Star Wars #6: Living Ghosts of Darth Vader

This issue kicked of a lot of excitement with the Star Wars community at large when the cover for it was revealed. It shows Luke holding a new lightsaber with a yellow blade. For hardcore fans this is significant for a handful of reasons. In the most recent Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, Rey is depicted at the end having constructed a new lightsaber with a yellow blade. The yellow blade made its way into current canon during Clone Wars as the weapon of the faceless Jedi Temple guards, fiercest protectors of the Jedi legacy. And then of course there was old farm boy plastic Luke. For every toy featuring Luke’s lightsaber from the original film, yellow was chosen to represent him. Toymakers had limited, often black and white set photos when designing the Kenner toys while the film was wrapping up production. They made the assumption that Luke’s was yellow. In fact older versions of the film showed Luke’s lightsaber as being lighter in color than Ben’s and looked more white than blue. It has been reanimated in more recent years to match the one in Empire Strikes Back.

But the cover is only part of the story. The actual story belongs to Charles Soule, arguable the best Vader writer in the business. Luke has been hopping from quest to quest in this series, and each issue has a different feel. The series feels so different to Soule’s Vader comics, but this issue gives little reminders from that series. Luke meets some characters in this issue whose lives have been wrecked by Vader. It is no coincidence that both these characters are also from Soule’s Darth Vader: Dark Lords of the Sith comic series. Meeting familiar characters sometimes decades later is not at all new to Star Wars. It is extremely common, not just with the films but in books and comics too. This story interconnectivity is what makes the Star wars universe feel more rich and real. It’s like the audience is being guided all across the galaxy just to run into familiar characters, which quite literally they are by Soule and crew.

The progression of the issue itself is amazing. It starts off with peril for the hero to overcome, followed by lots of exposition. There are strange revelations and conflict, followed by surprises. Then ultimately, a satisfying and happy ending. It’s like a self-contained full arc in one issue. It’s what individual comic book issues should be like. However, all the background conversation slows the issue down a lot in the first half, as does some very unexciting artwork. About halfway through, the narrative action as well as some jaw dropping art kick in and make the while ride worth it. The issue wraps up in a very satisfactory way, which indicates that Luke might get to rest for a bit to let another Star Warrior helm the series for an issue or two.