Lit I resent comics

I think i may have all of the vader issues then. (Shrugs) I found them lacking, not just in the art department, but also in the storytelling. I also think that an overuse of Vader lessens his impact. I remember reading the old dark times comics by Dark Horse. The art was incredible, vader was used sparingly, and the plots kept my interest.

 

Not that I don't love SW novels, I just have always liked Star wars best as a visual medium. I feel like a galaxy far far away is a place that's amazing to actually be able to see, as visually it's so unique compared to other sci fi stories.

 

That's quite a time period. I'm just saying that I would rather have a few novels detailing that time period by an author like James Luceno instead of those comic runs. Particularly since I found them lacking in quality.

I'll take your word for it and force myself to read those issues. Especially since I already own them.
I'll start by rereading SW and old Vader #1 and report back here with my impressions since it's been some time.

 

I think one of the benefits of the new canon is that the Story Group haven't allowed themselves to be penned in by chronology. The final arcs of the Charles Soule Vader series don't have set placement in the timeline just yet - they could conceivably happen any time between about 18 BBY and Rebels. That's nearly a decade and a half. There's a lot of time in the timeline - and here in the real world - for stories in that period, including ones featuring and focusing on Vader, to be told.

The old EU was forever going back and adding in a bit more to the timeline. The original Marvel comic run covered between IV and V and then between V and VI - but that didn't stop them from going back and dropping Shadows of the Empire into the mix.

Vader is an incredibly popular character with both general audiences and with hardcore fans - I wouldn't be surprised if we get yet more material featuring him between III and IV. Novels at some point in the future are probably likely.

 

The SW series is very much a grab bag of stuff but both 25-issue runs of DV are probably the closest SW comics could get to something with the scope of a novel (if not multiple)--Gillen's being Vader's ascension from losing at Yavin to leading Death Squadron, Soule's being Vader coming into his own as a Sith. As such if you do fully reread either run I'd be interested to hear more specifics about what exactly you dislike that would be fixed by a novelized version of the same events. Is it the lack of character introspection, the time it takes to read them, etc? Or do you just think they're badly written from the get-go? "Lacking in quality" is a fair POV but it's also very subjective and hard for us to get our heads around without specific criticisms.

 

Honestly, if you dislike the medium, perhaps you shouldn't really force yourself to read it until you really want to; chances are you won't like it anyway, if you approach it like a chore. Besides, its just a matter of taste: I personally liked a lot more Charles Soule´s take on Vader than Zhan´s Alliances, but it doesn't mean I found it a bad book, at all.

Some Vader fans, too, found Soule´s writing out of character, even if it was perfect for me when it came to represent the transition from Anakin to Vader. Gillen´s run really depicts the Vader we know in the OT, so it was pretty good insight not to write both periods of Vader´s life the same way...

 

The existence of the comic (which has excellent writing) doesn't negate the possibility of novels in that time period. We've already had a few, like A New Dawn, Tarkin, and Lords of the Sith.

Forcing yourself to read something isn't a good way to appreciate the story. If you aren't interested in reading comics then don't read them unless something in particular catches your interest.

 

Funnily enough I was thinking about Vader's Quest literally right before I was directed to this thread. And idk that I could disagree more? Like, okay the Luke parts are granted kind of random and forgettable (and I'm gonna be real the dog-mole-rat people gross me out) and the stuff with Jal Te Nieve is like oh my god I don't care why are we following this moron but Vader is so great! Vader finding out he's got a son in the middle of an aviary filled with parrots that are like RAWWK SKYWALKER SKYWALKER RAWWWWK and then having to set it on fire to kill all the parrots so that word won't get back to Palpatine is like, the best thing ever. I love it so much. I don't understand how anyone could not love it? It's like, one of my top 10 Vader moments of all time, including the movies. Maybe even top five. Also Palpatine is fabulous, Macan gets him and his relationship with Vader in a way that most fans and frankly a lot of later writers simply do not.

And anyway Vader's Quest isn't set any more immediately after ANH than the Russ Manning strips? or Marvel's original Star Wars run? Or Jude Watson Alex Wheeler's Rebel Force series? they even let Zahn write a novel set in the nebulous zero-to-six-months-but-definitely-intended-by-the-writer-to-be-the-first-thing-after-Yavin time period (spoilers, it's not good)

I mean I'm not gonna argue with you here because I haven't read any of the new comics save that one that takes place right after Endor where Leia goes to Naboo to fight evil hurricane machines or something so you may well be right. That miniseries certainly was pretty awful! But you're totally wrong when it comes to the legendary canon-- during the late nineties and all through the aughties Dark Horse was absolutely killing it and except for the New Jedi Order novel series the comics were the main event outside the films. Nothing the novels were doing were anywhere close to as good or interesting.

oh man do I have a treat for you. do yourself a favor and acquire a copy of Empire #14: The Savage Heart. do it right now. then report back to us.

well the thing is that this was pretty much the dumbest thing ever anyway so yeah.
(though I guess to fair to Zahn he didn't actually write that Palpatine was so angry with Vader that he took Vader's hand-- he wrote that Mara told Luke that Palpatine was so angry with Vader that he took Vader's hand. a subtle distinction, but an important one!)

Again, can't really speak to whatever Marvel's been up to, but in pretty much every place novels bump up against comics back in the day imo the comics win out. Especially when they're covering the same event. Like, read Jedi vs Sith and then read Path of Destruction and tell me the novel handled Darth Bane and the siege of Ruusan with more depth than the miniseries. Because it didn't. It sucked and made everything boring and dumb.

In conclusion when it comes to novels vs comics, probably go with comics.

 

Macan alluded to Zahn's version of events:

 

lol i totally forgot he said that. anyway it wasn't so much Palpatine taking Vader's hand that I dislike (though that was kinda characteristically presumptuous of Zahn), it was Palpatine blaming the loss of the Death Star on Vader and then punishing him for it in a fashion that Mara is aware of.

which is interesting-- both the Star Wood reboot and apparently the Disney one have both gone the route of Vader-gets-in-trouble-for-Yavin-and-has-to-eat-poop-for-awhile route, so it's clearly a popular take on how things would down. It doesn't really make any sense either narratively or in terms of characterization to me but it's definitely a thing for some reason (people really want Vader to be the main character, and it gives him a convenient arc, I guess?). It'll be interesting to see what the next version does!

 

I'm curious to find out your take on what would make sense "narratively and in terms of characterization" if Palpatine humbling Vader following the Death Star disaster - and Vader himself scheming behind the Emperor's back to regain his favor - doesn't. Vader is directly responsible for a debacle that has set Palpatine's plans back years, and in ROTJ he himself cites the Emperor's reputation for being not particularly forgiving. The assumption made by canon / Zahn / "Star Wood," etc. that Vader would be punished by his master has always seemed reasonable enough to me.

 

Hey @Sinrebirth , some other mod, the image i snipped out from the above post I quoted is from a piracy site. Probably be bad to have pirated comics pages floating around the board.

 

Make liberal use of the report function. That brings the reported post to the attention of every mod and means the issue will dealt with faster.

 

As I say, I think you cheapen the character when you don’t use him sparingly. I liked seeing him in Rogue One (despite the build of the actor being completely wrong) because it was brief and impactful and we got a chance to see Vader in a new light.

I’ll try to read Vader #1 today or tomorrow and post back here. My general issues are not with the medium itself, i actually enjoy many comics, its the overall quality of the stories being told. I’ll try to be more specific once I’ve re-read issue 1.

 

And I bet it was an image brought up by a Google search.

 

I should point out that the STAR WARS RPG had the direct opposite opinion of what Zahn assumed would be the response of the Emperor to Vader's "failure." It's also one backed up by the movies. Emperor Palpatine in the RPG proceeded to PROMOTE Vader for the events of A New Hope because Vader had repeatedly called the Death Star a complete waste of time, money, and effort for what was going to make an enormous target. Hence the Emperor named Vader the head of the Imperial Military and gave him the Executor as a present.

Part of the issue is Zahn has a very low opinion of Vader and calls him a brute when ANH and ESB shows that Vader is the only guy in the military who isn't a complete idiot.

 

Zahn's whole take on the Star Wars universe is a very, uh, mil-sci-fi one. Complete with the usual tropes of that.

(I've also come to increasingly dislike the art-tactics stuff. What would a piece by Mark Rothko and a piece by Thomas Cole tell you about David Petraeus?)

 

Oddly, it's actually based on a real thing British commanders did in RL...or a stunning coincidence. Some actually filled up their offices with massive amounts of Nazi paraphenalia and iconography to try to figure out what they'd do next. Kieron Gillian said he tried to do the same for writing Uber and it just weirded him out (and scared his neighbors).

 

I can believe someone would do it in real life. It's still kind of dumb.

 

Well, I think your core assumption here is wrong: Vader is not directly responsible for the destruction of the Death Star. In fact he's the only person involved in the whole debacle who did anything right, and he wasn't even a formal part of the chain of command. If Mauler hadn't been such a bumble**** he'd have killed Luke before Luke got off his torpedoes and that would've been that; the Yavin debacle was an indictment of the secular leadership of the Empire, not of Vader. Which is why in ESB we see Vader large and in charge, and then in RotJ the Moff in charge of the Endor project is an anxiety-wracked middle manager rather than an ambitious generalissimo like Tarkin and Vader and Palpatine himself are directly involved. To look at ESB and ask "hmm, how did Vader get from ANH to here" is to kind of miss what's happened right there on the screen.

And anyway, even if Palpatine was pissed at Vader-- and he probably was, because Palpatine is always pissed at Vader, ever since that one time when he managed to lose three limbs, his lungs, ninety-five percent of his skin, and most of his confidence to a Jedi "Master" whose go-to form is soresu-- the notion that he would deal with that anger by publicly rebuking him and demoting him and making him go on some dumb RPG faction loyalty quest to get his favor back is just completely wrong. That's not how their relationship works. That's not the image Palpatine would ever present to the public. When Palpatine is annoyed at Vader (which again, is pretty much always) he plays mind games and ruins his hobbies and gives him extravagent gifts he knows he'll hate and sends him on boring errands and cold calls him when he's in the middle of important asteroid-and-light-freighter-related business to make sure Vader knows that he knows that Vader knows (that he knows!) that Vader has a son who is alive and also you will be bringing him to me, won't you, when you finally get around to capturing him? Vader and Palpatine's relationship isn't that of the generic dark lord to his chief henchman; it's way more complicated and screwed up and codependent than that.

So what do I think would make sense instead? Exactly what the status quo was prior to the Star Wood reboot: Vader gets formally installed as head of the entire Imperial war machine and dedicates the next few years to hunting down his son. And crushing the Rebellion. But mostly hunting down his son.

 

To be fair, I have an inclination from canon DARTH VADER that Palpatine's whole business with Grand General Tagge and the other humiliations is due to the fact that Anakin is unable to get his Sith Lord on unless he has something to occupy his hatred. Sidious' biggest disappoint with his apprentice seems to be that he's mostly stuck brooding over Padme and his own mutiliation versus actively trying to take over the galaxy. So Palpatine humiliating him and having people push his buttons to stoke the fires of hatred is just him being a good Sith Master.

"Come on, don't you want to kill me and rule the galaxy?"

"NO! You suck! And you're not my real dad, either!"

"Actually, me and Plagueis kind of are. NOW CHOP OFF YOUR HAND AND HATE ME!"

 

It's weird that we've made it through four pages of this without anyone posting this video, which is obviously exactly what happened.