable to deal with the trauma he has lived through. There are different ways to deal with trauma, and I think the big difference between canon and legends is that Vader doesn't process it the same way in both.

I remembered the end of Luceno´s Dark Lord (which I enjoyed): Vader was already using all the tricks we saw him use on Bespin, implying that he stagnated and, despite his apparent strong will, he never amounted to anything more. Makes more sense to me that Vader continued to grow more and more powerful, but so did Sidious, with the task of usurping the throne from him becoming increasingly difficult. And there is a lot of psychology from Sidious to keep Vader in line, which is far more interesting to me than him relying on his lightsaber skills (which he didn't seem to hone in 20 years).

I do think there has been much material respectful of Vader in both canon and legends, including Greg Pack´s current series. The only time I really felt they missed the mark was with TFU, but that's a story for another thread!

 

Vader was actually trying to overthrow the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back, if Luke joined him. I don't know why would people think Vader wouldn't have any vision about ruling the Empire as the new Emperor. Vader's problem was always about his past as a Jedi, Anakin Skywalker. Luke exposed him. If not for that Vader could potentially overthrow the Emperor if he had someone like Luke at his side.

He always was (originally), Lucas even says in 2002 AotC DVD commentary that Sidious shouldn't have gotten himself in a position of getting his first apprentice killed, Sidious's plan was always with Maul. Sidious then learned about Anakin in TPM and choose Dooku as Anakin's placeholder until Anakin grows powerful enough to be a Sith. That happened only at the end of Phantom Menace, when both Maul and Qui-Gon got killed, Sidious sees an opportunity about Anakin, who just lost his original Jedi Master Qui-Gon and end up with Obi-Wan. And Obi-Wan didn't even want Anakin to be trained as a Jedi.

I've no idea why some old Legends comic book and novels (not all of them) iterations depicted Maul like that, perhaps they thought it would be cool, who knows.

Dooku changed sides when he see that the Jedi is going to fall, he is more like an opportunist, similar to Saruman from LotR.
Maul mentioned this in Son of Dathomir issue 03;
''You (Dooku) abandoned the Jedi when you understood the Sith were gaining power.''

Maul; the face of the more evolved Sith after 1000 years, just like Sidious, you could never imagine those two being a Jedi.

Vader; he could've surpassed Sidious if he could truly forget about his past as Anakin Skywalker.

 

Re: Maul as a Sith attack dog

You can blame TPM and Ray Park. Most of Legends Maul stuff was dine in the afternath of TPM. It was only later that TCW went and developed Maul differently.

 

I know for myself I waaaaaaay prefer TCW Maul and just what he' been like in Canon overall...He's both interesting, sad and pathetic all at the same time.