Marvel's Star Wars: Darth Vader comic series

[Galvatron]

Harrison Ford has an intangible quality that allows him to bring Solo to life in a way that no one else can and his heart just wasn't in it any more when they made ROTJ. Hell, Han Solo seemed more himself in the damn Holiday Special than he did in ROTJ.

[Anacronian]

Harrison Ford has an intangible quality that allows him to bring Solo to life in a way that no one else can and his heart just wasn't in it any more when they made ROTJ. Hell, Han Solo seemed more himself in the damn Holiday Special than he did in ROTJ.

Personally I think he was just tired of playing that sort of character - I mean Han Solo and Indiana Jones aren't that different characters and 4 films in 6 years doing practically the same must be tiring.

[Elheru Aran]

From what I see of his filmography he was making two or three films a year in the late 70s and 80s; that's just acting though, doesn't list any television or PR appearances, so I'm sure he was keeping busy enough. That's probably a couple months or more per movie of filming (remember they had to do a lot of location stuff back in the day, so travel), stunt work (he did a lot of his own stunts from what I understand, got beat up a lot doing different roles, never mind the whole dysentery thing during Raiders of the Lost Ark) and so forth. Plus George Lucas isn't the easiest person to deal with by all accounts. So I have no surprise at the idea that he wanted to move on and do something different with his career for fear of getting typecast. Hell, I probably would have too.

As for the comic-- it's purely a matter of writing. It's hard to really convey the subtleties of verbal tone and facial expression. A comic can alleviate that to some degree with the artwork and lettering styles, but the medium has its limitations, unfortunately.

[Adam Reynolds]

Harrison Ford has an intangible quality that allows him to bring Solo to life in a way that no one else can and his heart just wasn't in it any more when they made ROTJ. Hell, Han Solo seemed more himself in the damn Holiday Special than he did in ROTJ.

That is sad, I fortunately have never seen the Holiday Special. The closest I came was watching the Nostaliga Critic's review.

I wonder if they could ever find another young actor that would actually pull off Han Solo? There were rumors that Taron Egerton might be cast as a younger version of the character. I haven't seen Kingsman yet, but that movie was rather well regarded.

[Galvatron]

Then, my friend, you're in for a treat today...

[The Romulan Republic]

I disliked Kingsman for thematic/philosophical/ideological reasons and the ending was just too ridiculous, but I didn't have any strong feelings about the lead actor (if that's who you're talking about).

[Galvatron]

I think one of the mistakes the comic makes is having Vader simply talk too much. He's best when he's brief and to the point. And the comic doesn't have the advantage of allowing us to hear his breathing during his moments of silent reflection.

Issue #3, luckily, seems to have corrected some of that. It helps that his new lackey is a motormouth, which Vader tolerates so long as she remains useful to him.

[Nephtys]

I find it really interesting that Vader is, in the context of Ep4-6, this ominous evil. The hand of the empire, and the symbol of terror and power it represents, with only Tarkin and the Emperor as the two people he vaguely respects. Nobody else is even deserving of life if they cross him. But the more you see of him, the lamer he gets. Very much an all style and no substance guy.

And then in every single thing after, he's constantly a chump and a joke. What on Earth did Palpatine see in this guy? Based on EU materials, He's shitty at the force, a bad planner, oblivious to intrigue, zero subtlety, untrustworthy, and fairly ineffective. Did getting melted really mess him up that badly, or was he just always supposed to be a one-shot that Palps used to get to power, then kept around for whatever reason?

[The Romulan Republic]

He's the Chosen One, and was incredibly powerful when it came to the Force. Perhaps Mustafar weakened him, but by that point, the Clone Wars and Order 66 had significantly thinned out his rivals. And he does demonstrate skill in the films- at the very least, he's a competent pilot and he seems to have some tactical ability. And he's probably a decent mechanic given what he could do as Anakin, not that that would be terribly relevant to his role as the Emperor's right hand man.

[Gandalf]

At first I was happy with the new canon's stripping away of things like the origin story of Han Solo's pants stripe. Now they're making decent material I might actually read.

Harrison Ford has an intangible quality that allows him to bring Solo to life in a way that no one else can and his heart just wasn't in it any more when they made ROTJ. Hell, Han Solo seemed more himself in the damn Holiday Special than he did in ROTJ.

I've always thought that Billy Dee Williams would have made a better Solo than Ford. But I say this as someone who isn't a big fan of Ford or Solo.

[Galvatron]

Based on EU materials, He's shitty at the force, a bad planner, oblivious to intrigue, zero subtlety, untrustworthy, and fairly ineffective. Did getting melted really mess him up that badly, or was he just always supposed to be a one-shot that Palps used to get to power, then kept around for whatever reason?

Indeed. Each time he's eluded or outwitted, the closer he becomes to an 80s cartoon villain like Cobra Commander. Still, I like the idea that he can be sidelined if he falls out of favor with the Emperor. Having him placed under Tagge's command isn't too far removed from how we saw him deferring to Tarkin in ANH.

I hope he manages to convincingly redeem himself somewhat between then and TESB in order to justify getting his own task force and the authority to summarily execute flag officers on a whim.

And he's probably a decent mechanic given what he could do as Anakin, not that that would be terribly relevant to his role as the Emperor's right hand man.

I don't think Vader ever really was the Emperor's right hand man. I think the Emperor routinely assigned him to high ranking officers to act as their right hand man, or perhaps only to Tarkin for most of the years following ROTS and leading up to ANH. It would explain Princess Leia's comment about how she should have expected to find him holding Vader's leash.

I've always thought that Billy Dee Williams would have made a better Solo than Ford. But I say this as someone who isn't a big fan of Ford or Solo.

Well, that's certainly an unusual opinion.

[Nephtys]

Hmm. In the context again of Ep 4-6...

Is he a good pilot? Dunno, he only shot down some guys from behind who had to fly in a straight line. And whiffs on Luke several times. Then gets blindsided by a freighter.
Is he a good swordsman? Kinda, yeah. He beats an Old Guy trying to lose, then toys with Luke. Then loses to Luke. But that could be a pass.
Is he magic? He chokes a few underlings, absorbs a blaster bolt to his hand. He certainly has NONE of the insight or prescience any of the other force users exhibit, even Luke. All he does is figure out Leia in ROTJ, and senses Luke sorta on board shuttle Tydirum.
Does he have authority? Not so much in Ep4, where he's got a single ISD and is mostly running around doing errands. In EpV and EpVI, he has a task force and is actually administrating. Since he has the most powerful fleet shown on screen, he looks more like 'Vice-Emperor' in that context.

I think the silliest and saddest part of that entire comic page was when Vader's making a comment about how strong the Force is, and Palpatine tells him to shut up about the force. That's even funny. It sounds almost like the new characterization of Vader is not that he's Palpatine's effective and deadly problem solver, as much as he is a politically reliable guy that the emperor goes and sends on errands.

[Anacronian]

I don't really think that Vader was ever ment as the Emperors "Right-hand man" - there is a deleted scene in Return of the Jedi where Vader can't even get permission to see the Emperor which pretty much tell us how little the Emperor thought of Vader: Linky 7:04

Of cause the scene was cut out of the movie but still.

[Simon_Jester]

I've always thought that Billy Dee Williams would have made a better Solo than Ford. But I say this as someone who isn't a big fan of Ford or Solo.

Interestingly this sounds very plausible; Williams can do 'swagger' very well. On the other hand, I tend to think Williams does best in a role as a man who has already (to some extent) succeeded- he's the trickster that made good, not the trickster who's still on the run from a crime lord. His entire voice and presentation have a sort of... sense of luck and success about them.

Ford, at least in the late '70s, was great at playing the trickster down on his luck.

[Elheru Aran]

Vader, to me, fits the role of enforcer better than right-hand man, and I will note that the two roles are not mutually exclusive.

It's pretty important to remember that the films only show us a very tiny slice of life in the Star Wars universe, and there is so much other stuff going on that has now largely been rendered unto oblivion.

Vader is very clearly an agent of the Emperor, one that's intended to be powerful and menacing. The Empire has a clear upper hand by the end of TESB, although Luke, Leia and company escaped. Vader's role in the films doesn't have so much to do with his story as it is being a clear villainous presence.

To some degree it's kinda silly to argue Star Wars from a plot viewpoint, as there's a decent argument to be made that with the original trilogy at least George Lucas was thinking in terms of archetypal elements-- hero protagonist, villain antagonist, bumbling companions and so forth-- rather than pure plot. Of course, you can counter that with the fact that Lucas is not that great of a writer, so the archetype thing is a useful ass-pull

[Galvatron]

I'd also like to point out that it probably wasn't in the Emperor's best interests to be seen in public with Vader. If Palpatine was concerned about keeping up appearances for the Senate and the general populace, which he apparently had to do for a good 20 years, it wouldn't do to give the impression of being under the influence of a dark sorcerer.

[Adam Reynolds]

Indeed. Each time he's eluded or outwitted, the closer he becomes to an 80s cartoon villain like Cobra Commander. Still, I like the idea that he can be sidelined if he falls out of favor with the Emperor. Having him placed under Tagge's command isn't too far removed from how we saw him deferring to Tarkin in ANH.

I hope he manages to convincingly redeem himself somewhat between then and TESB in order to justify getting his own task force and the authority to summarily execute flag officers on a whim.

Why would Vader be blamed for the destruction of the Death Star? He was the only one who recognized the threat and tried to stop it. While he did fail, something Sith don't generally look upon favorably, it was hardly his fault that it happened in the manner it did. Though it was somewhat his fault that the battle occurred at all. He did let the Death Star plans off the station when they could have easily gotten away. Based solely on ESB he almost seems to have gotten a promotion out of the deal in that he is no longer subordinate to anyone other than the Emperor. This continues in ROTJ in which he gives orders to Tarkin's replacement as the Death Star administrator. What redemption was necessary?

The idea that Luke and Vader fought* before ESB is just like various Clone Wars sources having Anakin and Dooku fight between AOTC and ROTS. When Anakin says "My powers have doubled since the last time" does that mean the time six months ago or the one the year before that? The same problem occurs with Grievous and Obi-Wan. When Grievous says "I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku" why would he say that when he and Obi-Wan have already fought a half dozen times? As for Luke, if he had already fought Vader in some capacity wouldn't he have mentioned it as a justification for going to Cloud City?
* Was this actually the other Marvel thread? I am having a hard time keeping them apart.

I don't think Vader ever really was the Emperor's right hand man. I think the Emperor routinely assigned him to high ranking officers to act as their right hand man, or perhaps only to Tarkin for most of the years following ROTS and leading up to ANH. It would explain Princess Leia's comment about how she should have expected to find him holding Vader's leash.

He certainly was by ESB. Though he does appear subservient to Tarkin, that doesn't mean he actually was. Releasing someone from a Force choke is hardly a massive loss for Vader, especially as he had already proved his point. Notice that once the Rebels attacked, he completely ignored Tarkin and carried on fighting the battle on his own without any authorization. It was likely that he was assigned to the Death Star for the purpose of keeping Tarkin in line, not the other way around. Leia's comment might have been the public perception, especially if Vader liked the perception of being a barely restrained weapon, but they were likely the opposite of the real situation.

As for the authority given to Tarkin, presumably he was given that degree of autonomy as the highest ranking Imperial governor. There was likely political pressure among that group to gain greater political power while the authority of the Senate was weakened.

Is he a good swordsman? Kinda, yeah. He beats an Old Guy trying to lose, then toys with Luke. Then loses to Luke. But that could be a pass.

As we see with Qui-Gon, Yoda, and Dooku, older Jedi have the problem of lessened endurance, something that also applies to Vader. While in ESB he was utterly dominating, in ROTJ he was likely losing out to Luke's raw power in the Force. There was also the problem that in the years since ANH he was likely rather out of practice as there weren't actually any Jedi left to deal with.

Is he magic? He chokes a few underlings, absorbs a blaster bolt to his hand. He certainly has NONE of the insight or prescience any of the other force users exhibit, even Luke. All he does is figure out Leia in ROTJ, and senses Luke sorta on board shuttle Tydirum.

He also instantly recognizes that Obi-Wan is present on the Death Star and knows exactly where he would be. He was also able to instantly see that the Rebel base is on Hoth, that the Millenium Falcon would rescue Luke, and that Luke was strong in the Force in ANH, not to mention that the Rebel attack would clearly work.

Though the two involving the Rebels winning/escaping are interesting. He is able to see that the Rebel attack on the Death Star would succeed but not that he couldn't stop it. Similarly he saw that the Millennium Falcon would rescue Luke but not that it would escape because of R2. These examples obviously show the fallibility of precog, as well as does the Emperor's failure and death in ROTJ. My theory is that it is based on two factors: unplanned events and the shroud of the Light Side.

We know that the Jedi were defeated by the Sith partially due to the widening influence of the Dark Side thanks to the Clone Wars. What if the opposite was happening with Luke. The Sith were unable to see details of the events surrounding Luke because his presence in the Light Side was too strong and they had no idea how to handle this. Just as the Jedi were unable to realize that they were blind to the Force until things happened that they failed to predict, the Sith fell victim to the same phenomenon.

Similarly all of the things in the OT that Vader/Palpatine failed to predict were unplanned. Han never planned to save Luke over the Death Star, Luke never planned on making the shot without his targeting computer, R2 never planned on being in place to save the crew of the Falcon, and Lando never planned to turn on Vader. Similarly nothing at the Battle of Endor was planned: the Ewoks never planned to attack the Empire, Lando/Ackbar never planned the point blank range tactics, Han never planned to use a captured AT-ST to open the bunker, and most importantly Vader never planned on killing the Emperor to save Luke. Thus when characters simply make things up as they go, they have a much better time of beating Force precog. That would be interesting to explore in the new films. Though this explanation doesn't fit the Jedi's failure to see the elaborate plans of Palpatine in the prequels, that was simply the shroud of the Dark Side. But it does explain their utter helplessness against Order 66: the Clone Army never planned on executing it and thus the Jedi were caught completely off guard.

[Galvatron]

The Emperor made it clear in the new comic that he blamed Vader for deliberately allowing Princess Leia to escape with the Death Star plans. That's why he's fallen out of favor and leashed to Grand General Tagge.

And I don't recall seeing any definitive evidence in TESB to indicate that Vader was the Emperor's right hand man then either. He was certainly an agent of the Emperor, but so were old EU characters like Mara Jade and all the other Emperor's Hands. That doesn't mean he was the supreme commander of all Imperial forces like the old EU would have us believe.

[FTeik]

Not the entire EU has shown Vader as incompetent. You just have to look at SotE, Classic Star Wars and the old Marvel-comics.

[FTeik]

Sorry, but I got interrupted.

From the novel Tarkin, Chapter 14:
"Just now the Joint Chiefs of the Empire's military were gathered - Admiral Antonio Motti, General Cassio Tagge, Rear Admirals Ozzel, Jerjerrod, and others - along with several top officers from COMPNOR, including Director Armand Isard, ISB deputy director Harus Ison, and Colonel Wullf Yularen. Naval Intelligence was represented by Vice Admirals Rancit and Screed, who had requested the meeting."

I see several problems with this:
1) This is five years after the events of ROTS. Of the - with Tarkin - ten persons mentioned by name three die aboard the DeathStar (see point 2). Motti and Tagge are alreay Joint Chiefs, so what is this business with Tagge's promotion to Grand General?
2) In the new comic Vader is made subordinate to Tagge, because he is "the only one" capable of dealing with the Rebel-Alliance. Huh? Are there no other capable officers? Grand Admirals, other Grand Generals or Moffs? The empire must be really short on high-ranking officers, too short for Vader to waste them the way he seems to do in TESB.

[Galvatron]

Yeah, 15 years BBY seems a little early for all those guys to have already peaked. I suppose Palpatine decided that, of the survivors, only Tagge had the pragmatism necessary to deal with the rebels without a Death Star to back him up. His promotion to Grand General, IMO, just gave him the authority he would need to get things done without having to bicker his way through it all.

AFAIK, Grand Admirals don't exist in this new EU (yet).

[Thanas]

The new comic makes little sense. If the authority of the Empire was so weak that only the death star kept the systems in line, this has to be the most dysfunctional totalitarian Government run by the worst clown ever.

Furthermore, it also somewhat contradict Rebels, where the Emperor has substantial garrisons even on backwater planets. The tone is way too different - in Rebels it is "Empire can and does oppress even shitty farming planets", here it is "Only the death star is what kept systems in line". But if the death star was what held them in line - what kept them in line for twenty years? The Senate? Not that convincing considering it was a rubberstamp already by ROTS.

[Galvatron]

The Senate pretty obviously ceased being a rubberstamp in the years leading up to ANH for the military to be so worried about them. If you doubt that, just look at how radically the US Congress can change in 20 years.

And backwaters were easy to garrison. It's the heavily defended core and inner systems that would have presented the biggest challenge to Imperial domination.

[Thanas]

It's the heavily defended core and inner systems that would have presented the biggest challenge to Imperial domination.

There is no totalitarian system in the history of this earth that existed for decades without controlling the cities. Likewise, I find it hard to believe the Imperials had no way to control their industrial base until the death star arrived.

[Galvatron]

Which is why the Emperor had to keep up appearances and tolerate the Senate for so long. As my original thesis stated, the Empire probably functioned much like the Republic did in the years before ANH and was only openly totalitarian in the less wealthy regions of the galaxy.