Written by
Haden Blackman
Art by
Agustin Alessio
Everybody loves the Empire. Oh sure, we all root for Luke and Han and the
Rebels to win the day on the surface. But some of the most prominent images of Star
Wars are Darth Vader, stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and the Emperor, and it’s
because we love to see them be evil.
Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison not only gives us a pure look at the
bad guys, but it also has a fresh take on things.
Taking
place between Episodes III and IV, Ghost Prison is from the point of view of
Laurita Tohm, an Imperial cadet who’s just graduated when a terrorist attack is
launched on Coruscant and the Emperor by other Imperials. It turns out that not everybody in the Empire
is happy with the Emperor’s rule. Tohm joins
up with Moff Trachta and, of course, Darth Vader as they protect the wounded
Emperor and find refuge in the titular ghost prison.
The
prison is not haunted (no Star Wars horror comic today), but is instead a
secret Jedi prison, hidden so well that even the fall of the Republic protected
it, and it turns out to be filled with war prisoners, many of whom were captured
by Anakin Skywalker. This tie to Darth
Vader’s past works to give him just a touch of backstory and anger at his
past. Despite being in the title of the
book, Darth Vader really isn’t the focus.
A lot of the emotion comes from Laurita and Trachta. However, this makes Vader that much
stronger. By having Laurita narrate
instead of Vader, we see him as this brutal, imposing figure. He kills without mercy, he flies into rages. He is not as tragic and sympathetic as we
know he is, but a force of terror.
And
we want him to win. We want them to take
back Coruscant and defeat the traitors.
Which is interesting in its own right for several reasons. For one, the traitors are shown to have a
completely good cause, reasons for doing what they’ve done and quite a few
sympathies. We see reflections of these
in Laurita, but as he comes under Vader’s tutelage, these get wiped out. This is a story of a good, idealist soldier who
happens to learn under the wrong person, and it’s fascinating to watch. The other reason the story is interesting is
that we know who’s going to win. Well,
yeah, the traitors aren’t going to succeed in taking over Coruscant and killing
the Emperor because we’ve seen what happens.
This doesn’t mean the book isn’t filled with plenty of suspense and
exciting action sequences.
Alessio’s
art must be praised. It’s absolutely
gorgeous. The detailing on the
characters is incredible, and he makes the prison comes to life. It feels like a dark and forgotten place in
the Star Wars universe. The action sequences
are also perfectly done. As lightsabers
fly and blasters…blast, he just captures it.
A
great Star Wars book all around. I don’t
dip into the Expanded Universe much, but this is an enthralling tale of
darkness against light that makes us cheer for the dark.
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