A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 137: Darth Vader Vol. 3 — The Shu-Torun War

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

This week, we have escaped from the gravity of of the comic book crossover  and returned back to the day-in-the-life tale of Darth Vader. Still hurting from the Death Star's destruction, the Empire badly needs ore to build back its strength. One key supplier: The world of Shu-Torun, a lava filled, mineral rich world of ore dukes, magma submarines, and mining citadels. The only problem is, this world has decided to rescind its deal to the Emperor. Enter: Vader.  Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Star Fox Video Mentioned "What's Going on in Utah?": an Oral History of Brian Windhorst's Viral Monologue   Caleb Hearon's Funniest Bit Okay actually maybe this is Caleb Hearon's funniest bit. Hosted by Rob Zacny (robzacny.bsky.social) Featuring Alicia Acampora (ali-online.bsky.social), Austin Walker (austinwalker.bsky.social), and Natalie Watson (nataliewatson.bsky.social) Produced by Michael Hermes Music by Jack de Quidt (notquitereal.bsky.social Cover art by Xeecee (xeecee.bsky.social)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age of Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and special editions like our discussion of the Mandalorian and Grogu, which was a movie. With our crossover episode with the Rebels Complete, the Vader comic returns to Vader's work as the Emperor's fixer and enforcer with a trip to the mining planet of Shoe Turun, led by an aging monarch and

a trio of royal children, the least favorite of which is dutiful daughter, Trios. Oh. As Vader arrives to impress upon them the need to continue meeting mineral quotas, Trio's impresses on him the fact that in the Royal Court of Shoutar Shoutaroon, Vader needs to be worried about how many dances he offers to a lovely partner. And oh my God, is it happening? Are we doing Regency Star Wars? Will dutiful Trio be put off by Vader's crude manner at the Royal Ball?

Only to reflect upon the hidden depths of his character. I mean? Can love Bloom on the ballroom battlefield? Will Trioz need, will Trioz need Vader to pretend to be her fiancé to shore for a continuous position on Chuteroon? Sort of. And will their plot require making everyone believe they're really in love, even though they're absolutely not?

But sometimes maybe it feels like it's a lot. a little more real. There could be some... No, wait. Hang on. Vader ragdolls someone who gets too pushy about Vader not dancing at a dance party. And then Trio's deeply stupid, Vinal family trying to have Vader killed during his visit only be wiped out by BT and Triple Zero who have infiltrated their bunker Suarez. Vader leaves Trioz in place as the emperor's client queen, but must return immediately to help her against an

uprising of the nobility. The war is such a high priority that the emperor commits every asset to the effort. Silo, the twins, Void Gaser, I had to look that up. Yeah, Void Gaser. I also had to look up Silo's name. That guy, like, I see that guy, his name, I see him, and they just I keep caught him with Dr. Cyborg in my mind, but he's not even a cyborg.

He has like a lizard eye, right? Not even like a robot eye. And just because he seems like he kind of likes it. It doesn't seem like it's, he's just, he's just like, this seems cool. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's body bonding. I'm in my doctor, row period. And I am my own

creation. That's right. And so Void gazer, Silo and the twins, I'm not going to remember their name either, but eventually I'll pull the page that's relevant where we no longer are talking about the twins. And they joined Vader as he carves a swath

through Shue Turun's nobility while negotiating a tense alliance with Trio who must rely on the empire but cannot let herself become a mere puppet. Meanwhile, Silo throws his lot in with the upstart barons, or at least pretends to in an effort to Rob Vader of his triumph in order to secure both his and Tash's positions.

The twins try and murder Vader the second his back is turned and the girl twin, named TKTK, ends up in the molten pit while her dumber brother continues to look like he's waiting for a callback to the next season of Love Island. Vader tries to keep the investigation into Afra's whereabouts going in the background using his favorite bounty hunters. Trios eventually comes into her own as a queen and is left to run the planet with the aid of an Imperial officer to serve as both advisor and as a probably

overmatched enforcer slash snoop. In the end, as Vader is leaving Schu Terun, he learns after has been found by none other than Inspector Thanoff. I don't know if he's actually Inspector. He might be Colonel Thanoff. By the way, Inspector Thanoth, the greatest sleuth in the

Imperial service. Those are the broad outlines. We'll get into the finer details, but... The stuff that you said about it being a regency drama isn't wrong. It's just that it all goes about it in a Vader-like way. Like, they do have a sort of social, the sort of like social masquerade of their relationship because a big part of their relationship is she's like, they have to believe I'm queen and not

just your puppet. And he's like, like, he like, yeah, but you report to me. And so like that. But you are my puppet. But you are my puppet. But I get it. And so you do have to like play at that role a little bit. He does have to say like, yes, my queen a couple of times, you know.

And there's a little psychosexual drama happening here because she's just a Padmae. Right? She's a Padma and she's Alea. And she's a laa. And she's and this is just for us. She's a she's a teen. Also. Right?

She's like all of these different princess figures that we've gotten across all of Star Wars. But you're right. There is a, it isn't just psychosexual in the ways that are good and wholesome. Dr. Freud, get in here. But it is. He gives her a piece of Alderan. Like. Yeah, but to like torture her a little bit.

I know. But also, Rich with irony. Yes, it's like this is a lesson that my daughter did not learn until it was too late. And that is the first moment, by the way, it has occurred to me. The people on Alderon got fucked. Not just by the empire. But the organas like went all in on.

Okay. So we're a peaceful planet that's not target of anyone. Uh-huh, uh-huh. We're going to become the leading. Our royal family is going to become the leading lights of the rebellion. But it won't come back on us. Like, again, we're a peaceful planet. There's no way anything bad happens.

And it's like, look, sacrifices has to be made to stand up to a great galactic evil. But at the same time, there's a little part of me, it's like, I suspect many people on Alderon. If they knew about how everything went down, might have been like, Maybe downplay. Everybody's from somewhere. You can't be like, I can't be part of the anti-fascist rebellion movement because Atlantic City, New Jersey might get nuked, you know, with respect to AC. I got to, you know what I mean?

You got to move free a little bit. Now, I do think that the fact that they continued fucking around and being from Alderon like that is probably. This is like, it's like if the promoter was going around, like, doing the stuff where it's like, no way they're going to blow up the casino because of this. Fair enough. But yeah, I loved this. This to me, big thumbs up.

I want this comic. This is what I thought the comic would be, which is like Darth Vader is off doing some shit. And we get to learn about new weird places and et cetera. Yes. Yes. It's all like getting to go to a world with its own like custom. and culture and

and that having like an impact on the... I mean, I think in the end, Darth Vader does just, you know, bring his powerful fist down and does what he wants. But like there is at least the pretense of kind of engaging with this planet's culture as it is.

And I find that to be really, really, really, really fun. Like, I think we're back to the last episode we did. It was not as... I don't think it was what we come to these comics looking for or what we come to extenuating Star Wars material for. Like, when we're looking...

When we're going beyond the kind of mainline movies or the mainline shows or whatever... Yeah. these are the kind of like fun places to be creative. Like, why not Regency Star Wars? Like, why not see that in the galaxy? I mean, I think we get a little bit that in like Chandraillian customs when we were watching and or season one.

But it's like nice to see that kind of again here in a different way. Also, cool planet. filled with lava and metal, an ore and gems. Yeah, like the idea of these ore dukes, like these are all, there's these seven, seven, six, seven. Wait, is it literally seven dwarfs? Is it, is it seven? I don't, I miss that it was seven. Maybe that's right.

That might be right. They're totally dwarf-coded. They're underground halls, their palaces. Yeah. I had not thought about that. It is interesting to think of them as like, as the kind of regional lords who all have their own, like, they all kind of have their own piece of the pie, as it were. Like, they all have a piece of what makes Shoe Turun, Shotoran. Shoe Turan.

S-H-U-Torun. Torin, yeah, maybe Shu Torin. Shuthoran? Shuthoran. I like Shuthoran. All of them have a piece of what makes Shuteron a valuable asset to the empire. So it's interesting to think about, you know, how they might have engaged and politiced with each other to kind of mark out these lands and their kind of... cooperation or collaboration and also backstabbing and scheming.

And then the empire, like, it doesn't matter as long as the empire eats at the end of the day here. Like, Darth Vader doesn't give a shit. Who's the Duke of the Or Duke of where? I also just love that title, The Or Duke. Like, that is just, that this is kind of awesome. This place for people who aren't reading along, it's a big, like ore planet covered in metal and lava that has a bunch of different strata the the barons and dukes have castles have citadels that can like delve through the the rock and they also

have like submersible like mega ships that can go through the lava and the magma and very uboat coated. Very U-boat-coded. And then the interiors of these places, you know, so the exteriors were all like hard chrome, you know, black steel, etc. But then the interiors is kind of like rococo, white and pearlescent and hyper-detailed and everyone has gems and long, flowy dresses and layers and light balls on their fingertips for some reason. And everything is extremely detailed in this really pretty way marble and gold, you know, and ivory and, you know, long royal blue capes and golden headpieces and all that. And that's like a, so again, a little bit of an echo of like Naboo in terms of interiors to some degree, which is, which is interesting. And like, that's just a fun combination of aesthetics to me. So, Allie, you were going to say something a little earlier that we made me past. Yeah, I think the thing that I want to say at top here is, like, as the person in the show who's probably been, like, the mildest on Afra so far, like, I really feel the lack of her presence here. And I feel like these chapters, like, might have been a little bit better if we had had her involved even just, like, as a comedy relief or even just, like, a secondary perspective who would be, like,

engaging in this really interesting culture in a way that, like, she'd actually be interested in it as an archaeologist, or she would, like, have to move through these, like, regal spaces in the formal way that, like, Darth Vader doesn't. Because, like, I, you know... She doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, like, there's a lot to dig into here, and I don't want to act like I was, like, I didn't like this or I wasn't intrigued by the culture, but like the majority of the action is like the princess leads Darth Vader into a room and then like lava comes in and he like cuts a hole and then like jumps up or whatever like we were kind of robbed of the version of this that Rob was talking about in the intro where like we actually had to see the culture and spend a lot of time with it and instead it's like well Darth Vader's going to get followed by these twins and they're just going to be like fighting in this big you know lava pit because it's like cool that we could have lava but like I think you You know, I do think that, like, the fact that Afra isn't Darth Vader is something that's really compelling about her character. And the fact that, like, Afra has to exist in the world and interact with people differently, like, was a missed opportunity on this planet specifically.

Because I think she would have gotten up to, like, hijinks. Or, like, also, like, our only comic relief just being Evil C-3PO. Yeah, I love you, to Evil C-3.O. Would we be the... Is this? Is this comic hitting less well than could if we had not just gone through the HK marathon? I'm okay with Triple Zero.

Okay. The biggest HK. Hater. Mm-hmm. And I think it's primarily because I'm not experiencing it. I don't know.

Like, I'm not. You didn't go into a room but have to do six torture jokes over six minutes. Well, no, but it's like, and then I didn't like come up. a fuck up a like a dialogue tree and I have to like talk to him again for 20 minutes like right like every one of evil C3PO's jokes on the page is 20 seconds if that if that but in Cotor it's like a 5 to 15 minute process and like you have to wait for the animations to load and you have to like go through

all the options and you have to like oh he repeated that thing so I have to go like say that other option and I have to restart the whole conversation like comics are just like very They're snackable. Yes, they're breezy. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. I think that's right.

Also, yeah, is he funnier? Is Triple Zero more or less funny than HK? I feel like it's post-HK and so Gillen as a writer has to go a little further. He has to go to what if this droid wants to add blood-sucking hypodermic needles

to his secret droid army to get the blood. And I don't... I don't... That itself isn't that funny to me. The bit where he lies to know with Vader about it does make me smirk a little bit. The thing about it is

Triple Zero is like a little... He's like... He's weird, but he's not like raffle copter weird. Like the way that HK is just so like lulls to me And it's just like a type of humor That I need us to leave in the past

And that is why this game was made in 2003 and not today Or whenever it was made But Triple Zero like the vampire thing Like wanting to make vampire droids or him being like There was another I think he said in these in these pages that was like just him being kind of a little freak He is more of a freak you're right that's true

Whereas HK was just He's not really a freak he's just Homicidal but he isn't like a pervert about it Whereas triple zero gets off on it HK so there's a little yes there's a little yes there's a little because I was just thinking like he I think it saves him a little bit is Triple Zero for me is a character who like

would kill in the stage play version of this where it's like like doing his little plots then turning to the audience yes I cannot wait to serve them they're just desserts they do not know what I plan to give them in my estimation what they deserve is a swift yet painful death and he has the little

astromech droid to serve as his audience. He's never breaking the fourth wall. He has an audience. Right. His little sidekick. And so HK is just doing this performance at you nonstop. Right. And Triple Zero is assisted in this by like always sort of bouncing these jokes off someone

else who is also like in that layer of irony. But the blood droid thing was also like that was a moment. I was like, I think we're reaching here. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, just to go back to Allie, your point about Afra being potentially someone who could have come here and engaged both as a comic relief, but also like directly with it. It's so easy to imagine that stuff. It's so easy to imagine Afra knowing something about this place and knowing there's a cool jewel she wants to steal and having a whole side plot of her trying to steal that jewel.

And then having Vader take it from her at the end, you know, like there's so. many opportunities for that or have her be a primary interlocutor who can explain some of the world. I do have to wonder if to some degree, I mean, to some degree, we know they're investing in Afra, and so they're getting her into the other book because if they want Afra to be a big Marvel Comics, Star Wars character, then they're going to put her in each of the series and then give her her own spin-off. But I also think here, is it just they really want this to be the Vader and Trios show, Trios being the third child who becomes the queen? And they do. And they do. didn't want him go, they wanted her to explain stuff to him in this kind of like fraught way

because that's like the relationship that the thing is about. I wonder if that's also just kind of like what the decision making was there. I don't know. And also I wonder if like this is just a place that we're not going to come back to. Like I don't know if Shotauron is a planet that we're going to revisit or if we've gotten and everything we want out of it at this point. And if the former, or rather, if the latter, I think it makes sense why Afra wasn't here

because it was like this was Vader's side quest while we let Afra do some stuff on the other comic, and then we're gonna come back together. Can I show you a cover from an upcoming Star Wars? Not upcoming, and already out. But at the time, upcoming. Yeah, at the time, At the time, upcoming so far in advance that no one would have seen this yet.

Here is issue 62 of Star Wars 2015. That is Leia and Trios. This is when Gillen has taken over the Star Wars comic, which he does at around issue 34. Okay, swag? Yeah, it's a pretty good cover. And this cover looks amazing. I kind of like, to me, something they're cool doing that I really like with Trios is this notion that different versions or ideas of what imperial power rests on.

And part of it is going to be like characters like Tarkin directly governing things and like bringing the boot down in person. But also you're going to have an extensive list of proxies and clients who are there to, much as the Senate did, provide a fig leaf of like legitimacy to the fundamentally extractive relationship you have. But also these are people who would start with, you're always looking at places. Where can we start injecting interesting politics into this besides just a mannequin struggle?

Like, Clone Wars had that, like, this is the entire reason Satin has to be there as sort of a non-aligned movement spokesperson is that, well, it can't, things start to get pretty airless politically if it's just the Republican, the separatists. And everyone just sort of locked in on this, like, war to the death. And so you have now other politics, other people who have different objectives that run like, you know, perpendicular to the conflict of the main antagonists. And so having someone like a, like a trios, and also like you can sort of extend this out, the galaxy is probably full of people like trios who, if anyone who's played the Star Wars strategy strategy game rebellion, there's all those planets where you send like a, little diplomatic representative to go and bring them on side into the imperial or rebel struggle. And part of it is going to be finding places that are on paper loyal to the empire and supplying resources, but maybe on some level, would love to be looking for a way out from under.

And so Trio stands in there as a really interesting example. I love what they're doing in the story, both because she represents sort of a Padme or Satin or even Alea like character. but also she's she over the course of this develops an interesting relationship with Vader specifically she learns quickly you can't trust anyone the the the arc opens with her family being wildly untrustworthy that she's clearly the woman who's been running this entire like royal family like this entire rule she is the dutiful um fuck i just forget the the third daughter The good daughter in Lear.

King Lear. Yeah. Is it Cordelia? I always get them confused. I always confused which one is... Yeah, which is the good one. It's Reagan, Cordelia, and the third one, whose name we all remember. Trios.

It's Trios. It's Trios. Because I think... I think the young... Is it the youngest one the good one? I think that's Cordelia. Goneril. Goneril is the oldest one.

But that's, I think that's one of the bad ones. It's one of the bad, too. I'm pretty sure Cordelia is the, like, the one who knows things are going bad and keeps being ignored and all of that. Right. And this is the one that, like, she is the person who clearly, oh, yeah, we don't need you to rule. Like, her dad sort of lays this out. Your siblings are going to rule this planet. But you, you're going to, like, administer the stuff and, like, do the books.

Like, there's kind of this implication that she's been sort of the, well, we need a servant class of royal. I mean, it's even more fucked up than that, right? The way that this arc opens, which, by the way, it opens with the first, the Vader annual, which I don't know if folks have encountered this idea before, if they're not from comics, but an annual issue. So comics run monthly. There's 12 Vader comics a year because of that.

Traditionally, you sometimes get an extra Tuesday every year because you get an extra week. Right? Like some months have five weeks instead of having four. Comics, the big two at least, will often use that as an opportunity to publish an like an extra special one-off issue. Normally, that's a standalone issue. In this case, it's launching an arc. That also happens sometimes. And that is part of why this issue, I think, often an annual gets more resourcing. An annual has a longer page count. It might have a longer run-up time to get produced. which is often why you end up getting really pretty work. I think this is maybe the best this has looked.

This is a different penciler. This is Lionel Francis U. penciled the annual number one. It's why a lot of the characters look different. It's inked by Jerry and Alan Gwillon, A-L-A-N-G-U-I-L-A-N. It's why I think these interiors look so fucking stunning. When they get to like the ballroom, it looks so, so, so good. But that's sort of the shout

that out. It's annual number one. And the opening page is this king looking at his three children. He says, blessed is a king with a sore fed of children. Monthin, my first child. When I am gone, you will have the throne. You will rule this world of ore and fire. You will lead our bloodline into further glory. Hollian, my second child. When I am gone, you will be the celebrant warlord. head of our war faith. You will harvest the blood of those who stand against us. Trios, my third child, your blood will serve in other ways. And she looks very uncomfortable physically. Her stance compared to the first two is she's kind of like cringing inwards as she hears this. And then of course, the next page is the reveal of what this planet looks like, which is like volcano and hexagon

planet. And yeah, I think Rob, it's like, it's even worse than just she's the servant one. She's being sent to killed Arvader. That is how her blood will serve, right? Well, she doesn't know that. Do you like, I don't think so. Because when we get the cuts, when we get the cut scene,

when we cut to him in his little bunker of seeing all this on closed circuit TV, when he realizes the first assassination attempt has basically failed, he sort of laments, he's like, you've been a good daughter. I hoped it would not, it would not have come to this.

He says, Trioz was a good daughter. It's a shame to lose him a tragic accident. That's where he plays the next. So you're right at the staged attack. And Vader and Trioz survive that.

And then Trioz is guiding him to the throne room, effectively. It's on the way that he hits the button that causes the cave in. And I don't think, I think Trioz did not think

she was being sent here as like the Lamb, like she was being staked out to lure Vader. I think that that's the way I've reading that scene. So again, so let's just maybe we'll come through this. Vader is going there to put pressure on them to say, hey, we need more ore now at favorable rates, et cetera. They walk through the big dance hall.

Some other stuff is happening. They land, they crash land a sort of like drop pod through the big ball, a bunch of guys jump out with gatling lasers or like handheld laser cannons that are huge. Vader deals with them. They escape. Rob, the thing you just said about the close circuit TV happens.

But in the, she leads him to a tunnel. She's like, oh, we have to go through this tunnel. This way. We must make haste if the Ord Dukes have more assassins. Vader immediately says,

you're an admirable youth. Your father must be proud. She turns and looks at him and says, you would be surprised Lord Vader signaling no he isn't he isn't proud of me he doesn't love me and then immediately they get closed in and he sees that it's a trap and he says your father should be proud

and I think that's because she has led him successfully into the trap as if to say wow you committed and the reason I say that is because I think this is the moment he decides to keep her he says oh she's got it if she's one who do this for her father she's willing to do this for me because I'll treat her better than her evil father

maybe not literally but I will I know how to work this yeah he says to her you show an admirable willingness to sacrifice for the greater good and that's when lava is pouring into this tunnel

like theoretically she says to him there are no passages there's no escape Lord Vader and like theoretically she knows she's just walked into this tunnel to be incinerated alive alongside Vader. Like, she's the bait to go into this lava trap, right? But he saves both of them.

He flings her over his soldier, cuts a perfect circle. He learns that at the Jedi tumble, as we know. So that's how we know he's a good Jedi. And then the reaction from the father is no impossible. Like, see, like, this, this is not how this was supposed to go. So, like, that, I think, is, was the moment that all of this were, they were working up towards. I think Trios must have known that she, like, I think growing up the third daughter, I kind of assume that she's known most of her life that she was, there was no role for her in this.

Like, there's her brother. Bear and the sacrifice official lamb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's the king of this world of Orrin Fire. There's Hollian who will be a warlord, the second one. And then

the third child named the third one. Yeah. Being named the third one is kind of a signal. Did anybody write all their names down? I did. Monthen. I was like, oh, okay. I was like a month then. Okay, you've got to lock it and learn these character names, not knowing that in 15 pages, most of them would be shot through the head

by a little droid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think it was definitely not the, it doesn't know it was the king's preference, the Trios would die with this. Yes, I think you're right. The assassination plan is the, is plan number one is those guys coming in shoot him in the head,

right? Back up. And this is where, like, again, things that are resonant here, especially for like, like Vader's journey is, oh, here is a manipulated child who has been like pressed into the service of an even evil scheming coward. Like her dad and Palpatine, it's like one to one. Yeah. Like this is Theodin King before they get Wormtong the fuck out of there. Oh yeah. Like it's it's a bad scene. And so she's part Padmae, she's part Leah, but she's also part Anakin, that this is somebody who out of like,

filial devotion has let herself be sacrificed and everything she is, be put in the service of someone who's ultimately too much of a coward and too weak to get their hands dirty themselves. And so that moment in the tunnel where he's like, you know, your father must be proud, he should be proud. This is, I mean, this is Anakin speaking as someone who had his family ripped away from. him, right? And also as someone who is like increasingly across this entire comic, been contemplating where he stands in a relationship to Palpatine. This is like, the movies tell us that

began as a paternal relationship. These comics begin at a point where that illusion has been shattered and Vader is carrying with him this knowledge that no, the actual, the actual chance he had to have a paternal relationship with his children was. stolen from him, partly by his own horrific decisions, but also through the manipulations of Palpatine. And so I like that you have the self-contained episode that it's tricky for a lot of creative works in the space. How do you create these self-contained things that, like, most people who know the broader story of the universe are not going to know this happened? But how do you create meaningful character growth within the parameters of this? how do you feel like, oh, something's going to transpire in the Shoe Turun War?

Right. That's going to be part of journeys, part of Vader's, like, path away from Palpatine's orbit. And I think this moment, realizing that, like, oh, Trio has been dealt a horrible hand here in a way not too dissimilar from I am. And he's going to medit, like, he is symbolically massacring Palpatine. He is doing the thing he couldn't do like 20 years ago. Right. And this time he is the person who has his thumb on the trigger to destroy the king, destroy all the plotters, all in one go. And so he is going to metaphorically slaughter Palpatine and the imperial court in this sort of one-off as he identifies with someone who's a bit like his wife, but like the daughter he doesn't know and a bit like himself.

Right. And then the stakes of the remainder of their relationship is like, who does he turn her into? And there's both the, I don't know for y'all, but like there are moments in this run and we'll get there in this arc where you're like, yes, she's becoming more like Darth Vader. Oh, no. Because it's great to see her decide to take action. And at the same time, what he has done is given her a model for action that we know is a track. tragically underprepared for the moment that's about to happen in the galaxy and for what it means to actually be a good leader to her people. But also it is freeing in a way for both her and him throughout this arc, right? He gets out from under the emperor here a little bit. She gets out from under the pressures that her father had put on her and that the rest of society was pushing her under and like pulling her authority away. And I love that that's like, Rob, the way that you kind of have set this up, that it's like, he has, there's a sublimation of his own situation here, and he's effectively victorious here, but the only victory he can

achieve is a recreation of himself in ways, in his view of the world. And that isn't, he doesn't, he doesn't get her to a place that it's not like one of those classic, like, I'm going to put my child into the successful situation I couldn't reach myself. He just kind of makes someone that is also, who also sees the world in the transactional and violence. way that he does, right? Well, I think this is partly, I think one of the things that's working well about this entire comic run is that it's clear as daylight to us what Vader is doing, what symbolical is happening here.

Like, Gillen is not subtle about this. It's like, look, he put together a dark mirror version of his family and friends from the prequel trilogy. Vader doesn't see that. Not really. Like, it's one of those things where, you know, he can't, because in part, fully recognizing all the parallels and all the things that are wrong in his own story is something he can't really fully put together until return of the Jedi.

It comes to him in facets, right? That's why the realization about Luke is such a like a sort of earthquake moment for him, but he doesn't see all the little ways that he's been sort of insourceled by the emperor and by the manipulation. So we can't fully see that these are dynamics he's creating with these people around him. I also like, you know, here in this stage setting episode, crucially, Trios is brought onto his side, but it's not corrupted. She's not given the choice.

The last moment of like real choice she has is she pulls a gun on him thinking she can still save her family. They are already dead behind the door. Like he's already had the droids massacre the entire royal court. Yeah. But she is trying to save her father and her siblings, unworthy though they may be. And he spins around and chops her hand off. Now we're also, again, this is him. He's recreating himself, but he's recreating also what's going to happen with Luke.

Presting Luke, right. And she's completely at his mercy. And he places the crown on her head. You can see little force waves coming off his hands in the panel where he does. does it, and sort of sitting cock-eyed on her head because she didn't put it on there herself. And then the last time of the comic is a beautiful, a beautiful illustration, is him walking away through the ruins of the throne room while she sits alone amidst the dead, wearing that crown, you know, just sort of bereft. And so, again, it's a, it's a fun place to leave Trios because

there is a question of like, is he just creating another Vader? But I also think there's, kind of a fun stakes here of like now trios has inherited the situation and her what are her directives here and part of it is to survive and part of it is also to maybe be a better ruler to this planet given the limited options than they've had before but she's she's been she's literally been stuck with this job and so how is she's going to how is she going to navigate within this very narrow brief that vaders assigned her which is your going to be my proxy on this planet, you're going to keep things in line. But she doesn't fully want to become his creature. And that is the, that is, that is, that is, that is action that

is driving the rest of this, the story. And it's why I think, I hope that she and Afr meet at some point. Like, it would be fun to have the sisters compare notes. Like, you know, dad always thought you were the smart one. That kind of thing. I'd like to see no idea. Yeah. Their interactions. I showed you those, those covers. I've not kept up with my Star Wars. comic reading. I'm going to stay on Vader for now. And if we finish it, I want to leave the option

for us to maybe go back to it at some point in the future. I don't want to like, unless I have to do again. Unless we hit another thing where it's like I have to read all the Star Wars issues, which maybe I should do

before we get to the next one when Afra comes back, because presumably she's been in the Star Wars comic for these issues. So maybe I should go do that. Maybe in the mom, they'll be like, we need to bring Shoo Tarun

onto the side of the rebellion. But the only way I see to do that is Han, you must court her as a general of the alliance. But wait, you don't have any courtly manners. Leia must teach you. The courtly ways. Right.

Yeah, my fair. But that's what happened. Right. Yeah, exactly. This is also, by the way, at the end of this issue is where Vader gives Trios, the piece of Alderan. He's been carrying this like square box that I thought was maybe a

holocron for the whole issue. And then he kind of drops it or it breaks open. He drops it on the ground. shatters and inside is a piece of alder is a is a rock and she says i don't understand what is it and he says as a princess you served your father as a queen you serve your people this is a small reminder of what happens to world to resist the emperor this is what remains of alderan and she drops it and fear and is yeah completely cowed at this point because how could you not be it's an interesting way he phrases that though too where it's like you have to serve the people yeah

And Alderon defy the emperor. Not me. And this is drawing a distinction, right? Where it's like this, you see it as it's a threat. But it's also a warning where I also have someone. I am enthralled too. This is just what happens when you're on the wrong side of the empire. And so do not think that there is a way out from under this.

Like don't even, like, if you're looking at it as like, Vader kind of likes this kid, there's a little bit of don't delude yourself into thinking there's a crack of daylight you can maneuver for because this is where that like this is the light at the end of the tunnel. It's the Death Star Laser being fired like straight back down at you.

So like again there's little things about the positioning of like when is Vader having a personal relationship for someone? When is he speaking for the emperor, the empire? I find it interesting the way he like positions himself rhetorically to a of these things throughout the story.

Agreed. Speaking of the emperor, we sure get a sea with the evader talking to the emperor and dropping a corpse at his feet. Mm-hmm. I think the emperor drawings here, some of the weaker ones in the book. Unfortunately, I don't love this rendition of our friend Sheave that much. With the big open eyes and you can't put him in full. full daylight. He can't.

You gotta keep his face hidden in the daytime. You gotta. You know when little kids haven't figured out smiling yet? Like, they're, you're like, come on, Jimmy, like, smile for the photo, and

it's kind of like, it mostly looks like a grimace. It's mostly just showing teeth. It's just showing teeth. It's just showing the teeth. That's kind of what what the teeth is. And he's doing that both when he is showing his teeth and when he's trying to smile or smirk here.

It's yeah. Yes. It's tough. As always, Vader looks cool. The city in the back looks cool. I like these compositions quite a bit. And I love the idea of Vader showing up and dropping Carbon, who is a reminder was the Moncal fake General Grievous at his feet. I'm going to defend crapsheave here.

Oh, okay. Oh. Because the arc of the story is Vader unmasking him for what he is. is. And he's a funny little guy sitting in his office. I see. Trying to keep kind of a stupid plot going. Right? Here's your here's your dipshit

Calamari Grievous. And like it is a like Vader increasingly sees him as a funny little man. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Empire Strikes Back hasn't happened yet.

He's still what is my bidding, what is thy bidding my master era of Vader calling him and having deference to him. I think maybe this is the tension of this whole plot is it's one thing to learn that the emperor is moving behind your back, which I really like. But the fact of the way he's moving behind your back is with a bunch of like X-Men

rejects is kind of bad. I don't love, they suck so much. They're all so corny. It is very sheave pivot. And it's very Clone War sheave, actually. Like, but it's not having, just watch those movies. The way that Vader treats

and is kind of caught up in the emperor through empire and most of return, this guy sucks, you know? You're right. In this moment, it does feel like he's seeing through him.

Maybe by the end of the arc, what happens is she will get him back on side in some way. He thinks he will. I think that, for me, the thing that it feels like Gillen has been doing is, again,

there's a question we asked, I think it's like, the thing's, sort of launched us on this is what happens with Vader the second he finds out the name of that X-wing pilot. Yeah. How do you repair that? And I think the answer might be you can't

but Vader needs to patch things up enough that it looks like things are fine so he continue pursuing like his real objective which is get hold of his son. And so I think like because to me it feels like we start from a position of it's almost become an open breach.

Palpatine the first issue is like you you absolutely meathead. You dip shit. I gave you one job. Don't let the star be destroyed. Yeah. And it's destroyed. I am now doing open auditions to replace you. You are so useless. Yeah. And Vader, his borderline mutinous, both in his heart, he's enraged, but also to Palpatine, he's openly defiant here insofar as like when he met the, the Cydos menagerie of, of dipshits, he tells Palpatine. this is gross, it's weird, I hate it, you're full of shit, you don't even believe in the force.

And now he is literally just like bringing bits and pieces of them. And it's like, here's your research project. Chunk. So I think to a degree, like there's work that this entire comic is going to get to where I suspect we're going to figure out, like the thesis of this comic is ultimately going to be, Vader is giving a performance when he is all, what is thy bidding my master. I don't know that I like that, Rob.

That's my point. Because we spent so much time in the last couple of months talking about how that stuff works, how part of what is so fascinating about Vader's relationship to the emperor in those movies is learning the ways in which he's being betrayed, knowing some of it, acting against him subtly, but fundamentally still being tied or leashed

to him in some way. And again, like, maybe by the end of this, we'll see some sort of reapplication of that. But he, she just seems so, this plan just sucks. And it feels like, it feels like bad booking because it means that we have now seen through Palpatine alongside Vader in a way that makes all of that stuff seem, like it is all just a put on. And I don't think that's as interesting as a Vader who was moving through. empire still with devotion and a glimmer of hope that wait maybe my son is out there oh my god that's him

what if we could overturn this guy you know i guess like maybe the version of this is like part of why he becomes convinced he needs to find luke and bring him on side is because of all this stuff this of his inspired vader to be like actually the emperor sucks and maybe the failure of the end of empire is what pulls him back under palpatine's control by the time return happens or something. It's a lot to cover. We're not going to get all of that in this book that takes place before Empire Strikes backstarts, obviously.

But yeah, I... Yeah, I don't know. It's a very... It's a very... It's a very... ...weree a cartoon. I don't... I... Hmm.

He is kind of the Wizard of Oz. No, he isn't, because he actually does do space magic. He actually is a magician, unlike the Wizard of Oz, I suppose. Right? Well, it's also just like... It's... It's not plot armor isn't the word that I'm looking for, but it's almost like they've created

these like action figures that Darth Vader and the emperor can act against each other through because, you know, what happened in Star Wars has to remain in Star Wars. But you want to write a comic about this like tension and the sniping and this like power struggle. But it's just like chess pieces that sort of aren't really that interesting to think through how Palpatine thinks about them, aren't super interesting to think through how like Darth Vader thinks about them besides that the Jedi lady being like, you're the last part of the Jedi, can you teach me the force? And that he just knows how it anyway. So it's like, even if there was something there, there's not something there. And like, I mean, unless the like

imperial droid cyborg lady ends up being really cool. Like the fun intrigue and like Vader having to move through the empire and against the emperor has been through these like little babysitters that we have. That's why it feels like it's such a hit when we have the last panel of what we're going to be coming to, which we'll talk about later. I don't think that like the guy who looks like grievous but is also not grievous is like the best version of the sniping at each other that we can get. Yeah, I think that might be at Allie's like I think I like all of this stuff more.

If it's played like, you know, Rob, you put forward the thing that's like, this is all showing you a little bit that the emperor has no clothes, right? That like, oh my God, this is who the guy is I've been serving the whole time. This guy who like doesn't actually believe in any of this shit and only had and like all of his ideas are like carnival, you know, characters are like weird knockoff versions of real things. And not like the HBO show Carnival. No, which is great. Yeah.

The, I get the direction there, but I think I would have preferred if the five people that the emperor had were like, cool, cool. And he had to deal with them. And we even kind of felt like, damn, it's sex that those people got killed. You know what it reminds me of is the Inquisitors. who we constantly felt like, ah, man, like, this is so, this is such a cool idea. But over and over again, we kind of felt like, yeah, there are moments. One of the the the girls with the drones was cool.

We know about the, yeah, the girl at the drones, it was cool for a couple of scenes. And then, like, and then what? You know, like, it's very similar to me in the sense of, like, on paper, I get where it's going and then in the process. I mean, it's so much worse with them because with these folks, because you got to look at them and they all look like, they all look like comic book characters, which it is.

And maybe that's like intentional. Clearly a choice. It's just kind of an odd one where it's like, the twins are so silver age to to Hellen gone. Yeah. Even the other ones are kind of in a various, you know,

they're doctor carbon. Voigt is 100% doing the Dr. Strange love like Nazi scientists. 100%. And even, and even Carbon, commander carbon feels like, a kind of pulp villain, you know, the squid-headed cyborg is kind of a type.

And so, like, I can get there intellectually, but then I got to read the comic, you know? It's a visual medium, and I got to look at it. And I'm not insulting the drawings here, or even the character designs. I just think that there's, like, what I was hoping for from those interactions don't match up. And let's say, in contrast to, then. who I think it was cool. That first, you know, the tag or Taj in general, I think has worked really well and is a really great, you know, stand in for Vader's relationship to the, to the emperor and the

empire. And like, that stuff has all worked for me. Like when it's being played straight, I think it actually has worked for me pretty well comparatively. And yeah, we'll see. We'll see. You know, ask me in a year when I think about these twins whose names, neither of us, none of us can remember.

Anybody write the twin name down recently? Because I did when they first showed up. But I have not internalized them. Morit and Aillian. Bro and sis. Bro and sis. That's right. Morton.

Yeah, more at Naolin. So you return to the planet. And Trios really wants to, like, she really wants to do it all. she doesn't she she still is actually she still feels like she's like chasing the unworthiness of the like the feeling of being unworthy is the third daughter because she's like I gotta be the warlord and I got to be the queen and so she's out there on the front lines with the stormtroopers behind Vader and he's like you should not be here we're about to do assault on a rebel palace and she's like but I have to be this is this is this is my place um we just differently because my warlord sister is dead remember that buddy you killed my warlord sister so now i have to be the warlord sister yeah it's good and you know they're insulting a impregnable fortress uh which is just cool things here uh things that are this is basically have you seen those huge like excavators uh that they have that like start like new quarries and such where it's like a rolling land battleship uh that

is the size of like two or three city blocks and they just park them in a field and they just slowly it's one of those one of those things that like looks like sci-fi concept are but it's 100% real and that's basically what what the the or lords live in they've turned these things into into their palaces these huge excavators and then armored them and made them proof against frontal assault there's no way anyone could could take it out and that's why vaders brought void gazer with him who I thought was positioned as like one of Cytos, like, lieutenants, but she don't seem to give a shit. And it's weird. She is one of those. She's one of his prod. Like, maybe not. Maybe she's, or she's more from the Tarkin program.

She's one of the, like, this is the future of, like, the emperor's assassins. And she's the nerdy one. She's the nerdy one. But she does also have a direct relationship to the Death Star and to Tarkin. And so, like, maybe that's part of why she works a little bit better than the other ones is, like, she's grounded in a particular history that's aligned or like parallel to Vaders, right? And not just like... Yeah, because I feel like, you know, her and the two kind of watchdog characters are an echo of the sort of like, like disrespect that Darth Vader gets from Imperial officers in the movies in a way that, like is, you know, calling back to that and is a fresh new take on that.

Right. Whereas like the twins are just like, oh, we're doing X-Men now. Right. The watchdog characters, you mean Thanawthon, whatever the first, like, attache he was given that he kills. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Either way, she's here to, like, they can't do direct assault on the fortress, but she's here to provide cool call-down powers on an RTS game.

Basically, the sky cracks open, a giant, laser blast comes to the cavern. And I love this art. One minute you see the intact, like, palace being hit and starting to melt. And the next thing, it looks like a pile of guts. It's because it melts. It looks like just a steaming pile of guts on the ground. It's not an orbital strike.

She's used her drones to blow up the mantle above it, freeing the magma to fall through, which is why you don't build your castle underneath a layer. of mantle above which a bunch of magma is about to fall through. But if I were an o'erlord, that's exactly what I would do. This is the, this is the baby. I'm an o'lord. I got to go delving, Austin. Yeah, I know.

I know. I know. Oh, you're saying I'm a delve too deep? Well, and at first I was like, well, why wouldn't they make this stuff strong enough to withstand that? And I was like, well, because you can't do, da, da, that. But more importantly, the thing that you learn is, Trios is like, the delving citadels are irreplaceable.

Like, when you can't just melt. them like this. You can't, there's nothing left to repair. Like you said, Rob, it looks like guts. It looks like organic after it's all been melted down. It looks like body part organic, not or organic. And the, in other words, like, it's so strategically important, the idea that you would destroy it is completely unimaginable to the ore lords. They spent so much money to build these things that can extract the ore. You would never do this. And Vader is like, I can and I'll do it again. Get ready. Get ready. This is my strategy. My strategy. is destroying the fixed capital that you've invested actually and showing you and your people

that I don't care. I don't care. It's a big thing. The or lords think they're too big to fail. They do. You can't, you can't touch us without your atreably harming yourself. Yeah. And Vader's like, but I want to harm you. That's right. You misunderstand. I'm here to hurt you. The ore is secondary now. You're my problem. She says, it'll never be productive again. And he says, it will never rebel again. Which is, I don't know that,

I don't know that you can extend that strategy indefinitely, but I think tactically, I think it's a clever maneuver, you know? Yeah, well, luckily there are other or dukes to witness, to witness this and

fall into line. But I wonder what the number Yeah, is it like four out of six Or dukes where you start seeing diminishing returns? I'm not sure. Like at a certain point, we maybe shouldn't have fought this war at all and just maybe there is no ore queen. There's just the dukes and we deal with them directly.

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. We get some really great shots of the two of them in the dark. I love the stuff towards the end of this issue. with the two of them talking after having left. I guess Silo and the twins show up in the middle of her palace.

And he's like, oh, what are you? Okay. Why are you here? But then the two, he and Trio's kind of talk through stuff. And this is where she says, like, we're not finished. I'm the queen. And he says, you are. Remember who made you so.

And then she speaks up for herself, which is, I think, part of why things go the way they go. I have the empire's yoke around my neck. For my people's sake, I wear it. But they must thank me a queen. If you treat me so in front of my subordinates, so meaning dismissively, which is what he was just doing. If you treat me so in front of my subordinates, do you think they'll obey me when you leave?

And I love this panel of just the two of them silhouetted in the dark with just enough light coming in from the cracked open doorway that you kind of just see their features. And he turns and walks away. and he says, I will treat you with the illusion of respect. As long as you do not dream to question me in public, she says, it's a deal. And he says, no, it's simply how it will be.

He's got to be Darth Vader about it. She face palms, which is a very... The second time she's done this in this issue. Yeah, which is a very funny action because, like, it's actually kind of disarming. It's a little like, oh, I fucked up. But if you can face palm because you fucked up in front of Darth Vader, that actually means you're kind of doing okay. Because most people who fuck up for Darth Vader get choked dead.

Well, and this is where the, well, and what sets that conversation up, she is 100% not wrong. You can see one of her guardsmen is smirking in the background after Vader has told her, you know, all you have to do is obey. Like, he has undermined her position now fatally. Yeah. Because people think it's funny that she is a nonentity within, within her court. And it also kind of looks like the twins are sort of giving her smirky side eye.

Although the dude just has morton. Morton. Mortit? No, it can't be more tit. Morit. Morit. More it. More it.

Little more it. Little more it. Little more it. Like little Dorrit. Yeah, of course. Little Morit always seems to be smirking at people. But yeah, like she, like Afra, she's taking a similar approach, which is I'm not questioning the power dynamics.

Right. But how you. how we interact within those power dynamics can make this more or less useful and you want things to be most useful to you. And so it's, again, this way of like talking Vader around to being less psychotically impulsive. Right. Yeah.

And getting him to act somewhat collaboratively with his collaborators. Yeah. And then he goes to the boys. I, yeah. Yeah, he goes with the boys. He puts out a message. He says, hey, we want, I want to find Dr. Afra.

I'm putting a bounty on Afra. Dead or alive. Dead or alive. What is happening in this image? What? Such a good question. Is not, did this not, did the proportions of this? The perspective is so weird.

Why is Chrysanin so? Is he sitting? Maybe he's sitting. He's tiny. They look a little weird. I well it's tough because the little guy who's at bbox is like short is like a smaller statured character like is like a dwarf in in in lord of the rings or something but then like the the gand is really kind of big comparatively and the IG is the same height as i i like i dangar's

small but is dangar small or huge because if you look at him next to the little gan he's tiny But if you look at where he is compared to Chrysanton, he's gigantic. It's a hard perspective. I think this is a hard set of characters to get on to a single page like this. Maybe you should have been a full, because he's sort of locked in by the top panel, which is the Vader side of the call. Maybe you should have just given the two-thirds vertical space for this family photo of the bounty hunters. That's all. Because the thing I do like is we're setting up the notion that, oh, yeah, an empire is actually Vader.

revealing the fact that when he really needs something done, he actually calls in outside contractors as a matter of course. Like, all right, well, the fleet's kind of shitting the bed here. I'll call in my boys. And that I like, actually. I like calling in the nenderroid nenderoid boys. I would get these figs 100%. They do kind of have little guys you buy.

for your desk proportions. Yes. For sure. That's chibi chrysanin to me. Yes. Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.

He's even doing like kind of like a, chippy, chippy smile. Like, he's doing like the, the, like, colon three face. He is. He is.

He is. He's really cute. Maybe he had a really good day. Maybe he just had a really nice treat. Maybe he had, like, a cupcake right? Yeah. he's giving cupcake he's he's giving cupcake uh and then yeah they're going to go out and try to find afra that's good that's good um should go well yep meantime lava uboat

lava you boat this is uh barren what's his name rubics rubics rubics baron rubics has i didn't figure out until the very end was the dude who was being aggro about the dancing Yes, who Vader had to force throw while walking through the dance, the dance hall. Yeah. Yeah. There's always that person at the party, though, that's like, hey, you should hit the floor. What are you doing? What are you doing standing over here drinking?

I'm medicating my social anxiety. What the fuck does it look like I'm doing? You should get out there. No. No, that actually is such a terrible vibe at the party to be like accosted by someone who is like trying to drag you onto the dance floor. And by the way, it's not a good song playing right now. It's not a good song playing.

It's like some some top 50 like tween birthday party music. Is that the chain smokers? No. I'm not dancing to the chainsmokers. Yeah.

I'm not. We're not. It's, you got to come to me. You got to meet me where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this guy's revolting. We get another really sick

ore palace built into the mountains and the volcanoes. And we get, we get the U-boat. Whatever this stuff is made out of that can sustain itself through magma. But then just gets tin can, like can opener by lightsabers,

which this plan sucked then because Vader's here? Yeah, well, so he just cut it open. He is kind of lava. Okay. Okay, but if I had a, if I had a submarine that could be a submarine through magma, I would probably make the false assumption that it can stand up to lightsaber. Well, and also, again, like, this is extremely, like, shitty royals or nobles, right?

Yeah. This is, these are, these are mining, these are extractive, like, like, it's an oil kingdom. Yes. Like they're not actually good at stuff these guys. Like they don't, they might have the ore lords. They're not their mining. They didn't design any of this shit. And so they're proud of their little U-boat.

And, you know, maybe they have this stuff from a different era when they all fought amongst each other. But they don't do that anymore. They've been unified under the O' king or whatever for so long. Now the O' Queen that like they don't, they're not on their game when it comes to like doing raids with the ore you boat, you know. I love this maneuver. where she is going to evacuate, the queen is going to evacuate her palace so that she can escape

from the U-boat. And Vader just kills, or I guess he doesn't kill, but he tosses the pilot aside and takes the escape ship. Basically quotes Tarkin. Oh, he does. Like evacuate, I think not escape. I think not. I think not.

Yeah, yeah. And then he, along with the twins, goes on a raid. Raids the submarine. and then tries to leave them to die because the plan to defeat the submarine which is a pretty good plan is just cut holes in it and let it get filled up with the magma

though I have to imagine again if you're building this shouldn't you have so sort of doors that can lock down and prevent like just like a flood like if your submarine is flooding like a Titanic situation where you have the extra I mean the Titanic situation

was another situation where a ship did sink Right, but they did have the backup. Right. But they just, they just fucked up too hard. It was just too bad. It was real bad. I guess like a lightsaber is kind of like an iceberg in Star Wars. Hold on.

Yeah. Gellon actually covers this in the script. Okay, great. He has them cut holes in both sides, but along the way they destroy every bulkhead. so that the water tight, the lava tight doors. The lava tight doors. Once it's no longer honeycombed, he's cut down the internal structure so that it'll just fill. I see.

I see it now. I see it. So that's like basically what happened to the... Titanic. Titanic, right? Yeah, the lights are. Titanic, they didn't build the bulkheads all the way up to the top of the hall. There's no way it was the ship.

The show tipped down far enough. The water started making it to the parts of the hall that didn't have watertight. structure running all the way through. A lot of L's on that design, really. Yeah, in retrospect. Can't sink this thing unless the, like, unless the ship were to start to, like, dip as it fills with water, but you wouldn't need to worry about that.

Yeah, impossible. How could that happen? It's a tragedy. It's not funny. It's not funny. It's not. But it's a horrible thing that happened. In a vacuum, the, the terrible design is funny to point out.

Yes. I'm sorry to anyone who lost somebody on the Titanic. Any of you are listening, you have my heart in this moment. I mean, you know, culturally, we all lost someone. Like, we all, we all, like, we're all yearning for Jack. Jack, yeah. We're thinking about the band. Yeah.

We're thinking about the guy who built the Titanic who we kind of liked because Victor Garber is really charismatic, even though we kind of are just dunking on him here because he did build the shitty ship. Yeah. Well. Anyway, Vader sinks this one. tries to leave the twins behind, but they managed to not force jump.

They managed to robot jump their way back aboard the escape ship and head back home. And then Trioz is getting a lot of static from her chancellor, who is very like

little girl, I've served the royal family for years, and you need to, he's presenting it as all being in her interest. None of it's actually that wrong, right? He's basically saying, you're endangering yourself, your position is of a war leader and a ceremonial one at that, not a warrior to be involved in silly adventures. This is actually pretty much true. Like, she should not be sitting there with an SMG on the front line of the assault on the

ore baron's castle. He does have her there, but the tenor of it, the silly little adventures, these are all warning signs that this is this situation is not going to remain static but Vader looks like he's about to chop this dude down right then and there and Trios calms him down like he just Lord Julie

just got real excited yeah and they're going to go after another Citadel right hey what do we take because we turn the page here and we get Silo being like if Vader knew what he owed me

you know I'd get some respect maybe because he doesn't call him he just calls him silo he doesn't call him Dr. Silo do we think silo was like part of the Vader project like building

Vader's body or something or his like robotic parts cyborg parts maybe I mean the fact that he's so slighted at Vader not referring to him as

Dr. Silo and just silo, he remarks on it. He says, not even a doctor. Yeah. If he knew what he owed me. Yeah. I wonder if he was a part of the life-saving medical team. And yet right there, life-saving is doing so much work. And this might explain why Vader's gratitude is limited.

Right. I mean, Natalie, would you be rolling up on Vader and just being like, How's that working for you? You like the suit I made for you? Would that be your move? Well, it's important to check in with your patients and follow up and see how they're doing. Give them, you know. I was thinking, what if we get the reveal that he's just like literally in the scene from Revenge of the Sith and we just never noticed him?

Oh, my God. I mean, I haven't, I haven't checked that scene. What if there is a guy who looks like this in that scene and we just never noticed him because he's just like Imperial Bureaucrat 7? Somebody would have added us on Twitter. Somebody would have added us on Twitter by now. Somebody would have been like. Maybe they don't want to spoil it for us.

Maybe they're trying to be nice. That's never stopped. No, there's, there are people who can't resist. There are people. The scene is pretty well framed on Darth Vader on the medical plan, you know. in the background. I guess it was foggy, you know, anything is possible. It's probably just a, it's probably just a Mara Jade situation where he was just,

he was there, but just like, just right off screen. That's really funny. He was holding the clipboard. He was holding. He was reading the charts. God. But, you know. I guess we'll find out.

We'll find out if that's the guy, because we only have one more book in the Vader comic after this. So I believe. We also... Really? I believe that's right. I'll double check. General Tash stock is going down.

Yeah. Which again, he is like what I kind of like here is he is a man who knows he's Rosencrantz and Gilden's turn in this story. Like he kind of knows that he is too small a figure

for the stage he find himself upon. And so he's, he's complaining to Silo Silos, Sival asked Tash what do you think of the worst progress? And Tash says exactly as frustrating as you'd expect. I'm not fool enough to deny that Vader is great, but great is not good. The storming of the magma submersible is an example of his many flaws.

Vader is not exactly overconfident, but you cannot gamble like he does. He wins grand victories in the same amount of time. I win a thousand small ones. He can win battles, not wars. clearly the campaign must end favorably, but it would be good if it was seen that is the empire who triumphs, not Vader. I feel like when your line

about like the value that you provide versus someone else is he wins grand victories and the amount of time I win a thousand small ones, I don't think that sounds good for you. Yeah, I would use a different word other than grand. I would use like, Superficial Worse.

Strategic? Well, no, you know. Superficial, flashy. Super, yeah, exactly. Flashy is, you know, yeah, he has flashy successes. I have tactical ones. I have strategic ones.

It is a little bit Caleb Heron guy on the other side of the phone. Like, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You're so right. Yeah.

Oh my God. Cana Heron for like three years ago. It was. Holy shit. I think that was his big break. That's a one. wild. That's a great video. Oh, my God. He's exactly...

I got to tell you something. I like Caleb Heron. I get a lot of Kayla Heron content. That might be his best video. That might still be the best one. It's hard to top as all. Anyway. Yeah, I think you're right, Rob. I think this is the weakest he's looked, which is a shame. It doesn't help that as silos and silos crew stock goes down,

Tags does by extension or Tadges does by extension, you know? It's just like he's not, like, when Thanath felt like he was maybe Tash's guy, I was like, okay, cool, like that's a good, that's a good association. But now his associates kind of suck. And it's like we're seeing him get any dubs. It would be cool if we saw some of these dubs, you know? Yeah, like, what does a thousand small victories look like? What where?

Well, especially with the guy who we know is a spreadsheet champion. Do you know what I mean? Like, did he tick something that was in the red into the black? You know, did he like get rid of paper straw, you know, whatever, paper straws from the, the imperial fleet and see that the numbers in the kitchens went up to a plus of, you know, $12 a year. And he's like, another win for tash. Like, he's like, he switched the toilet paper to two-ply and he's like, they'll never notice the difference. Did you see that video yesterday that was going around? That was someone who took the Star Fox cut scenes and redubbed them to be the Cronerian general calling them and being like, hey, since you killed 810 or 8,100 enemies, there aren't that many in Andres's army.

How did you get those? And then it's like Star Fox and co giving him the math that they do where you get bonus kills if you use a charge shot and then you get a multiplier. If you get a charge shot that you didn't lock on. And he's like, no, that's not how, no. And then you get points for you, blow up asteroids. That's what Tage is doing. He's out here doing some imaginative, you know, accounting with his thousands of little wins. He's got multipliers on.

He's got multipliers on. He's also a little bit of like, they're all salesmen in the Empire Incorporated. Where he's pissed at like, Bader doesn't do volume. Vader doesn't, he doesn't, he only sells the good properties. Give him some of the shit I got to move. the shit I got to sell. He's complaining like Vader has better leads. Yeah.

He's like, he's got the good leads. Of course he's making sales. Of course he's closing. Look at the shit I got. There's a bit. I'm like, I'm a grinder. Yeah. And it's like, but yeah, okay.

So Vader, Vader brings the same amount in, in a week that I bring in in a quarter. But like, they don't, they don't see like all the little wins I'm getting. Somebody's got to move these units. Also, who brings in the snacks?

this guy. I'm the one who's making sure the kitchen in the office has the little Welsh's fruit snacks. That's me. See, this is, doesn't care about camaraderie like that.

This is the mistake like if you're doing the like, you know, I got I got to get on LinkedIn and drop this actually. I shouldn't be giving this away for a free here. I should be putting this on LinkedIn. This is what Tash has to teach about like when you've been promoted above like peers.

it's like you got to shed that mindset of your competition, you've got the promotion. You don't have to keep proving why you got the promotion. Now they work for you. So their wins become your wins. And so Taz should have been like,

I'm High General Taz and hey, Vader. I remember both of us? Thought the Death Star was a little fucked up and stupid. We were sure right. And it's sure a good thing that we both made it off that piece of shit. Up top, buddy.

And you know what he needs to be doing? This is what he needs to be doing. be doing. He doesn't just... He doesn't... That too. He doesn't just get his thousand little wins. Oh, Vader's grand wins? Those are my grand wins. Vader reports to me.

Yeah. What do we... It all goes into your report. It's, yeah. Vader, thank you. What another great success we've had. It's just like that. And Vader can be mad at you about that, but he's going to keep winning and you're going to keep reporting up to the big guy that you got another

big win. Come on. Don't be threatened by the fact that Vader and has a direct line to the emperor. They're on the outs. You've got to just say, like, hey, you know what? Let me become that relationship manager. That's right. Like, hey, Chancellor, Emperor Palpatine.

Look, I get, Vader's a difficult, he's a difficult subordinate. I will take that off your plate. You'll talk to me. That's right. We'll have our monthlies, and I'll be dealing with Vader. And listen, Vader, I don't, I don't,

Darth, I don't mean to presume, anything. I know you and the emperor go way back and I don't want to get in the middle of anything, but I know that there is a line sometimes between a personal relationship and a business relationship, and I want to be a facilitator. So just you let me know where I can fit into that relationship and take some things off your plate. It's not a problem. I like doing this. It's why I do this work. You know, it's why I got out of IC and got into management. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to be as hands on anymore. I'm happy to bring the best. I wish I could. I wish I could. Look at these PowerPoints.

I've got to, I've got the 12 decks I got to get ready for you. I'm right. I'm going to do after these invasions. Those big wins. I put together a deck for 12 invasions. They green light three of them. You know? I get my heart set on all 12.

I don't get to do all 12. I wish I got to do all 12. You get to do everything you set your mind to. That's why I got to tell you, I am a little jealous. I'm a little jealous. I admit it. But I want you to keep succeeding because when you succeed, we succeed. like part of me

I'd love to trade jobs I would I would but I know that only you can do what you do that's true the force and the lightsabers

and all that we just went different we went a different path we took different and it's just so awesome to see you grow like it's actually so cool for me

to watch you shine like that is a gift to me actually to see you out there doing the damn thing. Like, props to you. It's useful for me.

Because you know what? Other people are trying to compete with you. You bring the whole average up because no one else is shining like you, but they're all trying, you know? I'm learning from you, actually. I've learned so much. So this is, if General Tass just had gotten that mindset, the history of the entire Galactic Civil War is different.

It's different. Sorry, I've been transcribing that LinkedIn post this whole time. I'm going to post it. No. My phone will sing. She's out there stealing my wins. No, but when I win, you win, Rob. That's what we just learned.

It's true. It's so true. Thank you for taking that initiative for all of us. The history could have been so different. It could have been like just there's an alternate version of this. like, Tash is like bro in the fuck down

with Vader and they got that like mentor-mente relationship and Vader's like the emperor kept my son's existence from me.

And then Tash has a moment to be like, okay, I probably can't diffuse this conflict. So now I got to just pick a side

and you get some room to maneuver, right? Where it's like, it's true. True. Like, Vader,

I've got like, you know, you know, you know I've got a lot of superstar destroyers. Yeah. You want to go take a few and we'll get your boy.

Will you get your boy? Wow. Like this is, this is important to me. And we'll deal with whatever that means for the emperor. We'll deal with that later. You're the priority right now. It almost doesn't matter if they didn't succeed because he's committed material resources

to something Vader cares about. And that will earn his trust. I have a different read of how that situation goes, which is Tage says you know, we should talk, we should, we should make a meeting. We should schedule a meeting to talk about that. How about how's three weeks from now? I really want to talk to you about that. I want to get to know more. I want to hear more about that. How about three weeks from now and then reschedules it into oblivion and they never talk about it ever again? Or worse, Vader's like, that sounds good. And he shows up and HR is there in the meeting already. He's like, what are you, what are you doing? It's like the scene for, in the beginning of a burn after reading where he comes in

and the guy's like Smith, what are you doing here? You know? Well, Darth, it's that time. This is, you're my bro. Yeah,

he's fatal flaw. That's right. You'd be like, there's a pipeline. You know, I respect the pipe line. I respect the chain of command. This is how we handle things.

It wouldn't even be appropriate for me to act without us going through channels here. Like eventually, we're going to have a sit down with, with Emperor Palpatty.

The Palpatine himself. He's already crossed the situation. Like, we're not having anything. This is like, he's a cross- You know, we're not going around behind his back. Yeah, no, that's pretty ground. H-R's here for you, Vader. I thought you might want them here.

Yeah. For you. Speaking of mentorship. I need to hear, because Ali, I just have to say, yes, while we've been putting people, on incredible manipulative corporate game here. The phrase that has been wringing in my head is $1,000 or dinner with Rob Zacki.

I'm going for the dinner. Wait a second. Wait a second. Jay Z, it's a million dollars you're doing with Jay Zee, but Rob Zaki, it's a thousand dollars. Wasn't a million dollars? I thought for Jay Z was $5,000. No, it's a million.

Okay, it was a million. It was a million. It was why you take the million. All right. You might take the $5,000. thousand. I don't know. Maybe you take 5,000 you might take dinner with Jay-Z. I don't know.

It depends on your situation. 5K in the pocket. It's 5K in the pocket. A million is always cut and dry. You take the mill. Because I'm not going to get anything That's capital. That's capital. You know what's more...

The great thing about capital is that once you have it, you don't actually have to be good in anything or make good decisions. Use that capital. There's a phrase that stuck with me, which is, like, Like, becoming well-to-do is difficult. Become a millionaire is impossible. Once you're a millionaire,

becoming a billionaire is inevitable. Right. And it's just kind of the progression of once to get that million. Damn, let me get on that pipeline. I mean, this is the thing is, I feel like if you take the dinner with Jay-Z, you get dinner with Jay-Z once. You take the million. You're opening the door for many dinners with Jay-Z.

Yeah. You know? Exactly. There's a little bit of, have you all seen the Blackberry movie? Yes. Oh my God. Such a good movie.

I advise everyone should see this movie because it's actually extremely funny. It's, um, what's the, what's the, it's good actually? It's actually really good. What's the name?

It's not like the Jerry Seinfeld Chips movie? No. No, it's directed by Matt. Yeah, Matt Johnson, who is of Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie fame.

Right. And there's a great scene in it. So it's a movie about the Blackberry devices, you might remember them, about their rise and fall. And there is an incredible sequence towards the end of the film when things start to fall apart when they lose a deal with one of their AT&T, one of their telecom companies, in which the guy from AT&T is like, there's only a minute in a minute. That's the problem with the old model of sales.

selling minutes. Data, you can sell as much of it as someone uses. But if you're selling people a thousand minutes a month or whatever, there's only a minute in a minute. But think about if someone wants to buy, think about charging a dollar for a megabyte. Well, guess what? I get to charge you for every megabyte you spend. And you can spend, you can use a lot more than a single minute of phone call time, you know? And I think there's a little bit of that. here, you know? There's a little bit of, there's only a million,

or there's only a dinner with Jay Z and a dinner with Jay Z, but in a million dollars, you know, there's only $5,000, there's only $1,000. This is the thing is, I think it was the other way with Rob Zanney. There's only $1,000 and $1,000,

but a dinner was $5,000. That's, that's definitely what I'm picking. Where are we? You know, who wants dinner of Vader is, not more it aolin

aileron it's not aileron that's a thing that goes on a airplane what is it aolin aolin aolin a olin a olin a i o'l l o'an iolin either way

yeah she's starting to realize that things are auguring poorly for her as well yeah uh and I like this maybe it's all put on trying to earn invaders trust, but there's also a bit of, they're kind of weird fake force users, right? There's something kind of tragic about their law, which is like, you're sort of a resurrected synthetic version of an old order.

And you exist divorced from that context and given no real guidance and you're alienated from everyone because there's only like two of you, and you both kind of suck. and the people who can actually teach you how to use your abilities are all gone because you're not actually like fully Sith empowered. Yeah. And so she comes to Vader wanting to know when we fight who will win

and what she means is not fighting Vader. What she means is that she has figured out that eventually she and her brother are going to have to turn on each other. And Vader you know, he tries to put her on game basically. You have been sold to fantasy child.

There is no future for either of you. And she begs him that help me, train me, spar. I want to be as good as I can. I was a child when the Jedi disappeared. You were a living artifact. If those times can never live again, let us honor that martial memory as best we can.

And Vader just says the lessons I have to teach would be of no use to you. I will do nothing for you. And that is the last, as the first and only time she will reach a handout to Vader in this and leave it to you whether or not that was that was real or or play to sort of earn his confidence. Yeah. I it's they're so pathetic.

I had to go back and remind myself of what their deal was because yes it is that they have like they don't have the force. They're kind of like cybernetic mockeries. the way that I think Vader describes them, but they're from a rich family that paid Silo to do this research. They're like the Sions of the Astarte family. I had to go back and double-checked this. The Astarte line of Selenon funded much of my early work. This is from issue six. Generally smart, forward-facing. Their mistake was to be secessionists in the Clone Wars. The Astarte feared retribution and pass their children to me to use in a way to redeem their line.

They have been in my tender care ever since. Mort and Aolan spent their formative years learning lessons, which could be roughly paraphrased as Hail Palpatine. They've had the best genetic tweaks in combat training ever since. Into their perfected flesh, I have placed the very finest technology. They were once mere humans. Now they are something considerably more. And Palpatine says, and twins, so I have a spare.

because that's who he is. It's really sad, the stuff of her coming to him and being like, yeah, I know my brother and I are like doomed to fight each other. Can you help me get the dub? And Vader is like, I had nothing for you. Which is interesting because we know that he is not, you know, it's hard not to read some gendered relationships into this because this keeps happening to him. is surrounded by women in these comics who he has decided whether or not to use. And for Afra and

now Trios, he's like, yeah, I can make you work for me. I could figure out how to make that happen. But he doesn't see that in her. And maybe that's just like she doesn't have it like Trio and Afra. Maybe there's some other angle we could we could read into it. Like what separates her in this moment from Trioz and Afra? Is it that she is in a position of some, nobody she isn't, because she's, again,

she's a cast off, just like, just like Trios sort of was, right? Why doesn't he take her up on this and turn her into a weapon the way he's done with Afra and, at this point, of course,

he has already asked for Afra dead or alive, so maybe he's done with her. But you know what I mean. I just don't see his relationship with Trios or Afra really being a relationship of mentorship, which is what, it feels like Aeolan is asking for from Vader is like teach me show me like show me and also by the way

it's not to serve Vader it's to defeat her brother who she knows she's going to be put up against like it's not for it's not like it's not for some cause that Vader is aligned with and also it doesn't even really feel like Vader Vader isn't recruiting anyone to his cause. He's not like gaining followers or bringing people into his influence. He's purely like accumulating tools to deploy for very specific purposes. And I don't think, I don't, I think Luke is the first time he actually identifies somebody as an

apprentice as somebody he could teach, as somebody, you know, I think he's like holding out space for Luke rather, like no one else is going to go. Who else could be his apprentice but his own son? Like there's no one else that could kind of meet that same potential. She is a mockery of a thing he believes in. Yes, like she has already rejected the force. Like they're, they're, you know, of this like, they're anti-Jedi. They're like of this like new, new age kind of vibe that they've invented for themselves that rejects the force.

It's just, yeah, it's, I think it's, it's silly. Yeah, maybe it's not deeper than she just called him a living artifact, right? Yeah, that's the thing for me is that like she's really coming here with the. wrong argument. Like, you know, we started the... We started this series of comics with, like, Vader reacting

to the Hutt warlord or whatever, like, reacting badly to not being able to split the difference between what a Jedi and a Sith is. Right. So for her to come and be like, oh, you're the last living artifact of the Jedi. Like, can you please teach me everything of this, like,

dying thing that I wish that I could believe in Vader's like, no, fuck all. Like, I'm not trying to be the representative of what the Jedi is. Like, I believe in the force. I believe in the power of the force. I am a victim of the will of the force, right? But he is not trying to be the last Jedi. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The bounty hunters show up. We got her. We got Afra. And then they show him a skeleton. And he's like, that's not. This is a silly little aside, but also it's like, this is why people don't like bounty hunters.

This, this is why your business has a bad reputation. Because it's like, Vader's like, I need you to find this girl. And guys, like, what if I just found a big pile of ashes and just dumped it on the floor? And it's like, give me a million credits. I bet there's something that happened in the Star Wars comic that answers this. Like he disintegrated something and thinks it's her, but really she snuck away with the help of Han Solo's fake wife or whatever, you know? I'm sure there's some fake wife I forgot about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure there's some gag over there that this is a punchline too. Maybe I'm not sure. Maybe this guy is just like a dummy like that. Well, I mean, many such cases, speaking of dummies, the war isn't going to. for the o'lords. And so they're trying to figure out pretty far into this.

Yeah. Who they're up against. And we get in the sort of the council of barons, someone telling Rubik's as Rubik's being in a spiral over how much material has been lost. Rubik's, there's no time to think of your fortunes.

Who is this Vader? He achieves the impossible. How can we fight him? we are people of metal we deal with the hard facts of ore and profit this is sorcery I guess this is an example of how well under wraps like you don't think of Bader as being like

a figure in the shadows but maybe he really has been like barely secretive in how Palpatine rolls him out I don't know because it sort of seems like I feel like even I feel like you really should know this though you should have some idea like

this is one of those things where even if the empire isn't like cutting together like their social media managers are not going out there being like another another great day with the boss and showing them like brofisting with Vader and things like that even if the empire's not doing that

you should you should have an idea of what this guy he showed up and killed the whole royal family like in five seconds. Yeah sorcerer feels like the type of thing people who don't like him have been saying about him. Y'all didn't pick up on that? That didn't make it down. Maybe they're, you know what? They don't got the internet.

You know what I mean? They're under the magmower layers. They have not been up on the vid feeds, you know? They haven't seen him. Okay, but time out. He did float that guy in the air at the party. That sorcery probably. Yeah.

That is some magic shit. And that's probably where I would have started to anticipate things we got fucked up if you tried to fight him. Yeah. I'd remember the part. Yeah. And then body slammed without him ever touching me. Yeah. Instead they go to silo.

They go to silo who says, I can't, you know, uh, uh, basically says like, I can give you Vader. I'm not going to betray the empire, you know, uh, that I can't do for you, but I can give you Vader. fucked our Vader in particular. We'll see how that goes. Bad. Sorry, I turned the page. It goes bad. Another installment of our fast-growing genre. Okay, boys, we got Vader right where we want him.

A hundred of us and one of him. He'll never get out of this. This keeps happening for some reason. It's so crazy, but Vader keeps. winning when he the odds are against him I don't I don't know they he so Vader is in like a big drill ship so on top of the U-boats they have these like drill bases that can go through the solid material but it hits bedrock Minecraft bedrock or something and that diverts him to the wrong

like something's been sabotaged so it turns at the wrong place he should have turned left at Albuquerque. And instead he falls into like just a big open pit and is immediately surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of Rubik's, Barron Rubik's dudes, Rubik's dudes. And they try to jump him. And at the same time, he has now separated communications-wide from, wise from Trios, who the kind of stakes on that side or like the setup on that side is that she doesn't know it, but she probably will have enough dudes to win her side of the fight without Imperial backing, but she's surrounded by people being like, we can't do that without Imperial backing. And she's like, I actually trust we're going to get Imperial backing.

Vader will clean this up. We should go forward. And that's kind of like what's happening in her side of things. Meanwhile, hundreds and hundreds of guys are trying to attack Vader and the twins who are on Vader side at this point still because that's where Silo is, you know, that's part of the ploy, Yes. And then a strange triple zero aside where they're trying to figure out of this trap. And triple zero goes and he rounds up the geocean battle droids.

But then he's like, I have something to add to this conversation. This is very weird. And you know what? Actually, I hated this, but actually coming around on it because it's like, it's triple zero as weird fucking guy that you work with that would just like start. saying absolutely unhinged shit in the middle of a, I think I have something, I've got a plan. Okay, well, what is it? Well, why is the force indifferent to droids? And so he leads everyone on like the, well, I guess they're dead to the force.

He's like, no, no, no, no. No, droids are living beings. But we aren't organic. We don't have blood. And then he posits We drain human blood And use it to drive an engine of my own design I have the technology

It's a relatively simple battlefield modification Plus ingenious extra features They can refuel on the battlefields From injured opponents or generous Or generous allies By inserting a probe into an artery to No That's very

Vayner's. No. Yeah. Think of it. A droid more man than machine. And then you'll regret pressing this droid. I kind of like Vayner just being like, you just wasted everyone's fucking time. Your fucking stupid blood droid idea.

God damn it. He knew he was falling for it. Right. Two pages ago, Triple Zero is like, I have an idea. And Vader's like, this is not the time for jokes. And Triple Zero is like, I'm serious. And then we get two pages of him pitching this. We get a whole page from pitching this invader having to be like, dude, no, absolutely not.

But it works. We don't see it. We don't see it, but like the fear it creates. Like, we, yes, it takes their morale. And I think, I think actually triple zero is onto something in that there's this fear. of Vader as this kind of sorcerer, right? There's like this like unknown, how is he doing this?

What is this magic, this evil magic that he's doing? And to me, blood-sucking droids is kind of in conversation with that. It's like, this is the droids evil source. So I don't know, I just, maybe there's something about this culture that has, one, a lack of understanding of the force, clearly.

and two like I don't know just like a fear of evil like maybe there's vampire lore in their you know in their culture or something

maybe there's just like something sinister to this that is really affecting their ability it works they take the morale all the guys are like fuck this I don't want to go against

the fucking vampire droid I wouldn't want to I would be absolutely out of there. You can, yep, no, not I'm good on that. I'm good. This is, this feels a bit like also. That bit on sports, not sports center. I think it was one of the morning shows

where Woj just started positing like, what's happening in Utah? Oh, that's, like, starts drawing the constellation of unrelated, like, recent transactions on the free agency market. And it feels like he's building towards something. And then he's like, and so with all this happening, I'd simply be asking myself, like, what's happening in Utah? Yeah, that was, it was Brian Windhurst, Windhorst. It was Windhorst. It was Windhorst. It was Winhorge. Okay. It was not Woge. I'll link the, I'll link the, I'll link the GQ article that has an oral history of this

moment in the show notes along with that star fox clip and some some other stuff yeah it's uh it just feels occasionally with destroyed you get those moments where it's like enters a fugue state where he begins just like ideating uncontrolled saying shit uh yeah then we get we get queen trios finally stepping up against chamberlain julie julie uh who has our chancellor he's been a chamberlain in the first few pages. Now he's a chancellor. And we get the very classic, you know, you're not going to shoot me. She has him at gunpoint. He gives a big speech. You're not going to shoot me. And she, of course, says, of course not. I'm queen now. I have people to shoot for me. Kill the traitor.

Kills him, goes to war despite not knowing if Vader's forces are going to go support her. I'd say this in general might be, this is a cool moment. But I think this issue is probably the weakest of the set for me because it's the most like, all right, we're rerunning another big lava fight is happening and like the two subplots. I like her kind of standing up for herself here, but the stuff that happens in the next issue with her, I think is more interesting. And I kind of just don't care about the twins because the end of this issue is the twins finally try to jump Vader and lose and he separates himself from them. And I guess actually that doesn't finish until next issue either, right? They just kind of jump him and then this issue end.

he pushes them away. So I don't think you can build a whole issue around vampire droids. I think it's, I mean, you could actually if you did it, if you built the whole issue around it. But we don't really get that. And then the last issue, I believe. No, there's still two more, right? Because it's 19 and 20, right, in this reading. Am I right about this or is this the last one?

19's the last one. 19's the last one. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we, she goes to war as promised. The twins fight as promised. And the alien falls into the lava. It's pushed into the lava by Morit.

Yeah. Really, but she was the better of the two. Yeah, she was the better of the two. And also, like, big L for her to be like, I'm going to have to do this big battle with my brother someday. Like, I'm going to have to do this, like, crazy 1V1 duel. And instead, her ass gets pushed into the lava. They don't even actually fight at all, right?

No, not at all. It's like she's standing there. You know, they're kind of a couple paces behind Vader and then are like, just kidding. We can't believe you trust us. We're here to attack you. And Vader's like, I actually knew that all along. Like you could never pull the rug out from under me. I'm always aware and everything is going exactly as I have foreseen.

And then she saves Morit from, they're like fighting each other on this, you know, kind of craggy rock bridge. And then she saves Morit from... being shot, or no, that's her bullet. She does save him. She saves him from being killed by Vader. She launches the, right, I see, I see. I hadn't really understood what was happening. She actually creates the chasm.

Yes, she shoots an explosive round where Morit is fighting Vader, which then blows up the gap or the bridge between them, separating them, and says, I don't think we can ever beat Vader. And then he pushes her in the lava. You won't. You won't. Yeah. Yeah, I hadn't really read those images

closely enough. That's what happens there. Yeah. And then it just disappears? He goes, yeah, the field things until we meet again. And then he's just not in the next page.

Yeah. He's just gone. And Vader rescues Aeolin from the lava. Well, sort, sorry. Yeah, he does. You're not wrong. He does rescue her.

Then what? I mean, she's fucked up. They will even show us what he pulled out. She's not there. She's just like a cape. But she's a talking cape. Does he wrap her in his cape? Oh, maybe that is her.

His cape. That's kind of nice of him. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's a shot where she's like the pain. He says it'll soon pass. Tell me everything now. But it looks like he's,

raptor in the cape. Yeah. And all you can see is like little bits of like burn flesh. Well, he doesn't take his cape off. He's just kind of like Batman wrapped her. You know what I mean? Like he hasn't removed.

That cape can grow and shrink. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry about how tall it is. Exactly. And then she gives him a USB key, which survived the, because it was like in her, I guess. Take my memory circuit.

It will prove everything. Look at how silo has been collaborating with the Barrens. And then we just get his... It actually has, her memory circuit It has a six-chamber fail-safe to protect it. And that one is good.

That one's fine, actually. Yeah, that one didn't sink under the lava. Yeah. And then he turns on the lightsaber and presumably grants her a swift death instead of burning slowly like he once did. And he is not going to turn her into his own Darth Vader. No, thank you. Bye.

No. Which again, like fun resonance of like confronted with something, like, seeing someone else confronted with it. and thinking about was I saved? Did the emperor do me a favor here? Yeah. Yeah, true.

Well, I want to know what she was going to say before she died because he, you know, he says to her, there's like this actual very, you know, a glimpse of Vader's humanity in this exchange where he says, you know, the pain will soon pass. Like he promises her that he's going to alleviate the suffering. But then he, like, commands her to tell him everything.

And she says, I am un, and it cuts out. As she says, you know, I, she tells him that Silo was collaborating with the ore barons, gives him the memory circuit. and then she says, I am on Dash, and I presume that's the moment that he, you know, grants her mercy, I suppose. I guess. I'm curious what you guys think she was going to say.

I am on. I think she may have just been like, I don't know the exact word she was going to say, but she's the one who says the pain in the previous panel, and he says will soon pass, That's her saying of the pain. I see. Okay.

I misread that. I can't talk anymore. I am unable to keep talking. I am, I'm unsure I'm going to be a lot. You know, like, I think she's just in so much pain. But maybe not. Maybe she had some other revelation or, you know, I don't know. I like, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And then, yeah, because they've won the battle against the guys who were afraid of the vampire droids. wink or the not vampire droids wink. They learn finally get communications back up. Trio's attacking Barron Rubik's Delving Citadel with this real, you know, sci-fi pulp pose standing up on this crag of rock

with her cape billowing and, you know, punching up into the air to lead her forces forward. But then like, like has like a like a loser moment where the rock just like crumbles underneath her and she falls. Yeah. Yeah. One minute you're up there. Your ass looks fantastic.

Your cape is billowing. It's like, come on, we can do it. And then someone just blasts your rock thing. And it's like everyone told you you shouldn't be on the front line striking poses. This is what they meant. The Imperials at last, says Soldier number two. And the ATAT show up and start blasting Versailles, underground Versailles. And the, we get that we learn that Rubix also has a daughter here.

Bixene. And that's, that's, she tells him, hey, that's, that's, she tells him, hey, that, guy Silo left already. Sorry about that. And his other guy is like, hey, it's time to get out of here. But before he can get out of here, he runs into Darth Vader, which does not go well for him. It does not. And Vader reminds him of a certain custom, a certain Chauterun custom of dance, which I liked this little drama moment from him. You're right, it is very dramatic of him. I hadn't considered this.

It's like, it's so, it's so over the top. And he says, as he's approaching Baron Rubik's, like, crossing this bridge, Queen Trios explained that the Chutorin are courtly culture. Now is the time to explain the protocol for your immediate surrender ignites lightsaber, unless once more you wish to dance. He did not want to dance. He has been turning that over in his head now for weeks. Oh, my gosh.

It's like, he was saying that in the mirror. He was. A hundred percent. And he got to execute on that, which is so rare. I love for him as like Steve Bouchemmy's Khrushchev in like Devastalin, just like working on his material, like in between meetings. Like, okay, so Baron Rubik's was the dance guy. dance guy unless

you want to try me try my moves again no that's not unless once more you wish to do yeah yeah if I run it so like if I take a surrender if I could do him first and he's like

go to hell that's when that's when I drop unless once more you wish to dance fuck yeah all right he got it off you got it off he gets the surrender so awesome he rec he he Baron Rubik's recognized

the queen's domain and dominion. She has him executed. And then does the thing that Vader did to her. She gives her father's, or gives Rubix's crown to his daughter. You'll take your father's place. I declare you Baroness Bixene. Go to the rebels, tell them to make peace. And she's like, that's, but my older brother's supposed to be.

the new baron. And that is, Trio does not give a fuck about all of that. And when Vader asks why, he said, or she says, I've found inexperienced youths

not expecting power the most easy to manipulate Lord Vader. And he says, to her, you are correct, because we've just finished an arc in which he has done that to her.

And so now she is duplicating that maneuver on Bixine. ensuring that she has both learned the lesson he's teaching her and also become the shadow of him. That's delivered in this panel that is the two of them with their capes flowing, walking out of this room with people, you know,

just rubble on the ground around them. I thought those are people bowing at first. The Casamwanka is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It is that shot. You're right. Yeah. And also what's wrong with a planet of show, Show Turan becoming a planet of girl bosses.

That's what's happening. What's wrong with that? Yeah. More baronesses, more dutresses. Now, distractors will say nepo baby girl bosses, but these women took charge of their own destiny and became empowered. Yeah. That's right.

Well, and then she actually has like another, the thing that's interesting is she, this is a duplication of what, of what Vader has done to her, but she does have another extended, like, reasoning for it that I don't want to diminish or ignore, which is, you know, um, Vader's like, well, I trust that you're going to destroy the other barons who are resistant. And she's like, well, the barons are going to die, but their lines will continue. Shoteroon is a mining culture. Everything must be properly supported. And he says, as you wish, Queen Trios. and then leaves behind a stormtrooper captain to be his surrogate.

And I love her read on this, which is like, we're a traditional place. The keeping the noble lines will actually keep them in order in a way that getting rid of them all wouldn't, which is whether that ends up being true or not, we'll maybe we'll see in the future. not in Vader, but maybe in the big Star Wars comic, I don't know. But I even think that it's interesting that, like, she makes a call here. And he allows that call to stand. He doesn't insist, no, we're killing all of the barons lines. We're only going to work with you from now on, blah, blah, blah. And he says, as you wish Queen Trio, after, and I guess you kind of have to wonder,

is this again the illusion of respect or is this respect? Because earlier he promised the illusion of respect. Is this the illusion of respect and him leaving behind this captain? is the true power in the throne room, or has she actually achieved true power with this guy just kind of being a surrogate connection? Well, what I think, like her saying, I found inexperienced view of his line

is 100% a description of what happened to Anakin. Oh, true. Like her description, like the dynamic she describes is, you know who else probably figured that out? Sheepalpapalpateen. Yeah. Like, is Vader sort of reflecting on that, just stew on that.

But the other thing, yeah, here at the end, I think it's a similar thing to when Vader was handed that first attache that he just made mincemeat out of. It's a similar thing. We don't even see this guy's face. This guy's a nobody. He's a stormtrooper captain. Yes. And she immediately puts the arm around him. Yeah.

And it starts breaking down. His priority one, day one. You know what you got to learn to do, Skipper? You got to figure out dancing. Yeah. I'm an academy graduate, but it's like, you got to dance. So it's like, Vader is left, and now the power dynamic has shifted again because like she answers the Vader.

The empire is representative here is this Gormless stormtrooper captain fresh out of the academy who has a beautiful queen telling him. so when in Rome you really got to just like focus on the socializing and like learning our customs the games that Vader refused to play this kid's going to be like

whatever you say whatever you say Queen Drios what's wrong with that you think Vader left her one like you think this is like I got you I'm going to leave you a little malleable nerd that you can push around

instead of leaving a more capable, hardened veteran who's like not going to take any shit, he's like, yeah, you know what? Here, let's have fun with this kid. I mean, you'd argue, like, he makes her a real queen there because he leaves. He's gone. And she threatens to kill a couple zero.

She has an imperial minder that isn't remotely up for this. So as long as things stay cool, she's kind of got the run of the planet. Yeah. Yeah, there's two. Well, there's three things here, actually, which is I would write fanfic about the dancing or the store trooper. I want to see the rest of their lives together. I think that's going to be great.

Second is, what's going on with her, like, girl boss party hat? Is that her, is that her father's crown? Because she, like, I was going to ask everybody, like, when did she get this haircut? Because the entire time she's had this, like, real, like, X-Men, like, completely covered. the crown, like, has this, like, gold widow's peak, like, Vigida style with these, like, long sidebirds that go all the way to her lips. On the helmet you're talking about. The helmet itself has that.

She had this big, big gold helmet. Yeah. And then in this final scene, she is suddenly, like, her hair is blowing in the wind. She has, like, this nice side part. Like, her hair's really shiny. And then she just has this, like, back of the head, little code gold hat. She's a witch hat hat on in the head. in these scenes.

Basically. Well, she does have the little the little party hat on in this is, I'm scrolling backwards. You're going through it all.

Okay. I'm going through it all, but she's missing the side pieces. Like, there's a point where she's wearing the party cap. Oh, I see it.

Here on, what page is this? This is in, in issue 18 on the page where she's talking with Julie. She's got like the side pieces on, so it's keeping everything kind of tucked in. Yeah. But I guess she just decides party hat only from there on out.

It does seem kind of like a modular crown system from what I can see. Okay, yeah. That's interesting. I love that. She's grown by the end to like be really beautiful. You dress up and dress up. Right, well, maybe that's it, right? It's like maybe it's really warm out in the magma world today.

And she's saying goodbye, so it's kind of like a nice part. And we know there's a ball afterwards, right? So she doesn't have to be in battle queen mode. She has to be in party queen mode. And so she puts her party hat on. Yeah, and she wants to dance to the Stormtrooper. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. The third thing here is that, like, I wish that we could live in the ambiguity of whether, Darth Vader was respecting her or not, because it feels like the triple zero here of them having like this sort of like vocal squip or whatever where triple zero is like you know, you could have figured

this out a different way. He could be implying like something else. And she like gets one off on triple zero by saying, I can't destroy him, but I can destroy you. So he's like, oh, I think you'll go far. Like I feel like that's like filling in the space that the like

question of, does Vader respecter or not could have lived in. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. I agree. We could have left this part out. Yeah.

We could have even just gotten to I Can Destroy You and then not had Triple Zero. Give it the thumbs up. No. Yeah, cool. Triple zero is here to provide commentary. Yeah. He's the Greek chorus. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Well. Vader reports back. to the emperor and says, I got a USB drive that says your boy was fucking us over. Okay, Palpatine, good is it is as I hoped. Come to Corrassant, Lord Vader. It is time I explained everything. You are about to hear bullshit.

Yeah, dude. This is the most, you know what, come over. This is pivot. Pivot. Oh, all this. Everything's as I foreseen, baby. I couldn't tell you. That's right.

That's right. It wouldn't have counted unless you did it by yourself. It's actually so awesome that everybody is working against me. Yeah, that's right. Perfect. And then, you know, they have the message that AFRA has been found, but it's not one of the bounty hunters. There is a holocom call from Fanoff. Inspector Thanoff here

I found your girl I suspect it's time we had a little talk I can't wait to go to the comic shop next month and get the next issue on this one yeah what's going on what's Thanoff now

and that's it yeah we'll finish this run up next time did you imagine if the next the next issue was Vader immediately killing Thanos the next you turn the page It's like lightsaber at

Thanat's throat I gotta tell you I can't imagine it It does seem That seems possible to me somehow A through line with this is people who think

They're very smart And clever And have got like It's consistently like That everyone's like I've got leverage on Vader now And that only presumes

The certain Like that there's Boundaries That he will place Around himself Right You've identified What he cares about

Yeah We'll see how it goes. This will be the last little bit. We have six issues issues 20 through 25. It's also collected in Darth Vader volume 4 end of games.

Not end games. End of games. No more games. The rarely seen not end game names. That's right. That becomes a... Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody keeps playing on his name.

It's time to end the games. That's right. Yeah, all right. That was a good arc. Yeah, it was a fun. Yeah, I enjoyed that. That's a good time. That arc more than I think the last one is kind of what I assumed this book would be.

Again, with more Afra. So I'm with you to that degree. But I did think it would be like, oh, they go to a new culture. And Vader has a little side job to do more than interact. And I guess that hasn't been not what the book has been, right? because what was the second arc about? I don't even remember. Oh, I guess that was the one where he and Afra were dealing with trying to find Luke and stuff.

But I think that's the thing is like- And specifically running down the cases of his maternity. Right, specifically. Yeah. Okay, what actually happened after Padme was taken off was to far. Yeah. And then dealing with some of the like the rebels in that one zone and stuff like that, which was all fine.

But I did. I think in my mind, this arc was the one where, is the thing that I've imagined this book has been for years, which is like, Vader has a little job to go do, and he does it. And we learn a little bit about, like, his interiority there. And in some ways, maybe that's just because that's kind of what Clone Wars was when we were watching that, right? It's just, like, set in a different time period.

But this is a very Clone Warsy arc. You could imagine this arc as a three-episode run of Clone Wars. If they did a clone Wars from- Bad-in, The lighting, the battle. It was cool. Like there were a lot of neat moments here. Agreed. All right.

So next time we'll see what Phanath is up to and what message he has to bear. And we'll reunite the gang. Until next time, please rate and interview us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember, as we consider the case of Trioz, the wise words of Niccolo Machiavelli, chapter seven of the prince,

those who solely by good fortune become princes from being private citizens have little trouble in rising but much in keeping atop because they fly but they have many troubles when they reach the summit such are those to whom state is given either for money or by the favor of him

who bestows it. So true so true Niccolo, so true. I also feel like Triple Zero is a character who might have appeared in the Mandargon.