ReadItDaddy's Comic of the Week - Week Ending 12th January 2018 - "Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 1" by Keiron Gillen, Salvador Larroc and Adi Granov (Marvel)

Thanks to a recent subscription to Kindle Unlimited I've been steadily hoovering up a huge back catalogue of Marvel titles. Our Comic of the Week this week is impressive. Most impressive.
Way back when the first Star Wars movie completely bowled 9 year old me over, I can remember the movie swiftly being followed up by some seriously surreal treatments of the IP. Marvel back then were heralding their own golden age, as the 70s faded from memory and as kids started to read more comics than ever before.

I read a lot of those old comics, and it's interesting to see just how the modern Star Wars comics treat the whole 'canon' of this sprawling space opera, not going too crazy in deviating from the spirit of the movies (certainly not to the extent of some of the whacky and wild 70s strips, at least).

So catching up with "Vader" or more accurately "Star Wars Darth Vader Volume 1" by Keiron Gillen, Salvador Larroc and Adi Granov has been eye opening to say the least.

I've always thought that with the advent of the (dreadful) prequel Trilogy, Vader had been respun and reinvented as something of a complete wussbag. For years he'd always been my favourite character in the Star Wars Universe, purely based on his merciless pursuit of the dark side in the original trilogy, fading to that moment of redemption right at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Now though, Gillen Et Al are obviously tapping into the modern mythos of Vader, in subsequent movies and in the excellent "Star Wars Rebels" animated series, Vader is back to doing what he does best. Being a bad-ass force-choking dark hearted Sith Lord. No wussbags here, no sirree.

Weirdly I'd always shied away from Gillen's writing for donkey's years. I used to HATE his particular brand of new games journalism when he used to extensively write about videogames, and this soured my view on any potential greatness in his comic writing later on.

So I owe myself a huge kick in the pants, because SWDV is an utterly spellbinding comic series, that is getting better and better as time passes (with Volume 2 now available and volume 3 well under way).

Filling in the movie gaps, we see Vader at his merciless best, giving Jabba the Hutt what for!

The story arc exists in a pocket of time between Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. We see Vader once again cowed by the Emperor's nefarious rule, but with more than enough guts to be carving himself out a niche as 'universe's most bad-ass sith' in the background in his relentless pursuit of the Jedi, and in particular one Luke Skywalker.

The modern Marvel Star Wars comic series all dovetail neatly with each other (so yep, you'll find elements in this volume that tie in with the other character-dedicated comics for Luke, Leia and Han).

Above all, we get to bear witness to arguably some of Vader's finest evil moments. Oh yes indeed!

"Kill my mum would ya? Well this is what'cha gonna get in return, suckers!"

I was instantly drawn to Vader's story arc, but now feel the need to check out the rest of the new wave of Star Wars comics, particularly those dealing with characters from the original trilogy. The writing is incredible, characterful, but also most importantly respectful of the original source material. The art - well it's just flipping jaw dropping, particularly when familiar characters crop up and are instantly recognisable.

New characters (such as the kick-ass Dr Aphra - who is just begging to turn up in one of the movies at some point, surely?) fit neatly into canon with ease and the whole thing feels as silkily luxurious as you've come to expect from Marvel's modern behemoth comics universe.

It's enough to make an old man squee like a little 9 year old SW nerd all over again.

"Star Wars: Darth Vader (Volume 1)" is available now, published by Marvel (self purchased - not supplied for review).