Darth Vader #20 Review: End Of Games

By D. Goodman | May 12, 2016

After the horrendous ‘The Shu-Torun War” arc, things improve dramatically in Darth Vader with the opening chapter of “End of Games”.

Star Wars: Darth Vader #20
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Salvador Larroca and Mike Norton
Colors by Edgar Delgado and David Curiel
Published by Marvel Comics

Last time in Darth Vader: Having crushed the rebellion on Shu-Torun and exposed Cylo as a traitor to the Empire, Vader heads to Coruscant to meet with his master, Emperor Palpatine.

Now that is more like it.

For me, the recent “Shu-Torun War” arc was a dreadful, boring storyline that just seemed to be having Darth Vader tread water while other things happened in a galaxy far, far away. With Doctor Aphra currently tearing things up in “Rebel Jail” over in Star Wars, I guess writer Kieron Gillen felt like he needed to do a filler arc to just bide his time.

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With that nonsense over, now we can get back to why Darth Vader has been one of my favorite titles since issue #1, namely political intrigue, backstabbing and watching the wheels turn in the hierarchy of the Empire.

Darth Vader #20 is essentially nothing but characters discussing the future of the Empire, which in the hands of another creative team would have me very worried, but with Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca in charge, it’s all good.

Vader and Palpatine have a little heart to heart about the traitor Cylo and the surprising part he played in the birth of the Dark Lord of the Sith and then Vader and Inspector Thanoth have a little talk about the whereabouts of Doctor Aphra, which really doesn’t go all that well for one of the parties involved.

Like I said, not a single punch is thrown or starship blown up, but Darth Vader #20 is easily the most gripping and interesting issue of the last five. It brings the various plot lines of the last 19 issues together and sends them off in a new direction that should make for some great reading in the months to come. In that sense the reader comes away with nice sense of being rewarded for reading the series, which is a rarity in comic nowadays.

In addition, we also get a very entertaining backup story starring everyone’s favorite pair of psychotic droids, Triple-Zero and BeeTee. While C-3PO and R2-D2 have always been effectively one note comedic relief for the Star War saga, their evil counterparts are becoming integral facets of Darth Vader.

The backup, with some great art by Star Wars newcomer Mike Norton, does a nice job of further fleshing out the personalities of the pair and showing just how ruthless they can be.

But honestly, I would have given this issue a glowing recommendation for no other reason than the appearance of Vader’s flagship, the Executor. It shows the mammoth Super Star Destroyer under construction and seeing as how it is my favorite spaceship in all of science fiction, you can imagine how happy I was to see it.

Related Story: Darth Vader #19 Review: The Shu-Torun War Part 4

The Bottom Line: Darth Vader #20 returns the title to the solid storytelling that we have come to expect from Gillen and Larroca. Hopefully it will continue like this for the foreseeable future before we have to suffer through more awful filler like “The Shu-Torun War” again.