Vader: Dark Visions comic #4: Hotshot by Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum

"Vader: Dark Visions #4: Hotshot" written by Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum, illustrated by Stephen Mooney and Lee Loughridge

     This was honestly not a very good issue. There was nothing special, funny, or exciting about it. Definitely a disappointment in my book. And the ending was just...weird. Issue #1 and Issue #2 "Unacceptable" were pretty wonderful with the first one being quite a unique story with Vader as a savior and the second one being quite humorous and very artfully laid out. Issue #3 "Tall, Dark and Handsome" had its problems with how it portrayed women. And now this issue, #4, was just a complete miss. I hope this isn't any indication that issue #5 in the series, the final one, will also be a let down. Hopefully it'll go back to being as enjoyable as the first two!
     We start on Coruscant where a little boy is hiding in the sewers as his father is being arrested by stormtroopers. He has an opportunity to shoot the troopers and save his father but can't get himself to pull the trigger.
     Then we move to that boy being all grown up and flying an X-wing for the Rebel Alliance. Him and some other pilots have hatched a plan to pretend to be disabled in space while launching a tracker on an Imperial ship so they can find out where a certain starfighter factory is located. Of course in the heat of their attack, Vader appears and the now grown up boy gets a chance to shoot him down, but...and I'm giving away part of the ending here but it really was pretty dumb...he can't pull the trigger again.
     He returns to the Rebel outpost on Jamiri and is babbling about everyone being dead and him not being able to do it. And everyone asks him about six times what he's talking about. It's all very repetitive and slightly annoying. First off, I don't understand why they didn't know where his group of pilots were. And secondly, why did he have to end up being so weak? Especially after the grand speech he made earlier in the issue--the title "Hotshot" fits this guy perfectly.
     Also, this issue jumped around in time a lot and it didn't always make a lot of sense. I had to really focus to get my bearings straight.
     There was some pretty fantastic artwork though! See an image of X-wings fighting Vader's TIE below.

     And there was this Commander lady who had a Rebel Alliance symbol shaved into her head. Pretty interesting choice there.

     So, not really worth the read unless you really really like X-wings and want to know everything about every X-wing pilot that exists...or if your goal is to read every single bit of canon like me. Here's to hoping Issue #5 will make up for this lackluster entry.