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Where Darth Vader: Dark Visions has gone, controversy has followed—mainly thanks to its origins as a replacement for another Star Wars comic project scrapped almost immediately after its announcement. But this week, it found itself enmeshed in an altogether different controversy.

Each issue of Dark Visions, like the scrapped Shadow of Vader’s intent before it, has looked to portray Darth Vader through a series of lenses, cast in the eyes of the people in the galaxy around him—alien beings who glimpse him on the field of battle, Rebel fighters who see him as a grim specter stalking their very existence, officers of the Empire to whom he is the universe’s most petrifying boss. This week’s third issue, by Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum, David Lopez, Javi Pina, Muntsa Vicente, and Joe Caramagna—titled “Tall, Dark, and Handsome”—casts the Dark Lord of the Sith not as an empowered foe or ghoulish reckoner, but as the object of affection of a low-ranking, unnamed female nurse aboard the Death Star.

Throughout the story, the nurse is looked on with a scornful attitude by not just the people around her—from Vader himself to her boss in the medbay—but also the narrative’s framing. She’s constantly given menial tasks to do, and dragged about and screamed at for failing to do them promptly by her superior. But we aren’t really invited to feel any sympathy for the nurse, because we don’t really learn anything about who she is as a person. We don’t even learn her name. But what we do learn, throughout her internal narration guiding “Tall, Dark, and Handsome,” is that she is desperately, madly in love with Darth Vader.

The nurse collects scraps of flesh and detritus from the medbay from Vader’s many visits, as trinkets of her affection. She shirks duties in the hopes she can catch a glimpse of him skulking down the battlestation’s many corridors. She fantasizes dancing with Vader, taking off his mask as the Christine to his Phantom. Eventually—after receiving another verbal dressing-down from the doctor for attempting to keep Vader’s cape for herself when he leaves it in the sickbay, leading to the discovery of her collection of Vader accoutrements—she fantasizes joining him as a Sith, clad in black and choking the life out of her boss when he throws her collection into the trash compactor.

It’s this loss that breaks the nurse entirely, leading to her diving knee deep into the garbage chutes in a vain attempt to find her memories of Vader—before marching right into the Dark Lord of the Sith’s private chambers, bleary eyed and desperate to get a glimpse of the man she is obsessed with. Her reward is the first time Vader directly engages with her in the story...by promptly thrusting his lightsaber through her chest and ordering a subordinate to come “get this garbage out of my quarters.”

It’s hardly a magnanimous end for the nurse, but “Tall, Dark, and Handsome” is hardly magnanimous to her as a character. She isn’t painted as a sympathetic figure, but a deranged lunatic, looked down upon by the world around her (and that the world is right to do so) for her self-destructive delusion. Even in the fantasies where she is given a position of imagined strength, it rings hollow. It’s less of a love story and more of a dire warning about obsession—one that feels like it mocks its protagonist as much as the people around her do.

Reaction to the story online in the wake of its release has been...well, as you might expect from the headline of this blog, one filled with controversy—especially for female readers. A part of Star Wars fandom, and especially within female fan circles, that’s been around for as long as fandom itself are people who are fans of the franchise’s villains. From the Imperial cosplayers of 501st to Reylo shippers, there are people who champion these characters as their favorites as much as there are people who laud the heroes of the Republic, Rebellion, and Resistance—or fantasize about them (I mean, we all saw Ben Swolo, right?). Being attracted to villains is a tale as old as fiction itself.

And yet Dark Visions’ view of the nurses desires takes established feminine power fantasies and treats them as delusional jokes, right up until the moment it leaves its female protagonist a crumbled heap on the floor. Threads like the one above from female fans lambasting the story have even lead to Dark Visions writer Dennis Hallum reaching out to defend the nurse’s portrayal as one that’s meant to be heroic—and that the story is meant not to depict the medic as someone mentally unstable:

Which would be fair if Lopez, Pina, and Vicente’s artwork didn’t repeatedly depict the nurse as looking manic, even before her breaking point near the issue’s climax.

But what’s also what’s stoked the controversy around the story even further is that Chuck Wendig—the writer rapidly removed from Shadow of Vader when it was first announced despite having already written multiple issues, before the entire book was cancelled and replaced with the similarly-premised Dark Visions—also took to Twitter to make a comment. The author revealed that in Shadow there would’ve been a similar tale from a male perspective, framed as a commentary not on female obsession, but toxic masculinity:

Whether the story was inspired by Wendig’s pitch for Shadow of Vader or just a matter of awkward coincidence is unknown—when reached for a statement about reaction to Dark Visions #3 and Wendig’s statement, Marvel Comics declined to offer further commentary. It would seem that this is just the latest shadow Shadow of Vader’s cancellation has happened to cast over its successor.

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 03:55pm Having not read the book in question, I'm going out on a limb here. This sound like someone's scathing commentary on too many 'a woman's love can change him' fanfics along with, "He's evil, but he's my man and uses his evil to help me, so it's okay' fanfics, and pretty much showing that such a person in reality would be killed in short order in the reality of the setting, and that's if they weren't turned into a Harley Quinn style victim who was used as a tool for their various own ends. If you want to be meta about it, a portion of the fandom who are wanting for Rey to 'redeem' Kylo because he's pretty. As Lindsay Ellis joked in this video here, "Save him Rey, you know you want to! Save him!" while seriously noting that he's the mixture of fascism meeting fanficy love of bad boys.

For example, it's amazing to me how many women I talked to, in person, who were Game of Thrones fans and thought of Khal Drogo as a barbarian prince charming whom would be great to have as a husband. When I mentioned that Dothraki like to rape women and abuse them, their comments were along the lines of, "Well, with me around, he wouldn't rape anyone else." So, it's more present than people like to admit.

Regarding the disregarded draft about male toxic masculinity Vader fan. Maybe they switched it because that's Kylo Ren in a nutshell, and they want to save such character development for The Rise of Skywalker? Honestly, it's more probable that either this was considered a better thing to riff, or Execs wanted to stave off any comparisons to the main villain of the sequel trilogy's relationship with the main villain of the OT?

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:11pm The issue with the comic is that it belittles people, especially women who fall for "bad boys". A lot of it is to do with power-fantasy, in the sense that they wish they have the power to control and turn someone evil into someone good. There are stories about male characters turning "hot, sexy villainess" into their demure girlfriends/domestic wife.

It becomes a problem when people target and mock women more so than they do for guys who like the exact same kind of stories.

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:24pm

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:11pm The issue with the comic is that it belittles people, especially women who fall for "bad boys". A lot of it is to do with power-fantasy, in the sense that they wish they have the power to control and turn someone evil into someone good. There are stories about male characters turning "hot, sexy villainess" into their demure girlfriends/domestic wife.

It becomes a problem when people target and mock women more so than they do for guys who like the exact same kind of stories.

I guess I'm not used to those types of stories, or at least they haven't seemed to be in fashion enough that I can't think of an example off-hand. I'm sure there are, but I'm not familiar enough with them to think of them as eponymous as the 'redeeming the bad boy' trope.

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:24pm I guess I'm not used to those types of stories, or at least they haven't seemed to be in fashion enough that I can't think of an example off-hand. I'm sure there are, but I'm not familiar enough with them to think of them as eponymous as the 'redeeming the bad boy' trope.

Lord Revan wrote: ↑2019-04-28 05:41pm

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:24pm

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:11pm The issue with the comic is that it belittles people, especially women who fall for "bad boys". A lot of it is to do with power-fantasy, in the sense that they wish they have the power to control and turn someone evil into someone good. There are stories about male characters turning "hot, sexy villainess" into their demure girlfriends/domestic wife.

It becomes a problem when people target and mock women more so than they do for guys who like the exact same kind of stories.

I guess I'm not used to those types of stories, or at least they haven't seemed to be in fashion enough that I can't think of an example off-hand. I'm sure there are, but I'm not familiar enough with them to think of them as eponymous as the 'redeeming the bad boy' trope.

I dunno about demure girlfriend/wife but I can recall cases where sex with a male hero turn a villainess to the hero's side (sometimes turning their sexuality in the process as well), one example I can think of top of my head is Goldfinger, the (sort of) villainess Pussy Galore (no I didn't make that name up) was turned to to Bond's side thru sex (in fact thru scene that would these days be considered rape). That's the first example I can think of when it comes to male hero turning villainess to their side thru sex.

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 07:54pm

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-28 04:24pm I guess I'm not used to those types of stories, or at least they haven't seemed to be in fashion enough that I can't think of an example off-hand. I'm sure there are, but I'm not familiar enough with them to think of them as eponymous as the 'redeeming the bad boy' trope.

As some fans have said, the woman in question was depicted as having mental health issue. And it's the way the story is written/drawn that are supposed to make the reader cheer when Vader killed the woman. That's why some readers, especially female readers are uncomfortable with it.

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-29 08:36am Well, having looked at a few of the pages, and considering Vader's reputation in-and-out of universe, the only way you could portray this story, if you're not doing a Sansa Stark style 'naive woman beaten to show how evil those in power really are' story, is to have someone who is a crazy obsessed stalker. Making it a riff on those who romanticize the villain, again, makes sense to me do to how many fans try and make such characters seem better than they really are. I point again to fans of characters like Khal Drogo and how they would love having the murdering rapist as their husband.

Long complainy thread about exactly why Dark Visions #3 (aka Vader Fangirl comic) doesn't work and how it could have worked

I feel like it could have easily been an interesting character study if it was played more as a tragedy, which would have been the angle if the most basic level of effort was put into making the Vader fangirl (she doesn't have a name For Some Reason) a sympathetic figure.

Her initial interest in Vader is based on her own powerlessness at her job. He's a commanding presence that she imagines being a power couple with, and then people won't mess with her. That's a clear enough line, ok.

But there's no justification for the evolution into "crazed stalker" other than I guess the male writing team being like... "women be cray." It's easy enough to see how they feel about Unnamed Female Character - she's drawn with wide crazy eyes, grimacing, dripping with sweat.

All of the daydreams she has are played for laughs - she's envisioning herself as wildly grandiose characters out of romance novels. She's in a beautiful gala dress, she's a battlefield medic. Vader is a dashing romantic prince; it's clear she has no idea what he's really like.

It could have been played as a "missed connection" - play it like she really does "get" him and they could be good together. Like oh hey, here's someone ready to love him unconditionally. He could use that. (I mean are we forgetting why he fell to the dark side)

The tragedy of the story could have easily been, "Here is someone good offering Vader another chance. Here's someone willing to accept him." And he's so single-mindedly twisted by the dark side that he cruelly rejects her (a thought: he did not have to gruesomely murder her)

As it stands, the point of the story isn't, "the tragedy of evil Vader," it's, "behold, the folly of this crazy woman. You know how they be." It would have been nice if they could have found even one woman to consult on this story, it's too bad female writers don't exist, oh well

Vader even GETS REDEEMED LATER IN CANON so we know it wasn't a fruitless concept we all know what this is really about and what makes the protagonist worthy of scorn Ok ok I'm done

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-29 08:36am

Lord Revan wrote: ↑2019-04-28 05:41pm I dunno about demure girlfriend/wife but I can recall cases where sex with a male hero turn a villainess to the hero's side (sometimes turning their sexuality in the process as well), one example I can think of top of my head is Goldfinger, the (sort of) villainess Pussy Galore (no I didn't make that name up) was turned to to Bond's side thru sex (in fact thru scene that would these days be considered rape). That's the first example I can think of when it comes to male hero turning villainess to their side thru sex.

Right, Pussy Galore. That would be an iconic example. I wonder if there's been one used in the past 3 decades? Maybe the Baroness in the first live action GI Joe film? Either way, I don't think it's a story told much today, I think.

The more iconic example I think of is Basic Instinct, in which that's a subversion and is showing that she's playing him and he will be on the chopping block soon.

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-04-29 08:54am

FaxModem1 wrote: ↑2019-04-29 08:36am Well, having looked at a few of the pages, and considering Vader's reputation in-and-out of universe, the only way you could portray this story, if you're not doing a Sansa Stark style 'naive woman beaten to show how evil those in power really are' story, is to have someone who is a crazy obsessed stalker. Making it a riff on those who romanticize the villain, again, makes sense to me do to how many fans try and make such characters seem better than they really are. I point again to fans of characters like Khal Drogo and how they would love having the murdering rapist as their husband.

See this fan's post:

https://twitter.com/JennyENicholson/sta ... 24257?s=20

Long complainy thread about exactly why Dark Visions #3 (aka Vader Fangirl comic) doesn't work and how it could have worked

I feel like it could have easily been an interesting character study if it was played more as a tragedy, which would have been the angle if the most basic level of effort was put into making the Vader fangirl (she doesn't have a name For Some Reason) a sympathetic figure.

Her initial interest in Vader is based on her own powerlessness at her job. He's a commanding presence that she imagines being a power couple with, and then people won't mess with her. That's a clear enough line, ok.

But there's no justification for the evolution into "crazed stalker" other than I guess the male writing team being like... "women be cray." It's easy enough to see how they feel about Unnamed Female Character - she's drawn with wide crazy eyes, grimacing, dripping with sweat.

All of the daydreams she has are played for laughs - she's envisioning herself as wildly grandiose characters out of romance novels. She's in a beautiful gala dress, she's a battlefield medic. Vader is a dashing romantic prince; it's clear she has no idea what he's really like.

It could have been played as a "missed connection" - play it like she really does "get" him and they could be good together. Like oh hey, here's someone ready to love him unconditionally. He could use that. (I mean are we forgetting why he fell to the dark side)

The tragedy of the story could have easily been, "Here is someone good offering Vader another chance. Here's someone willing to accept him." And he's so single-mindedly twisted by the dark side that he cruelly rejects her (a thought: he did not have to gruesomely murder her)

As it stands, the point of the story isn't, "the tragedy of evil Vader," it's, "behold, the folly of this crazy woman. You know how they be." It would have been nice if they could have found even one woman to consult on this story, it's too bad female writers don't exist, oh well

Vader even GETS REDEEMED LATER IN CANON so we know it wasn't a fruitless concept we all know what this is really about and what makes the protagonist worthy of scorn Ok ok I'm done

The problem lies in the tropes used to depict women as crazy, especially if they express personal agency in actively desiring a male partner. It plays into the idea that women are crazy if they want to chase after guys, and they should only be the one that is chased.

The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2019-04-28 12:05pm What's worse, though, is the contempt that seems to be present here, for the character and, by extinction, for many female fans as well as women who are drawn to abusive men.

No sympathy, no empathy, not even a name. Just ridicule, contempt, and an ignominious death. Even leaving the gender politics issues aside, I've never been fond of spite fics, and that's what this feels like.

There's also the whole issue with how it was reportedly supposed to be a male fanboy before they decided to gender-switch it.

Who thought this was a good idea? Probably the same people who think filling comic books with hyper-sexualized women is a good idea- because the conventional "wisdom" is that only anti-social young men/boys read comics, so comics are written for anti-social adolescent boys, by anti-social adolescent boys who never grew up.

Galvatron wrote: ↑2019-05-01 08:09am Why let any of that stand in the way of clickbaity outrage though?

NecronLord wrote: ↑2019-05-02 07:53am Edited link to the royal guards in, but Vader spends a good part of the original movies with guards, certainly I always imagined there were guards on his door. The only time Vader goes to do anything alone in the original movies is when it's explicitly jedi matters. "I must face him, alone!"

He would at the very least have locks and guards posted to stop someone breaking in and poisoning his meditation chamber when he's not there. Certainly there are naval security guards and stormtroopers standing watch in most imperial scenes in ANH and ESB, while they're replaced by royal guards in some scenes for the Emperor.

NecronLord wrote: ↑2019-05-02 03:52pm See, that would be better than "he doesn't lock his doors" but it would imply he knows who she is, which is against the idea of the piece.

Lord Revan wrote: ↑2019-05-02 04:21pmI'd say not really she could been given clearance by member of Vader's staff, with Vader himself not having met her before killing her.

Lord Revan wrote: ↑2019-05-02 04:21pmIt's not unreasonble to assume that all members of Vader's medical staff would given clearance to Access his chambers in case there's medical need for it.

Lord Revan wrote: ↑2019-05-02 04:21pmI would say it's more the failure of Vader's staff to remove the right to access the chambers from the nurse when it became clear she was unhealthy mentally.