IDW excels at bring out bright colorful versions or continuations of many popular brands. They differ from Marvel by targeting a younger audience, but that in no way means they stories aren’t any less engaging or strong. When they took on Star Wars, it was clear that the purpose was to tell stories from every era and even to re-canonize elements lost by the continuity reset sparked by Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm. The Vader’s Castle series exemplifies this. It tells a separate tale from multiple eras each issue in the backdrop of a continuing story taking place in the depths of Darth Vader’s stronghold on Mustafar. Last year, a group of characters found the servers telling scary tales to help cope with the terror of being trapped there after crashing on the lava planet. This sequel series involves Lieutenant Hudd, who was left behind during the previous series. In it, Vader’s henchman Vanee, who had a brief roll in the film Rogue One, tortures the grizzled rebel both physically and mentally by using a pain-inducing machine and telling spooky stories.
The stories themselves seem to be spoofs of popular scary movies, not unlike what The Simpsons does each year with their popular “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween episodes. There are five tales revolving around five Star Wars villains, each in a different art style and famous horror elements. This is a great formula for any series. The first was a Darth Maul tale where he represents The Devil himself, followed by Tarkin in a Frankenstein story. Issue three had the ex-Sith apprentice Asajj Ventress in a Little Shop of Horrors story, with Jabba in a living brain tale to succeed it. The final issue is a zombie outbreak involving Darth Vader himself. As stated, each story has it’s own unique art style. These range delightfully from classic pulp art inspired by stuff like Tales from the Crypt to a cartoon story book style. This gives the the series an amazing anthology feel and allows for very unique individual storytelling. This is not new for IDW, their regular Star Wars Adventures comic does the same thing, but they do it so well for each story that it gives a specific flavor to every tale. The Marvel Star Wars series tend to be a bit more homogeneous as far as art style, story structure in the from of continuing arcs, and even timelines. Because of the device of telling many short stories, this series can refreshingly jump to any timeline from the prequel and sequel trilogies and all points in between.
As with other IDW Star Wars stories, Return to Vader’s Castle draws from so many other Star Wars incarnations. This series alone references Rogue One, the Clone Wars show, other IDW Star Wars characters, the Adventures in Wild Space young reader books, the upcoming “Jedi: Fallen Order” video game, and even the Marvel comic Star Wars series themselves. This series, as good as it is, has now become sort of a Halloween tradition. Hopefully, audiences will be able to see more spooky episodes next October as well.
Last year, IDW had an impressive five-issue minseries called Tales From Vader's Castle. Each issue came out weekly that October. For 2019, they've released a direct sequel which promised more stories of horror and villainy revolving around a survivor of last year's adventures in the foreboding castle of the Dark Lord. Taking elements from all over Star Wars canons old and new, IDW created a unique series for Star Wars fans. Trying to recreate that magic again is a tall order, as tall as Vader's Mustafarian dwelling itself.
The short spooky story gimmick of this series is perhaps the best selling point for it. It is in the vein of stuff like "Goosebumps," or "Are You Afraid of the Dark," which have historically been very popular. Applying this method to the super popular Star Wars franchise has been an amazing combination, one which IDW would be wise to continue.
