"Darth Vader #14: War of the Bounty Hunters: The Blade Behind the Curtain" by Greg Pak
"Darth Vader #14: War of the Bounty Hunters: The Blade Behind the Curtain" written by Greg Pak, illustrated by Raffaele Ienco and Jason Keith
Strangely enough, this "Vader" series has its own problems with chronology. Two issues ago everything jumped seemingly forward in time and then back again. And this issue seemed to jump back in time to before and simultaneous with the last issue, but continuing beyond that to the same time period as "Doctor Aphra #12." Phew! Did you get that?? I find it incredibly confusing to jump around like that so willy nilly. And it's not like it would be with the inclusion of flashbacks. This is the story itself, the unfolding of the plot, taking place back and forth and back and forth in time. Weird stuff. I'm telling you, this was my favorite current running comic series, but...(and I'm excluding "Doctor Aphra" from this because y'all know she's always gonna be my number one. I mean, I have an entire YouTube channel named after her...) now I'd give it to either "The High Republic" or, to be perfectly honest, "Bounty Hunters"!! I'm for real, too. When that series started pushing back the curtain, uncovering secrets and mysteries, I was sold. Not to mention the incredible degree of character development that has continued throughout the series so far, even from the very beginning. I highly recommend it! Goodness gracious I've gotten off track. Back to "Darth Vader #14"!
We see Sly Moore on the cover, looking all bada** in her skin-tight, black, leather? pleather? rubber? suit with red trim (see below). So we think she's going to act like one as well, right?? Plus there's the subtitle of this issue, "The Blade behind the Curtain." You think she's the blade...but no, Vader is the blade. Yeah, Sly Moore gets trampled all over verbally, emotionally, psychologically. It is not pretty. And I absolutely hate to see a woman down. She starts off smug, then dumbstruck, then strong, then darn well near powerful, and then finally absolutely broken. It was a strange and roller coaster-like progression. But you know what? I can totally relate--actually makes me think of last night's "What If..." episode with Captain Carter--the man bringing you down because you could "never be as good as him." For me, I feel this in a broader sense with certain parts of my life. And oooh boy, do I now have sympathy for Sly Moore of all people!! Basically, she gets demoted to Sub-Administrator by Mas Amedda>>she comes up with the plan to send IG-88 after Vader (check out my review of the previous issue in this series here)>>she gathers her black-robed followers together (see below)>>Vader attacks them and she runs>>she comes up with the idea to bid for Han as the Empire>>Vader sabotages her plan (see her brokenness below). It's all just so frustrating for her! She tries so hard to gain respect, but never gets it.
So, we were set up to think Sly Moore was going to have some epically super-villain arc...and nothing...just more "I'm Vader and I am un-everything." I also wanted to point out the first two sentences in the opening crawl of this issue, "After Exegol, Darth Vader understands the true might of the Emperor's power. Vader must destroy Skywalker, the one threat to his restored position." Blech!! Vader went through FAR too much in the first couple of arcs of this series to have all that growth and introspection go to waste. It irks me to no end. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the story progresses from here...
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