STAR WARS: VADER DARK VISIONS #4: The Terrible Price of Hesitation

The story revolves around a young rebel that was unable to save his father from being killed by the Empire because he could not bring himself to pull the trigger at a critical moment. Hallum jumps between past and present as he paints a picture of a young man determined to make up for that one moment of hesitation. The jumping between past and present is a little choppy for me this issue and the young rebel is painted as a loud mouth and somewhat overzealous which made him not as sympathetic as he could have been, but perhaps that was intentional. This story is really focused on the young rebel and Vader really only features toward the end. Hallum leaves an open-ended question: Does Vader use his force abilities to stay the rebel pilots hand and create the moment of hesitation or is it the past trauma the pilot experienced as a child? Either way you read it, it has a devastating effect in a tale that really has one implicit lesson… hesitation against someone like Vader has terrible consequences.

The art by Stephen Mooney is excellent. His space combat scenes are dynamic and all his panels are well detailed and nothing about the line work ever feels lazy or static. It’s an impressive Star Wars debut for him and Lee Loughridge’s colors are solid, vibrant and sufficiently menacing where required. I particularly like the use of red with Vader in the cockpit of his tie fighter. Once again Joe Caramagna is solid on lettering while Greg Smallwood delivers another excellent cover for the issue