A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - AMCA 135: Vader Book 2 (2015)

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

We will, eventually, get to the second set of Vader comics. But first, the gang imagines how they're going to react to The Mandalorian and Grogu. Because of course our patrons have already heard our reaction! Then they discuss how Vader has to sabotage yet another investigation into his own treachery, and Dr. Aphra's character arc as well as her academic credentials. 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, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Aliaf Pura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners by 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 I think next month, very soon we're going to have a special patron-only edition of a discussion of The Mandalorian and Grogu getting rave reviews. That might be out by the time people hear this even.

depending on how we you know it's never too late now we're promoing that's right no we're all going to see the mandolarian and grogues it's not i mean it's out right now down the block for me and i'm doing this instead of going to go see it so i'm seeing it tomorrow see there you go tomorrow i'm sorry alley i know we have to wait until sunday because i have plans tomorrow but we're going to see it on sunday and what will we think the audience knows what we think What do we think, guys? I've seen some reviews from critics I like, and I have a decent, I have a decent, like, guess about what I'm going to think. I don't think Mace Window was in it after all, everybody.

It's my, I don't think that they, I don't think anybody. No spoilers. Maybe it's good. I just think that by now if there was like a big funny spoiler, we would have gotten it by now. Someone would have been like, did you hear? You know? The movie's so magical. Everyone is just, everyone is like, it's shut the fuck up Friday.

I see. people who've seen the Mandalorian and Groby. Like, do not tell anyone about Blorbu. Bloorboo Groger's evil cousin. Okay, here's my actual like open heart. Maybe I'll be

and I'll say something I'll stop being openhearted in a second also, but open heart. What if it's just a good episode of the Mandalorian? What if it just feels like, oh yeah, the Mandalorian? And we happen to be in a theater watching it. That wouldn't be too bad. I like having Pop born.

Like pot yeah like Natalie said popcorn a big more honestly No, that's a big drink I'm trying to think like my favorite episode is the mandolore like Okay actually you know what you know what would have like played well in the theater When Book of Boba Fett turned into the mandolone oh my god That that that that's a movie I would have seen the cool space station that he's like tearing up Yeah the the fight I think I think he gets to a brawl with the Dark Sabre

with the other Mandalorians in that same movie and then like cool Western stuff with uh So you said movie just there because you're feeling how good that would be if that was in a movie theater Yeah, that'd be that'd be cool

If we went there and they just played that episode again I'd be like oh okay Yeah This looks really good in IMAX The thing this question makes me think is When was the last good Mandalorian episode? There must have been one that we all really liked in

Randalore in season three. There was, I, there was the one with the, like, Star Wars date and the evil woman. Star Wars date in the evil woman? Yeah, they could at the, like, courtyard. Yep. And they're all on that one.

Right, yeah, yeah. The operation paper clip, but for ex-imperial soldiers. Lowly imperial spot is just getting catfish to shit. Right, and then it turns out to be connected to, like, proto first order or imperial remnants. Zero recollection of that.

this obviously for me. You would remember the hot woman, the hot evil woman, and then the rest will click in. You know? Okay. Yeah.

Maybe show you. My mind is clouded by Jack Black. Exactly. That could have been a movie, though. Especially because a guy from... There's a droid underworld. There's a droid underworld.

They love to serve. Back to the future. Because of the Lloyd. Right. Because Roy is in that episode. Yeah. That's a movie all over it. That does have a movie all.

I mean, the real things that I'm wondering about internally for them. And I'm going to say something that spoils the second season, I think, of the Mandalorian. Maybe this is Mandalorian season three. The, like, Luke shows up to kill all of the robotic dark trooper stuff. That's what they needed for the movie. They should have that for the movie. Why did we put that in movie theaters?

They should have said that for the movie. You're going to reveal your new casting for Luke Skywalker post. We're like, hey, people hate the rubber-faced, like, Uncanny Valley Luke So here's our new Here's our new casting And it's Tom Holland And we're like

Yeah I can see it I can see it A piece of my soul just died When you fan cast Tom Holland As young Luke He doesn't have the swooshy hair He doesn't have it like that

He couldn't do it I can't see him the swooshy hair He can't fill those Chanel boots. I'm sorry. You're telling me the guy from the umbrella video can't, can't work the Chanel boots. It's been a lot of years, I guess, but I just, I'm trying to picture with Luke Skywalker colored hair. That's what I'm saying. But this is why you're doing recasting.

You're just tearing the band-aid off. You're like, hey, guess what? It's like, change, like, you know what? It's less important that you look like the Luke Skywalker of the original. trilogy than that you channel the Luke Skywalker of the original trilogy. We just need more guys because I can't have... We need more guys because I'm trying to think of a different guy and I don't know if there's another guy who could be young Luke.

Also, he's older. How old is Tom Holland now? He's like in his 30s. No, he's not. Because we don't discover actors for shit. Is he is? He's 29. Okay.

Well, that's basically 30. He's too young for that era. We need 38-year-old Luke. We need 42-year-old. But not for Mandalorian era. Yeah, right? Who is? He's like 23-24 when Return of the Jedi happens.

So I think Tom Holland's like, like, he's in the sweet spot. Okay. Your options are Zach Ephron? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, sorry, that was not what I was saying yes to. What I was saying yes to is that Madelorian takes place an 11 ABY, which means that Luke is like 31. So a little older than Tom Holland.

this right now. Literally 30. Okay. Who is 31 years old? Because it's 11 years ABY and they were conceived in 20 BPI. Anyway. The point is, I think it works. I think it works. Jesse Plemonds. I know, I think you're right. Oh, my God.

I would do anything for Jesse Plymonds and Star Wars. I would do anything for Jesse Plymouth and Star Wars. Jesse Plemins. Wow. He's actually my fucking goat. Actually, Jesse Plymonds closes the gap to old ones really, really well. He does. In between, if you sent this movie five years later or something, and this movie was, was, you could see him just staring across the courtyard.

Yeah. Just staring. Just staring. Staring. Staring. As he leaves. Yeah. Shout out of Jesse Plymins. Shoutouts. Shout out. Fantastic Mara Jade. This is. Who? Kirsten Dunst. Oh, Kirsten Dunst. Mara Jade.

I remember her. I remember her. I know her. I know her. I could see it. Anyway, we read a comic for this episode. We did. We read six of them. I like it a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, we're returning to Gillins, Vader comics. We're reading the next six issues. This is a pretty straightforward arc. It's mostly a thing that you tend to the details in. But what we have here is sort of a classic setup where Vader is working both sides of the same investigation, working for and against himself and the Empire, using his stalking horse and new lieutenant, Dr. Afra, to run down the lead on the rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star.

While he's doing that, however, he has been forced to have another adjutant, or aide to camp, by General, sorry, Grand General. Grand Cheryl. Tag. Can we commit to tag or taj in this moment? Because we all bounced around on that last time. It's Tadge, right?

I don't know. Or is it Tegay? It's... This... This says... It could be an adcented... Says... Tage...

Tage? ...G... ...G... ...like lines with page... Tage. ...like her phage. According to who? According to this Reddit poster?

No, according to this extra footage from 1977. Okay, so just real quick, something really pissed me off. Yeah. Remember how containers of that yogurt brand, I'm not going to say the name for the moment, but they used to say, pronounce like Fayia. Like right there on the canister. It's like it's, it's Fayia.

And then I'm watching TV and they're like, I think they were like, hmm, now treat yourself to delicious faget yogurt. And I was like, what the hell? Like, you had, it was on your canister. You made me say it this way that makes no sense.

And now you're like, faget. They did it to fuck with you specifically, Rob. They really did feel like, targeted. Out loud. Like, maybe I was the only one who ever saw the containers that had a conundiation guy. Yeah, are you getting Vendella affected? I think so, like, there have been a few moments where, like, I fell through in an alternate reality.

And Fayette is, is one of them. I think it's foyer. I think you're wrong on both fronts, because it's Greek. Right? Well, excuse me, I was a classicist. Bring that BA out. Bring that BA out. Unfortunately, it's a totally different language now.

Speaking of degrees, what is Afra a doctor in? Did she get her doctorate in? Oh, such a good question. Sorry to get us off the summary again, like a second layer off, third layer off. Because now we've gone, how do you pronounce his name? How do you pronounce the yogurt? Austin Walker, real concerned about whether people like actually complete that doctorate. I don't mind her.

Well, I really want to know, is she a medical doctor or is she in the humanities? archaeologist. Why no she's an archaeologist by trade? It feels like bullshit, though. It does, it does feel, well, not bullshit, but like, unless you're medical doctor, you shouldn't be running around making people call you doctor. That's, that's, like, that's not, that's not the, no. Actually, has she, has the book called her Dr. Afri yet?

Good. Or do we just know that because we are in the fucking fan? Maybe she hasn't gotten her, her PhD yet. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to see her getting at her page. I can't, you know. A six,

a 60th of you are. That's how Peter pays her back for all this. I've enrolled you in the Imperial Academy's archaeology program. Dude. Okay, so one page forward for the Vader down arc through the underworld sources of a secret ally, Dr. Afro. Okay, okay, okay. So she's a doctor now. I think the assumption is she's like Indiana Jones.

She's Dr. Jones, but like of crime. so right yeah so anyway which is cool apparently which I like for some reason it's working for me yeah point is

she is she is handling this investigation trying to race ahead of the imperial investigation to figure out like where is this Luke Skywalker meanwhile Vader has received a new

a new aid to camp slash sidekick from General I Now we didn't pick one Taj I don't I don't

I want to say Well we have to be British First of all Because the Imperials Tas Taj Taj Taj

Yeah I think it's Taj All right so General Tage Tash Tash Grand Tadro Tage You're changing

it Tag We should just It's I mean it's gonna It's gonna be window

like what we're saying It's just gonna be what we say. Like, you can't make it a decision. Tash. Do this.

All right. So, I like Grand General Tash. Tash. Grand General Tash. Uh, has assigned a new aid to Vader slash a co-investigator, uh,

Fan off, who unlike the other guy who was the Hapel Stoge to show us how easily Vader can dust these guys. This time he basically got Imperial Sherlock Holmes working as a sidekick. Those mutton chops are very John Watson coden. And there's a few. moments where this guy's giving strong Ben Kingsley to me. And of course, Ben Kingsley plays John Watson in without a clue the surprisingly excellent Michael Kane Sherlock Holmes comedy in which Watson's

revealed to be the true genius behind the investigations. And he has a breach with the actor he is hired to play this role he created of Sherlock Holmes. And so the whole thing is kind of a comedy of remarriage for this creative partnership that's gone bankrupt. But one of the things he discovers is nobody wants to read about the adventures of John Watson, the crime doctor. And so he is forced to patch things up with his alter ego, Michael Kane. Hell of a movie.

Surprising, surprisingly excellent. People check it out. But anyway, he's giving strong Ben Kingsley throughout this. And from the first, this guy has no pushover. Immediately, no pushover, but I can't figure out. We get to this. He's kind of in on this?

Because he seems to identify the key fucking clue that it indicates Vader in the fact that he is the one orchestrating a bunch of these hits on Imperial Resources and yet Fanof does nothing with his information and is at Vader's side

as they chase down leads and Vader is killing leads right and left and being like I'm Darth Vader and Thanoff is like we need to talk to that guy heads go flying I'm really hopeful that you're right that he's in on it and is on Vader's

you know, proverbial side here or, you know, positional side. Because otherwise there's a moment where he's just really like, feels like he betrays his brilliance. Yeah. Because up to that point, he's fantastic. Meanwhile, Dr. Afra works her way through her underworld contacts and there's misadventures all along the way and her droid sidekicks are getting up to all sorts of nonsense. But the key thing is she finds the mortician, who, prepared Padma Amadala's body after her death goes and interrogates him to ring the truth out of him about had she given birth to a child when she was when her funeral took place.

But Dr. Afra botches the interrogation, which is a theme here because the character is going to keep coming this close to the truth. like like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead. The truth is there in the corner of their eye. And they never quite, they never quite have a moment where general grievous. It's always one room away from each other. Yeah.

But she misses the key information and reports to Vader that, yep, Luke Skywalker is, or confirms that Padmei had a son who was taken away by the Jedi. And that's almost certainly Luke, Luke Skywalker. Meanwhile, Vader manages to

conceal the connection between him and Dr. Afra and lead Thanoff off on a strike on this rebel pirate band who's been causing Taj so many problems. And they report in a job well done, and Vader heads off to find

Luke Skywalker on the planet that Dr. Afra has a lead for where he's hiding. But throughout all of this Vader's steps have dogged by Palpatine's gang of underwhelming clone Jedi lab

lab creation things the shitty twins have been there kind of messing up and now the Moncal the disgraced Moncal general is also aware of what Vader is up to and is planning to ambush him

on this planet where he's going to confront Luke Skywalker. So pretty straightforward story. It's just a sort of pursuit, you know, parallel investigations with, with Vader working both sides, but full of, like, rich detail and characterization and just a lot of cool Star Wars moments in art. Yeah, this is a blast. I'm loving this. I think questions that we had around, like, what's up with Afra start to get filled in

a little bit besides where she got her doctorate. But, like, she's a true believer. We get scenes about that here. We get more of really clever Vader. you know being one step ahead pursuing his own ends we got a little less of the like reject squad that I thought we would get in this though obviously they do pop up in key ways in the middle and then at the end and I love thanoff the new detective guy he's extremely fun and I think he I suspect he's new for this I guess I didn't do the like work to confirm that but cool guy

I hope he's around forever I hope that maybe he'll be introduced the mandoloren in Grogu, where it's like, but only one man can help you find Grogu's people. And like, you hear the click, click of the cane. And there he is, Inspector Thanoff, who committed no war crimes. And so he isn't in jail.

He isn't getting Operation Paper Clipped. He's just a dogged investigator. Less dogged investigator is Vader himself. He's gone to Tatooine at the start of this, just to look at the scene of yet another crime. and I do think there's a fun thing here is that because Vader can't emote, not really, right? He's sort of impassive by default. We have a scene with him standing in the ruins of the Lars compound.

And I am just curious to what degree you guys read it as, like, does he know what, like, did he authorize this? Did he fuck up? Like, is this unknown to him that the Larses were here? I don't, I guess I don't know if he knows that the large. as we're here, but this was his operation. Those are his guys, right? So at some point in the chain of command, he's involved, presumably, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I think this detail is really fun. You know, really good use of Afra being like, that's so funny, isn't it? If only Luke's family hadn't, if this kid's family hadn't been killed here, maybe he doesn't rush off to go join the war. I think that that's a really, you know, good use of your shit-talking side character who can point those things out.

And then Vader's response to that just being like, you are correct. It's like, oh, yeah, buddy. And as always, I'm always like, Vader knows, Vader can feel the weight of history and the weight of the force in so many ways that no one else can. And so I have to imagine,

and he's like, oh, yeah, like, however I was involved in this, I was I being misled by the force in that moment, you know? Yeah, I find this coming home, or just coming back to tattooing super fascinating because it does feel like, it does feel like a revelation to Vader that he had already, like, by proxy and countering, encountered Luke through his mission to find the droids, you know, that that held the information that Princess Leia was trying to send back to Alderon. And the fact that that he comes back here and realizes that this is the, this is the same place, like that, you know, there's like this like synchronization that's happened here that, you know, It feels like the forces, you know, at play here. I think it's fascinating because he, he, in the ruins of this place, speaks to Obi-Wan.

You know, he is, like, standing amongst the rubble and he, like, has his handout and he's kind of feeling the walls. And there's flashes of Luke and Boba-Fet fighting each other. Which is from another Star Wars comic as a reminder. Right, right. And he like says out loud, he says, you had 20 years, Obi-Wan, hiding the boy in the one place I would never return was cunning, but in this you are a failure. In the failure he's referring to is that Luke has little or no training in his like Jedi dumb. It's just, it's very poignant to me to see Vader looking out at the two sons, I think, of Luke looking out at the two sons before he, you know, leaves Tatouine.

It, it actually. With him dropping the bomb, uh, setting off the charges in Obi-Wan's house. And so he is posed there in silhouette with the new, like what looks like a nuclear explosion. And he's with a dark 3PO, a dark R2D2. And to a degree like, you know, a, uh, a, a, uh, a, dark, like, evil child. Yeah.

In Afra, right? Is that you're describing there, yeah. She's the evil child. She's a little evil. Or at least like an anti-heroic to Luke's heroism, right? Right. I guess this just really worked for me in,

in, you know, I think we often roll our eyes at coming back to tattooing because it's deployed so often. Like, we're constantly coming back to tattooing across timeline, you know, from the fucking beginning of time to end, to the end of time in Star Wars time. Like, we're always coming to Tatooine.

And this felt like a well-earned return to Tatooine for me. Yeah, this is sensible, right? The action isn't taking place here because we, the viewer, know and love Tatooine. It's taking place here because Luke is from Tatooine and Vader's investigations until Luke bring him here, right? Yeah, okay, cool. Good reason to be here. And, yeah, it doesn't scratch up. against the sort of like, I don't want to see

I don't want to see Vader in the same places, da-da-da-da-da-stuff. It's interesting to see him show up at, you know, Uncle Owen and Auberu's place. And it's funny when Triple Zero is like, oh, what terrible slaughter, these

droids, these poor droids. It is funny. I think I figured out why Triple Zero works compared to HK. Because I started getting it with the

introduction of IG 90, who I'm getting a little ahead of myself. But in just talking about Triple Zero's comedy, I think the fact that Triple Zero doesn't announce the intended tone

of whatever it is he is saying makes It makes like the sadistic robot thing work. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Sarcasm. Right.

Interesting. That's a bit that was so well received. The Bayward did it a second time in Mass Effect. I think that was the problem. Really? Yeah. Yeah. There's a whole species in Mass Effect called the Elkhore

who are like big elephant people who announced their their strong authoritarian vibe. too. They do strong authority and vibes. They do. And they'll be like, you know, like calm response. Actually. But I think there works because they're so Eeyore like. I have no idea

if it works. It worked for me then, but H.K. worked for me then too, Rob. I am very, you know, I, who knows if it hits? But it did work then for us. You're right. You're right. It's E.O. vibes from them. But.

I like E.R. I think, yeah, I remain saying H. H.K. worked in the first game because it was like, ooh, this is a fun little, this is a fun little dish. Like I like, I like this, I like this sauce. And then the second game, it's like,

and now it, that sauce is a soup. Drink like, eat it. I'm like, I don't want to. It's, this is, this is just, this is just sauce. So that is, that's kind of right about on that. I also do like, Vader. There's a, like, to a degree,

there is a cyclical nature of what this guy's going through. But the thing I kind of like is the futility of him trying to always do one last fuck you to tattooing Like we saw him like destroying a sand people village last time, right? Yeah Taring up Jabba's palace now he's literally like dropping a nuke on Obi-Wan's house but like this this inescapeable is Is this Obi-Wan's house or it's where Luke falls for now this is a third I think this is a different I think maybe I'm wrong It looks like a different place.

I am. And so this is where I was going to say I have open heart. I have an open heart. I'm going to read that comic because we're actually all going to read a little bit of it in the next set of readings because the next set of readings interweave with two issues of that and they're joined in the omnibus directly through. I'll just say this now. I'll repeat it at the end, but I'll say it now in case someone has the time right now to track down individual issues or whatever they're doing. Next time we're reading Vader down one, Darth Vader 13. Star Wars 13, Darth Vader 14, Star Wars 15, Darth Vader 15, I believe is what we're doing. That's like the next set of issues in the omnibus. And so I'm flagging that because I am going to go back and read Star Wars 1 through 13 before we get there. So then I can inform us on anything weird that pops up in those issues and be like, well, here's what that is. It's fucking 12 issues of a comic. I'll read it.

and I'll read it with an open heart. I was really, we were really dismissive of it last time, and I felt as soon as I got off the call that I was being unfair to it because I wasn't reading it in good faith in like a good environment. I was like, I read one issue before we started and rolled, or two issues before we started and rolled my eyes at them, and didn't let the team cook at all. And I might still hate it.

And in fact, if I go give it my open heart and come back hating it more, then that's how this goes. This was me with Crimson Desert, where I was like, I must understand this thing before I pinned down. And it's like, no, I must keep dipping my hand further into the wood chipper. You just got to get, okay, well, I'm in my, in up to my elbow in the wood chipper. And maybe if I go up to the shoulder, I'll understand what people are saying about this game. And I just, you know what?

All I got was spiritually mangled by the-dose. Dude, it's not good. The time, the moment that I, like, went through a dungeon and in the dungeon, I got a piece of text that was like, well, the dragon statue above the courtyard is telling, And I looked around the room and the dragon sent you was below the courtyard and not above it. And I was like, oh, no one wrote this. This is actually all, any of the fucking stuff you pick up and read is one of the worst pieces of shit I've ever played. It's clearly like chaty PT. And I don't even mean that in the way in the way of like, and therefore it's evil, which I mean, I also do believe that.

But it's just like, oh, you just didn't care about your own shit enough to write that the dragon was above the courtyard. You, you just let a machine do its best from some screenshots. And all of the text about all of the wanted people, all of the questions. all of the quest design. I had really high hopes for that game, actually, because I'm weird. It was like one of the, like so many people were so tickled by it.

And I was like, I'm going to give it a fair shot. And I was like, okay. So it has a really off-putting start. And then every time I keep like trying more, it's like eating rotted food. It's like, I can't, oh my God, this is the most repulsive thing. You're walking by someone and someone's saying,

is they're like, they're ambient, like, world building, like background info, like they say the neighboring kingdom has riches beyond measure. And I'm like, shut the fuck up. We're done. We're done. You got characters. The neighboring kingdom has riches.

Yep. I would rather, again, Wood chipper. Wood chipper. Yep. Anyway, we're reading the collected, the Vader down one, Darth Vader 13, Star Wars 13, Darth Vader 14, Star Wars 13, Darth Vader 15 next time. And this, that's collected. It's got to be better than the Crimson Desert.

Oh, yeah, a thousand percent. And that's collected in, uh, a single trade just called Star Wars Vader down. So if you find, if you're doing this by trade paperbacks, that is the next one. It's also just the next six issues of the omnibus. If you're reading that digitally or if you spent the $300 or whatever to get the physical copy. So you'll find that list in the episode description. Also, I'll just put it in the danger.

Every time you're casually mean to something, you're like, I need to be fair. You know what? I need to be fair. I need to be fair. And then you end up being like, I really owe this thing. I'm sort of I don't really care that much about. I'd now owe it a great deal of effort. So I can figure out if I was cruel.

I put 16 hours into Crimson Desert, which of course your Crimson Desert is nothing, because that's like a 170-hour game or something. And my big thought is I wish I'd put, I wish I'd put so few hours that I could refund it because I bought that game and wish I hadn't. Anyway. Speaking of earning cruelty,

I think what's something that works for the, in the Darth Vader scene here is like, You don't really get a lot of opportunities to see Darth Vader, like, regret violence ever. And, like, not that I think of these comics as the sort of, like, clone wars were rehashing who Darth Vader is and, like, re-contextualizing his character. Like, in the conversations that we had in terms of, like, Vader becoming less violent over the course of the original trilogy, this feels like a, like, almost picking up, like, a drop stitch in that a little bit. We're like, you know, I think Afra calling out the sort of like, oh, if this just hadn't happened, whatever else. But like him going there to experience that loss and really think about his place in it and being like, oh, has like just being the emperor's dog really worked out for me? Like is the sharpest knife I can be really the smartest way that I could move in the galaxy, especially now that I like, I'm going to.

considering that I have a child out there, is really fun. And, like, I think is what makes this scene really work because it's so emotional. I think you're totally right, yeah. I love the way that Vader leaves this scene and says, I must return to my duties. Like, this, like, reminder that Darth Vader's not the kind of,

like, top of the wrong anymore. Like, I think when you see Darth Vader in the movies, he feels like, you know, almost like he is below the emperor, but he's almost, he's just so powerful. He feels like such a huge presence. It feels like, you know, all of the kind of imperial bureaucracy around him, of course, it's just going to fall apart to his sheer will and sheer power. But Vader is very much like having to sort of fall in line here. He's, he's, he has other stuff going on.

we'll see later in these issues. Like he's definitely plotting and, you know, figuring out his own thing. But he has to continue the appearance of being like a dutiful, under, you know, subordinate to General Tage. And that is like, I just, I feel this tension of Vader wanting to, like, do what he wants to do and follow. this thread and continue to search for his son

and having to report back to General Tash like that that tension is very delicious to me. Yeah. Also I can confirm you're all right. This is Obi-Wan's house. I'd forgotten what it looks like from the outside. The first part is Peru and

Owen and then they go to Obi-Wans. There's not really a transitional scene there. They just go. So I wonder why he ended up fighting Boba-Feth there. I skimmed that issue, but I will, I'll let you know in between this recording and next year. Yeah. I also, I do like, again, the realizing you had a son and he grew up right there on Tatooine in the kind of conditions.

Like, he's not a slave. No. But in every other respect, it's exactly the life that Vader desperately wanted to flee. And you can see, like, I mean, you're sort of the main thing about the. the Lars farm like homestead is it has that like fun cozy little dug-in pit kind of in your but literally it is a world with no horizons like it is it is a constrained you live in kind of a little cell and the implication is like yeah he can go out to the like outline like you know town Tashi station or whatever maybe he's been the anchorhead never been to Moss Isley before um but like

really it's your his whole world was this moisture farm this tiny little pit of these people this monotony for for 20 years longer than Vader even experienced it right well that's the thing right he goes when he goes to obi won's thing natalie you brought up the point of where he was like you had 20 years and you didn't train him at all it's interesting rob that he goes and sees a life that's a lot like his his youth his youngest years and then goes to obiwan's place maybe expecting and then he entered training just like I did and he did and he finds that he didn't in fact the rest of his life from six or seven until 20 was nothing like anikin's life you know when aniken was six or seven he went off to the Jedi academy and eventually got trained and got trained by

obi won canobi and it's so easy to for him to imagine him going oh is that what Luke is that what happened with Luke and then seeing it and being like oh I guess not like who is this kid then if he's not just someone who walked my exact path at that point. That's interesting. I hadn't considered that, like, he was checking to see if how much Luke mapped, not that he was actively, that that was his goal, but that that was part of the calculus that's going on here. Yeah.

And just like the, no one came and rescued Luke in that way, right? No, no one, like, got him out to a wider world until the day that Vader's stormtroopers burn the, burn, burn, burn the homestead down. Yeah, that's it. Anything interesting people want to talk about in the next section where you got Vader slaughtering a crime lord taking his money and then doing a deal with the huts? I think this this crime lord is swaggy. It's a shame, but he gets got so bad.

I love his cape. I love a rodeo in like a sick outfit. I was thinking back to our Patreon episode that we just recorded in which, spoiler for the Patreon episode, you should. Go subscribe, patreon.com slash civilized. But when you said that, you know, Rhodian is your favorite alien species, I would, or no, that Greedo was your. No, you're right. It was Roeatians in the original trilogy.

Yeah. Right, right. And I was like, oh, Austin is feasting on this swagged up Rodian right now. With the pouches across the chest and the dark, the brown cape and the armor and all. I mean, it doesn't go good for him. And the knife thing? And the knife thing? And the knife thing?

Like the hand knife thing is fucking sick. It's like brass knuckles plus a knife. Yeah. Very cool. Unfortunately, Darth Vader, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah. David is going to kill your cool monster. He's going to levitate you off the ground and feed you to your cool monster, I guess,

is actually what happens, right? He gets fed to the monster. And then Vader stabs the monster through the head at the same time that it's eating. The cool Rhodian? Oh, well. Brutal. I have to say, seeing the decapitated heads,

one of them being my favorite alien species, the Ortolan, was fucking horrible. It was actually hideous. I hated that so much. Pretty messed up. I should say, I don't know that Rodian is my favorite overall,

because once you get to the prequels, you just get so many new types of aliens and I have lots of fondnesses throughout that so I'd have to have a deeper thought on that but yeah see and I don't have much of that I think it's fun when the vault opens up and you just find that there's infinite credits inside and that's a fun bit I guess it's not infinite because if it was infinite they wouldn't have to do the

heist that they do soon I like the hut yeah he just started decking himself out in gold discs which is which is fun that he's just like just starting basically a string wealth just draping it on his body that's that that's that's that's cool great look yeah and this

this notion that like Vader is fully in mesh now in you know honestly this is kind of well it's a little I think I was the empire oh I was going to do the other way which is it's a little mall it's a little malls stuff with crime, right? Like, is there something that, what's going on here? Why are the,

the Sith keep getting involved with criminal networks and stuff, but you're right, it is also a little shout to the Empire. I think maybe, maybe it is that you know, the Sith are, like, they're always, they're always betraying someone, they're always, they're always being tricksy on, on some level.

And so the Sith always end up having some need to go access a hidden avenue of, like, capacity for violence. and wealth, like something that is untraceable. And so they always end up back in the underworld trying to get assets that are untrackable. In Palpatine's case, it's that there's some things he needs to do that can't be connected

to the Republic, to himself, really. And here in Vader's case, it's the classic, you know, you figure out, you got to sell out your boss. And so you need to start, you can start lining up assets to take him on. And we do get confirmation here of something we've talked about a long time for a long time, which is like, hey, to what degree is the Hutt syndicate or all of the Hutt syndicate actually a rival to the empire and to what degree are they working in bits and pieces here and there? Because here what Vader is basically done is like set up a, has knocked out the enemy, like the mutual enemies of both the huts and the empire in order to let Jaba. kind of like elbow in and take over this part of space as as it's you know head crime lord which i think is something we've often talked about as what is the relationship there you know yeah so of course

we also then immediately get sutha the hut being like hey this money you're stealing from this this guy actually this is this is infinite credit so this is the money that they steal back actually in right yeah this is the huge fortune that they steal um uh yeah Sootha is like, it sure would be nice if you told us the coordinates that the imperial shipment is going, you know? I would not have the absolute self-assuredness to try to pull that on Darth Vader. A lot of sand. If you don't ask, if you don't ask, you don't, you won't, you won't, you know, the hand that gets fed is the hand that reaches out. How does that one go?

The squeaky oil gets the squeaky, nope, it's not a squeaky oil. It's not that. Squeaky oil gets the hand. Gets the hand. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's hammered down. One is very funny here that like,

Vader's already had this idea. Like the huts, the huts like, you know, we could actually work out a sweet deal. And Vader's like, I have worked out the sweet deal. That's right.

Dr. Afra and I have a very sweet deal lined up, which is like we got a triple. I forget, is this being on a quadruple cross or does it stop a triple? Because after we're putting a team together to, you a heist on the money train that's going through a shout-outs of the shield. Yes. The season two money train that gives that season its arc. I mean, let's walk through it, Rob, because it's this guy, Rhodian pirate, a Rhodian crime lord has money, right? Yep. Vader kills him. Is that

a betrayal of any sort? No, that's just... Let's grant that that one is not. Okay. So he takes the money for the possession of the empire. Right. Then. Then Afra. Then he arranges Afra. Right. To steal it. Yes. She puts together a team of bounty hunters.

She steals it. They all steal it. We'll talk about that how that happens in a moment. Then they split it. Well, she, yes. Yes. They split it. Oh, along the way, a lot of it goes missing.

Something goes wrong in the heist and a lot of it goes missing. They split what's left. but she didn't actually go missing. She secretly, along with one of the other members of the team, stole it and put it somewhere else or then they get it. And there's not an additional one after that. So it's a triple, right? Okay. Yeah.

So unless we're going to count the first thing as a betrayal, which it doesn't see, I want now because the Twitter Cross is fun, I would love to say it. Yeah. But I don't think it rises to that. I think the first thing is just a smash and grab effectively. I think. I don't think anybody betrayed anybody. Not that I remember. I think Vader just kind of shows up, right?

Well, the betrayal is the in four. Is the guy wearing the imperial tracer? You're right. He's wearing the tracer. Yeah. Okay. That's a betrayal. Many betrayals.

All right. I love it. So, yeah, they, they, Aphrodite's putting together a team. Who are our team members? We have Cresantan. we have IG90 yep

did Chris Andy get way friendlier looking between the last time we saw him and this one it's just that one shot of him where his arms are over his head and he looks chill as fuck yeah

he's just chilling well and they do talk about how much he loves to fight right and he was like in the death pit killing people so maybe he's just bliss out right now yeah exactly you know Um, there's also boss here.

Bosque. You know boss. And finally we have, um, B-Box. We got B-box. We got B-box. I don't know this guy. He's a short king. Yeah.

That is, doesn't have a lot else going on other than he doesn't like being called B-box, but. Oh, yeah, what's is? have an actual name? My bad. I don't know his actual name, but when I looked up Darth Vader characters, he was B-box. I'm looking at his Wikipedia page.

His name is B-box, as far as Star Wars Wikipedia is concerned. But it seemed like he didn't oops, just saw a spoiler. It seemed like he didn't like he didn't like it when Afra called him that. Oh my God.

He pulls up the mask and it's Reven's mask under there, the helmet, and it's Reven's mask underneath. That's really funny. We got my shins blown off on the outer rim, and it's like the fully the king of the hill dad. They put me in cryosleep for 6,000 years or whatever, but I'm back and I'm in a faux Mandalorian armor now. Because that's what B-Box is dressed in. He's a very short king with a big gun and, like, pseudo, it's not literally Mandalorian armor, but like, come on.

It's a helmet with like a similar it looks like it would be Mandalorian armor in the Philoniverse. I feel you've definitely seen a a Mandalorian with this style of helmet before. John Favreau's out there with all that, that whole clan of Mandalorians and all that. Yeah.

And then, so she she hires the crew, IG90 is there. Yeah. And then they do a deep space heist on this Imperial Cruiser that is this carrying the money. It's just a good heist scene. I love the way it's sort of carried off with the step by step, like blow the charges, make sure the crew is locked away. It seems like they are leaving survivors, but it's crucial the survivors can't know exactly what happened.

Yeah, they blow up an asteroid to create a like sudden asteroid belt slash meteor shower depending on what issue of this you're reading that changes the description of it for some reason. But they think that all of the explosions are being caused by that when in fact there's also breaching charges happening. And also BT is like on the deck helping to set up the like the eventual triple cross, right? That's right. Also, the ship is mainly manned by Imperial probe droids. Oh, right. That's right.

Which is interesting, because it seems like the pilots are beings, but everyone managing the ship otherwise are Imperial Probe droids. So pretty easy, straightforward heist here for a gang of bounty hunters such as these. Yeah, they specifically note that, like, the empire wouldn't trust sentient beings or sapient beings with this many credits, basically. Which, fair enough. Like, I think that's case and point. Right. You know? I really love the panel where BT sees the kind of, like, big second asteroid rock just cleave the ship into, basically.

it's like that that series of panels with chrysanin flying in the like you know kind of toe cable asteroid and like slamming it into the ship that's a really fun that's a real fast and the furious ass heist man we were just talking about heist the other day in the uh may patreon episode and the java java's palace stuff uh and this is just as outrageous as anything else but it's really fun as hell totally and it's a lot of credits sorry go ahead oh I was going to say we love a visual gag we love an upside down panel we do love an upside down panel I forgot about the upside down panel

yeah that was very good and we have a fun dividing the spoils scene where crucially it's got to seem like she's getting bullied by the bounty hunters so there's a moment where she tries to take the expenses out of the top line amount of what they stole

and the bounty head immediately draw their guns which is totally fair by the way like the expenses should be deducted before you do the split. Yeah we need their expenses and like as long as as long as you trust the person doing the expenses because you that is a good way to skim a little extra right? Yeah. If you are

you know you want to make sure that you're going with the no bid you're not going with a no bid contractor right if there's a third party involved here you want to make sure that it's the cheapest possible one. You want to make sure that they're not like hooked up with a third party who is providing the explosives and they charged you extra on the explosive. You know what I mean?

There's all sorts of ways you could game this. I don't know how much the create a sudden asteroid belt out of nothing device was, but you know. But either way it mooted because the bounty hunters are not having that. Maybe because they're familiar with the scam too. Right. Which is the, you have expenses, not a problem.

Those are coming out of your end. And this is such a clever bit because it's like, Yeah, let them catch you on that one. And then you just ease it over by being, no, no, no, no, okay, no, no, okay, no expenses. And then they won't investigate whether or not you were really screwing them by taking the rest of the money. They're like, what seems to be the bulk of the remaining money using a secretly placed magnet satellite. Yeah. Crescenton is piloting?

Or is he just collecting the satellite? I think he tow cables that in, or maybe he's, he tow cables that in, or maybe he, collecting it. Maybe he's also collecting it. I decided reading these panels over and over that I don't need to know the actual mechanism. I just need to understand that everyone else thought all that money was lost, but actually it was being siphoned up

by something. Right, because I think what we haven't said as part of the facade here is that like a bunch of the money goes out into open space. Right. So there's already this tension of like, you said we'd come here for houses an amount of gold you could build a house out of and now we're only getting these like two

like big basically like garbage cans that you put outside of the building. What are those called? Dumpsters. Dumpsters worth of money. Yeah, which is you could make like a tent out of one of the house. It's still so much money.

If I'm Basque, I'm done, I think. I made it. I mean, maybe it's the thing he's not sorry. He has the school. score to deal with. He's to deal with the score and the goddess the goddess of the hunt.

I forgot. I forgot. Well, if I'm B-box, I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the problem is things are precarious.

Like, Cassie and End or tried that exact move? You're right. You get your payday and you piece out, but where can you go to make sure, like,

where do you go to make sure that your wealth will be respected? I can't wait to learn about B-Box's mom. and how important she is to, I don't know, the bounty hunter culture. I don't know what the equivalent would be for someone who's not, like, rebel-aligned, you know. And then we get to, we return to what Tage is up to, which is that he is assigning, he is giving everyone roles to deal with the fallout of the destruction of the Death Star, various rebel raids that are occurring.

and really what this underscores is the degree to which, and I got to put this squarely on Palpatine. This is not a, I think we are still roughly sticking with the, Tage's arrogant, like he comes across in the movie, but he is not a fool.

Vader may not respect him, but the real problem here seems to be this collection of shit heels that Palpatine has saddled everyone with as like you have to give my failed children important roles in whatever, you are up to.

And Taz is trying to sign every enrolls, but they all suck. Now, does Tash misidentify what some of them were good at? The twins seemed good at nothing. Just full stop. Absolutely. Twins suck. Failures, yeah. They are failed children, for sure.

There's something about them that feels like it's, and I'm not current on what I believe is now the show that's ended to the boys, but I read it when it was coming. I read the first three or four trains when it was coming out. No, I got this too. But they feel like characters from that style of like Garth Ennis late 2000s early 2010s comic Subversive commentary on comic tropes like Silver Age were fucked up and evil Yeah, and yeah I imagine that they torture babies or You know hurt people in ways that I don't even want to say out loud under the microphone because I don't want to put that on them

I don't know them like that maybe it's not fair But they come across like boys characters to me you know And maybe it's because they were apparently, you know, raised by birth to be weapons. And there's a little over, you know, a connection there. But still. I don't think of them as that like, like, cringe, I guess is the only word I could reach four years. Because like they seem almost like like college students more, which I guess is not that different from. What's more cringe than a college student?

They seem so cringe to me. Yeah, I guess I'm seeing less grim dark and I'm seeing more like, they are still finding themselves in such a way that, like, one of them is doing the, like, I'm really intense and I'm going to beat you up. And then the girl is sort of like trying to work out if, like, ideology is the thing for her. And, like, yeah, I mean, I didn't see the boys. I'm sure that's also happening there. This is the kindest reading of these characters.

Like, you know, they seem like they're really trying to find out who they are. That's what's going on here. And it's like, these are my interns. You have to put them in charge of an entire division of the company. This little trust fund brat is now in charge of Luke Skywalker investigation. I think, yeah, Ali, the thing I'm really calling on here is like stuff like the boys is filled with like guy who is just like who looks visually like the hero does something ultra violent. And fucked up Cyclops. Right.

Fucked up Cyclops, fucked up Superman. And then often the woman's sidekick or the secondary protagonist. goes, I didn't like him either, but did we have to do it like this? And like, it's kind of like, you know, condescending and like looking down. And it's still evil, but is like evil in this fucked up woman way. You know, that's like the way a lot of these stories are structured. And she doesn't really get to that point necessarily. But like there is something that is, I think it's partly the like they come,

they're the failed children of Palpatine, like not literally, but, but, you know, that is kind of the position they're in that gives me that vibe. I want to see more of them I'm surprised we didn't see more with them in this reading So yeah They are the cringe twins to me I think they are Just

I mean yeah the cringe twins Like I see them like They're like they have like a wrestling thing They're like the Divinkey twins But But But they're this instead I just like

It's giving like cut someone down and then they're high-fiving after. Like that's the vibes they give off. Like two hands-up high-five, like double-high-five. Double high-five. Not even a single. Not a single. Double-high-five.

I just don't like their approach at all. They come in like they just immediately start killing people. They don't have a lot of swag. Do we have a tier list for this crew? Who's the best one of these people? I feel like we're in a teacher's lounge, by the way. I feel like now we are fully like it's like between fourth and fifth period. We all share a prep hour.

No one asks if the kids have bad vibes. Sometimes we can have that vibe. We hate these little fake Winkle bosses, right? We fucking hate them. And Ali's like, no, they're okay in English class. They're they're posturing a little bit. And the rest of us are just very. Just burying them.

I have to say, I think I like fake General Grievous less than them. I think he gets on my nerves even more. He, like, postures at being like, I'm, but I'm the military mind, and you should put me in charge. And I don't, I don't fuck with him. I don't fuck with him. He's got nothing. Where is the Trindotion? The Trindotion is not here, right?

Well, the Trindotion's dead. But the, remember, the Trondotion doesn't actually. exist. The Transocean is like a collection of algorithms or whatever that gets loaded into a new body. And so we haven't seen the new body yet. The reprint. The reprint, exactly.

But that's next book or something. I do think fucked up Admiral Dala who Admiral Dala passed through Sandman is kind of the vibe of this

character. But like I No, I'm sorry. The art is cool. I've yet to pick up anything cool, like, what her deal is. I've seen, like, her do something that establishes that she's more than a costume and some, like, cool scar tissue and glasses. The glasses are cool. Yeah. I'm curious about Tulan because she, she and Vader are both singled out as having too personal a relationship to searching for,

in the scene we get General Taj like assigning everyone their next job so General Carbon was given the task of looking for Luke that's the fucked up

Carbon for the listener who is not reading along for some reason because these are great you should read along. Is the Mon Calamari in the general grievous body? Yeah the Astarte twins are given the

plasma devil's job to find them and crush them. And then he says to Toulon and Vader like neither of you can be on the Luke mission because you are both

so personally invested. Your passion is disruptive. I refuse to let your emotionality disrupt my plans. My understanding is that Toulon was a part a big part of the Death Star. Like she talks about previous in this in this scene

you know, the loss of, like the loss of the brilliant minds that were on the Death Star and it feels. Oh my God. She kind of is. She's like mad at Vader about this, right? She's like, she is.

She blames him for it. All my, my best curator group was killed because of this Luke Skywalker. I forgot about the best curator. So, yeah, I think Toulon right now is the top of my tier list because she's got potential, but she needs to pull through and kind of show me what she's got. She's getting reassigned to research, which feels kind of pointed. But Bader's, a little, yeah, it's a little. Yeah, I'm like, why does the nerd have to go?

the lab and do the googling or whatever the fuck she has to do. Vader gets another what's called propaganda mission, which is an interesting way to describe this, the mission he is assigned. The mission he is assigned is to investigate what the fuck happened

to that huge sum of money that was supposed to go to Anthem Prime. As we know, Vader arranged for it to be stolen. But why is it called a propaganda mission? I was wondering if anyone had a read on that. I think this is like a public enemy. You got to kill Dillinger is the thing.

You can't let people think the empire can just have its stuff ripped off. So they need to show that there's swift imperial justice for anyone who dares take the money. So you think people have heard about this? Like this is people are tweeting out there. People are tweeting. People are posting. They're roasting. They're roasting the empire in in chat about. Bruh, how do you lose like a gazillion dollars?

Bro, that's enough money to build a house out of it. Yeah, for sure. Because of course, even the bounty hunters are probably talking about it. I don't trust BVox not to be at the bar being like, did you, did you hear? Oh my God. I'm just imagining how team. blowing the entire bit years of prep by tweeting from

the wrong account. Oh my God. Tweet it like Katie. He's locked in insidious. It's like a miscidious. My chancellor's office will ensure the perpetrators this Paul Diedle have brought to justice.

Uh, huh? Why'd you say that? Yeah. People of the galaxy. My account has been hacked. Clean shots going back a year showing similar punctuation usage, similar phrasing. They both keep saying, do it.

It's kind of interesting. I had to notice. Little things. So my first reaction when they introduce Inspector Fanoff was at first I'm like middle-aged bureaucrat and I'm like, well, they're just another sacrifice. Like another lamb to the slaughter And then I spotted the cane And I don't know what it was about the cane

But it was a little bit like Oh wait we got to we we have a 19th century sleuth On the case here And then in the shots where you're seeing the hat And a little more silhouette It's even drawn a little bit to look like the iconic Shawcombs Deer which he never wears In the stories but like became sort of synonymous with him

In like the Raffbone movies and some of the illustrations Sure But, yeah, like in no time at all, it's very clear that this guy is no fool, and Vader's not going to just be able to spin in a circle like the last dude. In fact, I thought this dude caught Vader red-handed when he says, oh, you should know where the heist was because you were there yesterday. Yeah. Huh?

Oh, yeah. I was busy doing something else in here, but I was getting groceries. They have good orange. The Clementines are in season on that world. It was so funny, I was just there. I was just as funny. I was going to tell you that, actually. I got back, and I saw the robbery, and I was like, oh, my God.

I was just there. I was called this in. I would have handled it. Yeah, it was my day off, but I wasn't going to, I mean, is a Sith Lord's time ever really theirs, you know, in this connected world? Phanofs just casual. the dust of this planet fluoresces at this frequency

but only for 24 hours and it's like in every like encyclopedia Brown makes this bust it's like literally you're there yesterday hey man hey also by the way Vader you wearing the same thing as yesterday huh you don't have a change of clothes

in that little you didn't get a chance to shower you didn't walk through the because he's heard to me because he's wearing that thing was fucking suck he's wearing the same I do think he changes he did the hell he comes off like he gets like a

wipe down of the armor at some point that's I mean at the very he's got a wipe down the armor it's got to be like the cloak gets washed the armor gets polished all that they swap some like worn out materials but like the core suit

like I don't think he'd be taken out of that I don't think I don't get that no they actually they show them in a back to tank at some point. They do. You can't let the grit get into the electronics. It's like a denim situation. You only wash it like once a month or whatever, right? Like you don't. You don't air blow off the sand from the machine that keeps you alive?

But he's probably getting shit on that. Like, he's killing people. Like, there's got to be some blood splatters. You don't think that that's getting cleaned off? Well, it didn't in this situation. And I never really thought. Does Darth Vader showers? Does Darth Vader shower?

Does Darth Vader take bath? I think it's just like, sometimes he pulls the ship into the hangar, hops out, and he's like, I need to get detailed. And then there's just all over him with the like vinyl cleaners and such, like cleaning off parts of the suit. And he's like, thanks. Thanks, fellas. Smells great. Back at it. Looking supple.

Yeah, he's putting some black ice air fresheners inside the It's the back to tank situation I think that's really just it I think he lives in that back to tank sometimes So yeah Which we've seen that's from Obi-WI I forgot about this You know how in like

Like your mom or grandma probably had a standing Weekly appointment at the beauty salon And like that was her That was her getting her hair done for the week and that was her hair for the week. I feel like the Bacta tank is the hair salon for Darth Vader. Like he's getting wash, blow dry, everything done. Yeah.

And then he's set for the week. And he just hasn't had that appointment yet, that's what you're saying. No, it's probably tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't think he was going to be interrogated about it until. And the fact he absolutely fails the, why would you say?

Why would you say I was there? That's so, he's like, no, you got the dust from that planet. Oh, yeah, shit, I was. No, totally. I didn't, I forgot to mention it. But yeah, that's wild. So, Vader not the smoothest and Thanos, like, I will simply not think about this further. But I do wonder if there's just further evidence that Thanos's brilliant.

He might be in on it. It's like, if you catch this guy, you're just dead. Right. Like, the worst thing you can do is catch Vader in a lie. And it's like the classic, um, you know, there's, this movie happens in a bunch of movies. Immediately I'm thinking of like LA Confidential, right? Where Kevin Spacey asked the wrong question to the corrupt police lieutenant and immediately

turns around and kills him or the minority report thing where Colin Farrell like starts to figure out what's going on. You'll get killed immediately. And so maybe Fanoff has already realized, okay, so basically I'm getting, I'm investigating Vader. Yeah. If I solve this crime, I'm immediately dead. So I just need to let him think that he's led me.

astray. Or what if it's like I'm proving what a good detective I am so that when the time comes, I can tell him, listen, I'll work with you. I don't have any loyalty to Tage. And you've seen how good I am. So wouldn't you like to add me to your coterie of insiders? You know? So he's putting to get like, so Dr. Afra, like surrogate child, right. Inspector Thanoff, his new Ben. That's right. He's putting the other his and then fake R2 or evil R2 evil C3pio Of this I love this for him And then somewhere he's gonna find like a

I mean he doesn't know about Leah right So he can't have another Kid probably Show up but you know Yeah like if in this scenario Ali has given me a confused look in the way that Afra is his stand in child He can't have another stand in child yet because he explicitly

Doesn't know about a second kid but he does know Well also because that would be like a snake in like grandpa right? No, yeah. Wait, it's a standing grandpa. Because like he's an old man? He's like a cool old man. He's like a cool old man.

Yeah, Rob was saying that Thanath is his Ben is like his stand in old man. And then I guess we could we could get a stand. I guess she's kind of already a stand in Han Solo too, Afra. Anyway. Yeah. But Anakin didn't have a Han Solo. Like he doesn't have that this is one of the race he goes wrong.

He doesn't have a cool side. Like Ben unfortunately is the closest. has to like a bro who he goes on bro ventures with. Yeah, he doesn't really have Han Solo. Like, imagine Han Solo comes into Anakin's bedroom that he's not living in

on Corrassant and sees he's clearly not living in. He's got all childhood shit. Like, Han immediately clocks like, hey man, are you okay? Like, what's really going on? This is why the prequels are good and the sequels are bad.

There's no Han Solo in the prequels. And that's okay. They didn't need to just Just duplicate The structure The like the like you know Roles of the original trilogy The sequel trilogy

Is Han Solo's all the way down That's my point No every one is Han Solo Finn is Han Solo And then Hans Solo is there And then Hans Solo is there And you know Yeah

The sequel trilogy And its attempts to just duplicate The original trilogy Is great You can't turn Han Solo into the platters. You can't. You can't.

You can't. There's one Han Solo, importantly. Yeah, the sequel trilogy being like, we're going to do the original trilogy again, works when it's one guy's fucked up vision for the future. When it's Kyla Wren's obsession, it works. And when it's we, the people who are making the show or the movie are going to do it,

it's like, the villain in the movie wants to remake the original trilogy. You shouldn't try to read. Ah, anyway. Okay, one day. One day, one day. Maybe soon. We might have to, I might need to exercise this after, sometime later this year.

I think we do. I think we do. No, I think we just have to, this is the thing. I think like, we're building meter. We're building meter. We're building meter.

I'm going to, I'm going to be, I'm about to alt. This is, this. If you don't let us limit break, it's going to, it's going to,

we're wasting it on the raid. Yeah, like the rate, we're not going to even. use it on the raid and what's the point? Damn. Ripped to Destiny too. So the investigation begins.

Thanoff is taking him through. They've towed the ship to the shipyard to do like forensic like crash reconstruction on it. Thanos talking through the deductions. Thing I love in the scene though is how Vader's end of this conversation looks.

He's sitting on the hood of his car talking into his phone with his legs crossed. In his the most like Anacons to wonder there. Yeah. Yeah. He loves a ship. He's just chilling. I love it. And he picks up what the Danos picks up that like, oh, this wasn't a natural meteor shower. That's very clearly, you know, things have been deleted. Details have been hidden, etc. And then if he keeps pretending, I'm so passionate about fighting rebels. Right. Right. And it, it,

And so it's Thannot that figures out that there is, like, their only lead at this point is the person who sold the explosives for the asteroid itself to create the asteroid blast, right? So we got to go find the dragon, which is an insane name for someone, for a pseudonym for someone in Star Wars, I think. No one has ever been... Until the Dead Star Dragon became part of... Became part of lore. There's the crate dragon. The crate dragon exists on Tatouine.

You fight it in Cochlor Wine. Yeah, but then his name should be the crate dragon. But if there wasn't a broader idea of dragons, that thing would just be called the dragons. It's called the crate dragon. Is this like when... Is this like when in the Avatar cartoon, they finally just encounter a...

bear that's not like a cut like a like a ladder bear yeah or uh like rabbo bear or something and they're like just a bear and it's like that's the fucked up thing i've ever heard what is that is it kind of like that or it's like i'm the dragon and we're all which one what yeah i think that's right yeah that's really good call's a dragon yeah i really like vader's lie here by the way that that he's uh uh you know what isn't it sorry i've already thanoth thanoth thanoth is like why were you on anthony 13 and Vader was like, oh, yeah, I was killing rebels there. I, I, I fucking, I hate those rebels. And he's like, it wasn't reported.

And Vader's response to that is like, oh, yeah, I mean, I don't report every time I kill a rebel. I kill rebels all the time. I don't consider that like a special. That's my day job. You know, do I want a cookie? For me, it's Tuesday. You might have seen an interview about this. Exactly.

Yeah. I also love Thanoff. So your partner is Darth Vader, which is already like complete mismatch. Like this is a buddy comedy from hell. Your partner is just like ultra violent Amelia Bedelia, just like wrecking everything your path. But then also you're trying to do cop stuff and your tool is stormtroopers. And so that's like we found where the criminals have gathered and we're ready to. close the net and they come in and the stormtroopers are the process of just demolishing a casino.

It is literally like they walk into the middle of it looks like a war war II engagement. Yeah. I read the scene different on the very first panel of it because he's explaining that it's a, it's a droid fight pit or like a droid fighting ring. And Vader's like, why is that, why does that exist? And the guy's like, well, you can't have people fighting pits. Those aren't legal or whatever. But people have urges.

People want to see combat, you know? It's, of course you do. And they walk out the door and they see all the stormtroopers. I was like, are the stormtroopers at the fight pit for fun, but all in their stormtrooper uniform, which was not what was happening. But I did think for a brief moment when they stepped out of the elevator that what Vader was seeing was just like a bunch of off-duty stormtroopers. chilling at the

at the club at the fight club exactly now why are they here who has fucked up the fucking twins the cringe twins hit again strike again and they're just murdering people they're just murdering people

and the droids that were doing they're fighting and and and you know getting rid of anyone that could offer any information at all but they do single out Duon

who is the dragon to have a word or two is it is it just a guy who knows where the dragon is right? Because the dragon is the guy who are the screen mask right you're so right yes yes yes yes no the guy with the

fucked up face is the ante oh the ante that's right which is that's a good name. Now that is a good pseudonym. Yeah, I know. I leave my mind, might have skipped right off the dragon. That's fair. He's only in it very briefly in like the last issue of this reading, I believe. And I of course

remember exactly what he looks like. I am not scrolling rapidly to find him. I don't remember. They investigate, they interrogate doing and then they turn him over to the twins and the twins are immediately or at least the

the dude immediately decapitates Dewin and Thanos loses his shit. And again, the twins so loathsome. The kid says, a show of force. We have no laurels to rest on, no reputation. Now the planet knows who we are and what we will do to anyone who opposes us. And the sister says it's messy but necessary. Now all can see how bloody the imperial fist can be. And so, yeah, they basically just execute a prisoner

so everyone knows how tough they are. And also that they're like, people don't know the empire means business, but thank God we got here to show that the empire is tough. Yeah, it's not like the empire has ever, like, blown up an entire fucking planet before.

I think it's more that they specifically want that reputation, right? Yeah. They want to be known as cool badasses who you have to be afraid of. Also, I remembered who the dragon is now. And I'm sorry to tell you it's another guy from Max Rebo's species. Oh, yeah, it's the orthol.

It's the orthol. Because when Vader finds him, he goes, please, I surrender. I'll tell you everything. And Vader goes, will you tell who you, will you reveal who you sold the explosives to? And he goes, yes. And then Vader goes, ashamed. And cuts and kills him. Because he's like, well, I don't want you to reveal it.

I needed you to say no. You were supposed to say no. Only for then to run in and goes Cursus, what happened? Like, my, like he's so, yeah, he's so by Jove. He's so by Jove coded. Um, but anyway, fuck these twins.

They, they're so annoying. Allie is holding up hope I can feel, Allie, holding up that they do one cool thing by the end of this book. No, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Like they give the vibe that they're going to like decide they can be drug dealers and just get killed in their first buy. Like that is that is also the vibe that they that they give. Hey, new place just dropped or maybe we haven't fully internal like Anthen Prime.

Yeah. I'm here for Anthem. We come back here a few times over the course of the story and we meet the ante. But I'm I'm here for this. Where's this location? Give me, like, we were talking on that, on that Patreon show that we were referencing, like, favorite things. Austin, I think you both, both picked Baspin Cloud City as like a location, we like that. Anthen Prime, another, like, place where it's kind of happening here.

Yeah, it's cool. I think it's a gas giant again. And then the, there's like this big space station, which I think is called the, we get the name later that it's called the spire. that's like in the very upper echelons of Anthem Prime. It's cool. I love, they're like, they're like zooming into land here. And there are like Cloud City style cloud cars in there too, which I think is cool. And they get told basically like, oh, a ship like yours?

Yeah, you got to land in the servant's entrance, the servant docks or whatever, the tradesman's entrance. and triple zero is pissed about that, which is very fun. Also, Triple Zero is the world's only computer that's crap at chess. Or that guy's lying or cheating. Maybe that guy's cheating. Who could say? Are you cheated chess? I know it's hollow chess, but like.

Yeah, I think it's funny if you're right. If somebody just like slips a rook back and onto the board, I'm going to notice. Yeah. There's two of them. If I got one of them, there can't be two again. Yeah. Oh, no, I promoted that pawn. Both shit.

here to get some information because Afra, from the ante, who's a new guy who Rob, you described as having a skin mask on. No, the scream mask. The scream mask, I see. But that's just his face. He's awesome.

I love him. He's a type of alien that was in Most Isley in the first movie. No, I would have remembered a guy with this much aura. I mean, I don't think that guy had the aura. That, to be fair. Oh, wait. Hang on. Hang on.

To be fair. Now I'm getting it. Yes. I do feel like this is more face-like. And the alien you're talking about, I remember feeling more phallic in the, in my size of the canteen. This guy is a given G-I-V-I-N. I will drop the screenshot of him. That will also, of course, be in the episode description.

Let me take a screenshot here. Copy image, please. Please copy image. There we go. Here he is. There he is. He's one of these guys. But I do think that the ante has more aura than this given.

This is, this is Linus in peanuts as a little ghost outfit. With the blanket, and Charlie Brown. Yeah, that's what's going on here. They're from the rim, the inner rim world of Yagdoul. So, you know, well, you said that like,

Osterback. I did kind of. You're right. The inner rim world of Yagdul. Yeah, I even tried to put the premoncy of The board is yours. The board is yours. Aliens for 400. Sentient species from the inner rim world of Yagdul.

What is Givens, Alex? That is right. So, Afr is there to get information on a mysterious Commodex town. A mortician. on Nabu. Mm-hmm. I love this guy being like, first, so I love her showing up and just be like, here,

a billion credit chips on his desk, and he's like, uh, okay, I guess. I love that they have so much money at this point that it doesn't matter to her, how she spends it. And I do like him being like, this is information that doesn't seem that important, you know? I love that both she and the ante are kind of left scratching their heads as to why did you come to me? I'm like a high-level information broker. This is the sort of stuff that you could get from any database. And the answer is, of course, like, I need it quick and I need it quiet. So.

Well, and I do love Afris smile there. She reveals that they are marticians. The satisfaction of, and this does, like, strike me as an academic. Oh, this was just waiting. Nobody wrote anything about this. Like, this has been sitting there basically in plain sight. And you're just the first person to be like, did anyone look at this?

And the answer is no. And so she's on the chase of something that, like, is going to be the easiest mystery in history to solve. And she's going to get credit for it. Like, all someone had to do was look twice, and they never did. That's good. Uh, yeah, they kill the dragon.

Next, next issue, we're now on issue 10. They find the dragon. Vader kills. him. Then I was like, oh no, his curses. What happened? Zounds. He was going to blow it all up and I stopped it.

I didn't realize how sick the dragon is actually. Yeah. Because he is like four piercings on each ear and a big necklace of like a big dragon chain. He's a dragon necklace on. The vest of dragon scales. That's fucking sick.

What the fuck? It's a shame what happened. They killed my guy too soon. They did. They should let him cook. He's dressed up like Ordelon. No, Ortollon. Sorry, Ordeon is the little bird they eat that's illegal now to eat.

I think it's probably illegal to eat or tole. I think I would hope. But you know they're getting eaten all the time in Star Wars. But I think I've expected. blame what the Ordelon is in every podcast I've been on, so I'm going to skip this one. But he kind of looks like Ortoll and Gambit there with the gun out and everything, the jacket.

If only he said, mon cher, we'd be set. But killing him, I think Vader's like, finally caused the trail to go cold. And then this fucking, inspects your than off does this goddamn puzzle solution yeah

Vader's not used to having people with like high security high investigation high spot search you know but he does it he cracks the code on the data pad because

or tollens have finger secretions am am I a bad person for wanting him to be a cyborg huh say more he keeps doing these like hyper-aware, like, scanning, like, I can see the dust on your cloak.

I can see the fingerprints on these buttons. And they keep doing these, like, you know, zoom-ins and close-up on his face. And he has this, like, one monocle. And, like, I want him to have, like, a cyber eye to be doing these investigations with. Or, like, maybe it's on a cyber eye, but the monocle is, like, mechanical in some way. I need the... Because he just... he's giving the RDC world how smart characters be acting in anime

with like the death note music playing as he solves all this shit so maybe he's just like that alley maybe he doesn't need the cyber eyes he clearly is just like that but every time in one of these scenes when he's like that on like a molecular level I'm like it could have been a cyber eye like if I have to keep looking at this monocle What if his monocle is secretly some sort of cyber situation? I think he has a monocle on. Sure, but like... Yeah, he does.

I would like to know that. I would like to have it look cool and, like, glow or something at the very least. Yeah. He's just nosy as fuck. Like, that's his vibe. He's just can't mind his own business and is looking into shit he shouldn't be looking into. I mean, what's he's supposed to do? look into it.

I don't know. If I was up against, if I was Darth Vader's partner, I'd be like, what do you want to do, boss? Like, what,

what, what, Taj is on your ass at the same time and Taj is the guy who's higher ranked than Darth Vader and reports of the emperor

directly. I don't need Tash doesn't, can't force choke me. I know. Tash can't force choke me. Like, maybe I'm just a guy with a mustache.

Tash has a gun. But I could just, I could just, I could just, be so like, like I could just ride for Darth Vader so hard that maybe he'll, I can come into the Darth Vader protection unit. You know what I mean? But that's the actual thing.

And we're about to learn this. It's not like safe around Darth Vader. No, it's not. It's not. You are in a precarious position. Yeah. But if he's bucking for that spot. I think so.

When they're at the, when they're like the crimes, the, the, the accident, the dry dock, basically. And he's like, you know, Tazia is with a star. destroyers. Yes. And so they're starting to bond about how much they hate their boss. Yeah. It's true.

Where he's like, so fuck this guy, right? It's like, there's like, indeed. Fuck that guy. I'm sick of him too. So here's a thing. And we all love sort of the trope of somebody who's connected to mysterious important events,

nursing a terrible secret, living in retirement, but always waiting for that knock at the door, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And yet all we do know about this guy, I didn't miss something. All we, no, no, no, his parents were morticians. That's what it is, right? That was this guy the mortician? He was the mortician.

He's got a big gun. He's retired. He's a mortician who's got a big golden gun. Yeah, because it was a gift to Comedex tan for services to Naboo by Padma Amadala. Maybe he, maybe he did some shit during the, Trade Federation War. You know what I mean? He was examining hell of bodies.

But also they called him like the mortician. The mortician. Yeah. Yeah. See? Now we're talking. A golden gun is kind of a wild gift to give a mortician specifically. Or maybe it was like, Padmei was like, you are, people are going to come after you.

I'm going to give you a super gun. All you have to do is point it and press the button and it should. Keep you alive. So here you go. I wonder if there is some sort of... I'm dead. I wonder if there is some sort of backstory here tied to something. Maybe not.

I don't know. I'm looking. This is his first appearance and first man. He's got a main character face. He does. You know who he kind of reminds me of here? Sipping the drink is the comedian from watchman. There's like a little like...

Yes. Oh, yes. That's 100% true. With salt and pepper hair and the, you know. But I don't know. I don't know why he has that. And just be clear, for again, the listener who's not reading, it's not a little blaster pistol that he has from Padmay.

It's... No, this is like, say hello to my little friend. It's a huge rifle. Scarface, like, cannon thing. It's like he did the micro-transaction to get the gold assault rifle with underbarreled grenade launcher. That's what it's like. No, he literally pre-ordered and got the skin,

but he sucks ass at the game. He's just a guy. Why is he got to suck ass? He's up against... Well, because it's clearly indebt. Like, you're going to keep your gun with the plaque. Like, you don't care. If he was using that gun, it would not be on the ball with the black.

Of course, he's not using the gun. He was a mortition. He got the pre-he thought everyone pre-ordered, but because he's just trying to game with his boys again. He's trying to get with his boys again. He's trying to give with his boys again. And so he thought everyone was pre-ordering, but he was the only one who pre-ordered.

And he is also the nub. so he is just the noob with the gold gun. What if his kids, because we get the photo of him with his whole family, what if his literal children pre-ordered it for him? Because they were like, Dad, play Battlefront with us. Oh, no, he's playing with the kids. He's playing with the kids, you know. We've really slipped between different worlds here, but.

The kids have, like credit cards, I guess. They look happy. I don't know. Anyway, this guy is sitting and drinking at night alone and then the Afra ship shows up and launches like a rocket and then a boarding, you know, thing or boarding unit lands filled with like the commando. The geomotion droids come out. Yeah. And he grabs the gun. He starts shooting at them.

But they're a distraction because BT. BT is just he's sneaking in and he blows the guy's hand off along with a couple of fingers. Yeah. And then it is time to begin the interrogation. We get a ton of backstory here on Dr. Afra. This is the... We do. And I'm also a sucker for this where Dr. Afra...

So basically, it's important to know, things look awesome on Nebo. Like, this is Monte Carlo. This is the French Riviera. This guy's living in comfort. This place looks like nothing else we've seen in Star Wars. It's gorgeous. And she shows up and he starts being like he's still loyal to Padme. Yeah.

She was a good woman, a good queen. And after replies, a good queen, I guess a good queen is a good thing. But I'd take a strong, I'd take strong over good any day. It replies, the ends, justify the means. Easy to say when you're not the ends. And she starts sneers back. When you're not the means. When you're not the means.

Yeah. Yeah. And she sneers back, when you were playing Courtier on Naboo, I was trying to grow up living in a galactic civil war at a mom who pretended we weren't. A homestead on the frontier, a brave spiritual life on a new world after split from dad. The thing with war is if the war doesn't get you, all the scum opportunists profiting from the chaos will. Raiders came in, mom told me to run. I did. But I came back with this awesome canon I found in a cave I was exploring and blew them all to pieces.

I saved everyone, and dad came back. We all lived happily ever after, and now I spend my time wandering the galaxy, recovering awesome cannons. My mom definitely didn't die in a ditch on a dead-end forest world we only went to because she was so idealistic. And she finishes off of Boo-hoo.

Everyone has a sob story. And then her world use kind of summed up with, point being, if you're not a strong queen, good doesn't mean anything. And strong and order beats good, but weak on every planet in the galaxy from now until the end of time. She's a true believer, as we suspected last time. Yeah. She's got a little of the Werner Herzog, Mando, Season 1, order, you know, ideology here, you know?

Not a little of it. It's here. This is what it is. Well, in some way, like, I think there's a thing you have a great deal of sympathy for is this note. of I really don't care about the politics of this. I just want the world to stop being so fucked up. You tell me what is the recipe for the world not being this fucked up? And I will follow that recipe.

Yeah. And that doesn't mean she's a empire, true believer. That's not it. This is why when she tells Vader, like, you've got to do something here. To a degree, like, the empire hasn't, has maybe not brought what she wanted out of the, out of the galaxy. But she has no patience for this sort of misty, like, oh, Padmey Amadala, you know, is sort of the, this is our camelot, right?

This is our, this is our Kennedy. And it's like, yeah, it probably looks like that from when you're sitting in wealth and comfort, you know, in a penthouse on Nabu. But, and this feels very much in line with the Clone Wars. What about that handmade? What about that? Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

I mean, something, there's, there's so much. interesting stuff happening here, I think. Because, you know, it is she, the reason she arrives at this place, in one of the lines that you summed up really quickly, but was like, he says, I'm sorry to her after she gives her story. And her response to that is, weren't you listening? There was a war going on. Everybody has a sob story.

Boo-hoo for everyone. And it's like, for her, war is chaos and chaos is the ultimate, you know, predecessor of, of death and violence and that's the thing that has to be stopped right like the thing that has to be the only way to stop that from happening is order for her and i do think that that like aligns her more closely with this particular imperial formation i think you're right that i don't think that she's like bought in on the emperor or taz or something but she has bought in on authority she is bought in on peace by any means right i mean he does the like by any means necessary or you know the means justify the end is great when you're not the means.

And she's like, everybody's the fucking means. That's her position. It's like we've all been treated like means for all of this. The person who she actually reminds me of in this is someone else who said by her own words, I don't have time for politics, which is Jin Erso, right, who also watched her family get killed or watched her father get killed more directly by, I actually didn't watch him get killed, watched him get kidnapped, right, as a kid. and fled.

And I think there's something really fun about, because this comes out right around Rogue 1, right? Is it right after, right before? Yeah, right before Rogue 1. And so I think there's something really fun about Afra as like goes through a similar situation, comes out the other side, similarly saying, I don't have an ideology or politics,

I just want order. Whereas Gin is like, I don't have a policy, I don't have time for politics. People like me didn't have that luxury. But then ends up getting caught in, you know, the Republic or the rebellion's gravity instead of Vader's, right? I do look forward to a scene of Afra discussing this perspective with Vader himself, because I think this is very Anakin in, uh, in, um, attack of the clones.

On Naboo. Yeah. On Nabu. Like, he is, he, he, he seeks the, the, the security. of order, like to him, to have power, to have control would mean to have peace, would mean to have security. And I think that's not too dissimilar from Afra's, you know, where Afra could end up getting at here. So I really hope that they get a scene where they're kind of talking, or at least if it's Afra opening up to him, I don't really see.

Vader opening up to Afra, but I could see just him, like that having an impression on him because it's so similar to how he thought when he was maybe a similar age to her a bit younger. I still, well, that last thing she says to Vader in the previous arc that we talked about where like when the time comes, don't hesitate, do it needs to be done. Basically like sort of make my sacrifice count for something, right? like I'm your loyal servant. The thing that is so funny here is like if this, if roughly this is sort of the key to her,

which is that she, she wants someone to bring some sort of order that means there's not more young Afras ending up like this. There's not like, this is happening less. Boy, is she backing the wrong horse. Because Vader doesn't give a shit about any of this. Like this is not about, you know,

ultimately in the end, it's going to come back to like potentially like catching a usurpation plot against Palpatine. He will eventually kill Palpatine, but that's not his motivation here. It is entirely personal. He doesn't care about the safety of the galaxy, security, order, any of that.

It is literally the same trauma, right? Like the thing that was mine was taken to me by this violent, you know, by this violent galaxy, but also, in Vader's case, I know the name of the people who actually did this. Yep. I know the name of the people

who lied to me. I know the name of the people who caused it. And so he has like this guided missile on this. And Afra, so tragically here, thinks she has found her champion. Yeah. I'm really curious to see, like, do we end up seeing, I believe this book ends before Empire starts or at the beginning of Empire. And so I'm curious if through that period, if that's enough time for her to learn that she's back the wrong horse or if she ever does. I don't know. And I don't know when the Dr. Afra book takes place. I know that that whole that whole comic also runs through some larger period of time. But I don't know if that's after this, if that's throughout her whole life, if that's sequels. I don't know. So. Which is interesting and exciting. Like I'd love not

really knowing anything about her. I love that I managed to make it to 2026 without being spoiled on key parts of her life. I know some things, but I don't know anything that's like, I don't know where she ends up. I don't know what happens to her, you know? She could die at the end of this book for all I know. And then the Dr. Affir book is like a prequel. Like I don't know. So that's exciting. Just gets crushed by a door.

She doesn't slide under it at this time. That's like so ironic. She could slide under every door with the last one. So the other thing is she, you know, she's looking at these photos of the family, you know, basically a life she didn't get to lead. And there's a degree of, you know, sympathy and recognition of the humanity of this person. but also the almost like sort of dark glee of like bringing this to a period, right? That like here's the galaxy kicking down the door. And these cute little family photos that I didn't get,

well, now you get a taste of what everyone else has been dealing with, not on Nebu for the last 20 years. But also even at this moment of sort of her revealing a key part of herself and showing how hard she is, she fucks up. Yeah. She misreads this guy. Yeah.

She thinks, she looks at the photo. She takes in his surroundings. She's like, this guy's soft as hell. And she lets, uh, triple zero torture him for a bit. And then she just comes in demanding, tell us what we already know. Uh-huh. It was a hall, like, you faked, you faked, you faked the pregnancy, uh, you know, the, the, the, the lost pregnancy with, with her body.

Uh, she gave birth to a son. son, didn't she? And he's like, she sure did. And the Jedi took that son. And she's like, great. We already knew that. And now, uh, triple zero can kill it. So he manages to, because my read on this is he 100% knew. Oh yeah. That there were. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred thousand percent. And that's like, the panel work here is really good. We haven't talked to too much about the art in this book. There's a number of great things. I think in this scene. But here we kind of get, um, it's, it's a top panel that's like not even the whole width of the, of the, of the, of the, page of her kind of walking in on him tied up to the chair then it's uh three panels um of her

talking to him and then the bottom set of the bottom triptych is him looking down her saying the like but but then they the Jedi came and took the son and then it's him looking up at her looking her in the eye and being like yeah she had a son they took they took him from her and the linework even thickens uh son like he is pointedly yes she had a son uh and And what a good maneuver, because here is where Vader could have learned about Leah and doesn't. This is actually a good version of how you avoid, like, a forced pigeonhole or, like, a forced, like, don't say or they can't see each other. He can't know that. Like, this is done really well.

I think it works really well towards Afra's character of being overconfident in this moment. and, you know, perhaps a little kind of quick on to move forward and to collect the W. And I think speaks a lot to the character of this, of, you know, this mortician, Tahn, that he's able to withhold that information. and he's able to maintain Padme's anonymity and maintain her, you know, her secrecy. I think it's really, really good. The fact that he explicitly is like, I don't know anything else, forgive me my queen.

Like, he's getting one over on her actively. He's pulling the rug over her eyes, or the wool of her eyes actively, pulling the rug out from under her actively. And we get a little bit here, too, that, like, she doesn't know. because later, I don't know if it's in the immediate thing talking here or maybe it's in the next part of the conversation.

No, it's here. It says she's boarding her ship. She goes, so there's a possible Nabu air out here. That's not how it works on Nabu. The queens aren't, they aren't hereditary. They're voted for. She doesn't know that. And I think that the limits of her knowledge are actually, they're really interesting.

So I also think that reflects some of what we were just talking about. with her, her disdain for leisure, her disdain for, for wealth, right? Like, here they are. You were in service of the queen. And, oh, there's a little prince out there. Great. And it's like, he's not a prince. That's not how it works on Nabu.

But she doesn't know that. Which is interesting also for an archaeology. Like, it's never came up. She never really fucked with Naboo heavy like that. So I just want to call it one other art thing here, which is on the page where she's giving her big story. There's this really great panel, the fourth panel on the page. It's a set of vertical panels or sorry, horizontal panels that are full width.

And this is the bit that Rob read that is about the homestead, about her mom being in like some sort of new age spirituality movement. I don't know. But we get the first three and we get the fourth one, which is where she's doing the bit about like, and then, and then dad came back and then da-da-da-da. this kind of like BS version of the story. And the way that panel it works is one, it's not the whole width of the page.

It's smaller. So it feels a little cramped. It feels a little like pushed in. And then two, there's this really great compositional work happening. She's looking left over the kind of like banister of the balcony out, you know, onto Naboo and the lakes or whatever that are out there. And then the way the composition works,

There is a pillar behind her, the edge of the balcony, the balcony like Bannister, and then like the other edge of the other side of the balcony. So there's this kind of hard vertical line that makes it almost look, if you're looking quickly, like there's two panels there, but there aren't. But it makes the eye pause for just a second and then actively move to the right where you can read him looking at her as she's telling this story. And I just like, comics are so good. The way that good artists can use layout and sometimes sometimes right. writers also provide layout notes to artists, not sometimes. It's like part of the thing, right? Your script has that sort of page layout note, but then the artist has to execute on it,

and often it's a partnership, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the way that this leads your eye to, like, take a half-step pause, but not a full pause. It's not its own panel. It isn't its own panel of him and the droid watching her. It's just this little half-step. I think it's just really clever compositional work along with the crunched-in kind of black around the edges of that panel. There's so many little things that you can do

as a comics team to like communicate stuff in the same way that as a filmmaker, you can do stuff with camera, you can do stuff with light, you can do stuff with color, you can do some edits. All that stuff is happening here

and it's worth just shouting out that I think they're doing a good job with it. There's another really great example of that and literally the next page as we get Vader in the dark as she comes back. It's so good. And tells him that

that this guy really loved the queen. It sounds like she was something special. And we just get Vader in the black. You know, we get the shine of his armor, but the rest of that whole bottom panel is just negative space. And then the following page is just

him as silhouette. Like, you just, he's just like this empty void. This comic does so well with utilizing negative space in evoking shadow and evoking you know, just like you said,

spacing, crampedness feeling. He really in these next few pages takes, like the darkness takes over. Like he, he feels like this like gravity hole that is like pulling in, pulling her into his kind of void. It's really good.

Guy who says, guy who's, who is, silhouetted in increasingly reducing light. I have no fears. Oh, word. Well, and then that final shot, you know, he says he suspects nothing talking about Fanoff.

And then we get this camera zooming in, the frames zooming in to the edge of his home. It becomes just abstract shapes, but there's twin stars distantly in the background behind Evaders had, you know, here at the end of this episode, where once again, like the clue has been missed. You know, and also that to a degree, like the past isn't escapable for him.

It's excellent. Comics are cool. IMO. Comics are cool. Two more issues here. Yeah, back to Anthem Prime. It's cool still. It's cool.

We got a big, the Thanos is going to Vader on the big raid. And then she is going to the ante who has arranged a fireside chat. He's in full civilized gangster mode, right? Let's go sit brandies by the fire, basically. And he's explained that he's not like other crime lords. He's a smart and disciplined one. And she is continually sort of letting the air out of his tire.

she's not hearing here for any of this. And indeed, he's still going to, you know, he's going to get got too. But it is funny that the thing that triggers the actual massacre is the stormtroopers come through the door and it looks like they might actually just be able to take this whole place quietly. And then triple zero in a fit of peak at losing his chess game. has B.T. Open fire

on his opponent. And that triggers the huge gun battle that like stormtroopers are lighting everyone up and vice versa. And in all that chaos, Vader is able to get hold of the ante and get this key information or at least threaten to get this key information.

The ante is sold to Afra, the location of Luke Skywalker, and what he's all up to. Vader really needs this guy not to be submitted to a full interrogation. He doesn't even need to be submitted to a full interrogate. Like, the way in which there's something really fun about Thanoth and about the ante here, because they're both, like, highly competent.

This is a book that's been like, okay, for these two guys to get to where they are in the, kind of ecosystem of their two respective worlds, they have to actually be good at what they're going to do, and what they do. And so here, as soon as they show up, the ante is like, hey, all the information behind me is gone. I made that deal with all the criminals I work with. I promise it will never be compromised. It's not. I've destroyed it.

That doesn't know that it doesn't mean that I don't know things that I can share with you now. For instance, I can tell you exactly where the plasma devils are. I know that you're looking for them. Here's where they are. Here's where they are. Here's where their base is. I know more stuff. Let's work together.

It's not even a ploy, right? It's just a maneuver. It's just like, hey, I know how I can get back on. with you. I can be useful to you. I'm showing you it. I'm giving you some free information. Let's work out a deal. Love it. Great. And it's like it's him on each side of Thanoth in the bottom set of panels with Thanoth in the middle. It just, mm, it's good. I've been watching too much Survivor. So this is so survivor coded to me because they do this all the time in Survivor where they're like, I'm going to let you know a piece of information

that I have as like a as a as a form of currency. Like information is this currency that is this constantly being dealt in in Survivor. And this is just like, oh, oh, you fucked up. And now you got voted off the island. You got voted off the island, my guy. Thanoff and Dr. And the anti. I have said Dr.

Ante. And the anti being on Survivor is great. That's fun to me. Be really good. And yeah, Vader does a little force. Boop to move a guy in the gunfights. arm over so he shoots the ante. It looks like it moves of more than

90 degrees. It seems like a lot. Like Vader's looking at this dude. His back is to the ante and the group and Vader does the force pull and the guy's whips around and just shoots the ante. Yeah. Yeah. Not a great maneuver. I don't

know how Thano doesn't necessarily pick that up. I don't. He must. He must. This is the cop in the town. Right? Just like like pointedly just like looking away looking the other way like a ref in a wrestling match who has been told you're not allowed to see the guy use the brass knuckles which'll look out in the crowd for some reason yeah and yeah afra runs away but vader gets to her uh and says uh she says

hi boss uh this is tight but i can get i can get away we have and he just says do not struggle and lifts her off the ground with the force. And she says, I know where the boy is. She manages to gasp that out. And he says, tell me. And she says, I will later. And pulls just a little bit,

just a little bit of blackmail on it. We're not blackmail, but I guess self-extortion in self-defense. I mean, you know, I have something you want, and I'm going to get something from you for it. And the thing I want is for you to not, kill me in this moment.

Vader covers her escape. She flies off into this storm, this nebula storm cloud that surrounds the surrounds the space station and this gas giant storm. What do you think of Vader's maneuver here to cover himself in debris?

And it was a bomb. She had a trap. She trapped. Look how cool I am. Because he like covers himself in debris and rocks and stuff and then like force pushes it all away from him. dramatically like a badass?

Like showing off to Thanos? She had prepared a trap. Ah, traps. This is where my Thanos knows. He has to know. Well, and then, because this is fun. So she flies

off, but Thanos, like, don't worry, I surrounded the entire planet in sentrieships. There's nowhere she can escape to. And the last thing we see is Vader just like looking completely nonplussed, like just like, huh? This is the thing is we said earlier how you can't communicate much and he can't be too expressive.

And yet panels like this were just- It's curbinger enthusiasm. It really is. They managed to express so much with just posture and lighting and just like communicating to the reader naturally where his headspace is based on the situation. You're so in it with Vader in these books that when something that has happens, it is. It's like fucking carbure enthusiasm theme playing. And you feel it for him. It's good. It's really good.

Then the next issue, how are you getting out of this one? Real fast. Real fast. Vader's on the bridge with Thanoff. Hey, doesn't seem wasteful. Doesn't seem like we have somewhere else we should be.

And Thanos's like, I have the best idea. We do have somewhere else to be. Why is that easy? on it. Look at the way he's reacting. I think so. Curse me for a fool. Oh, curse me for a fool.

Oh, gosh. Slapping the forehead. The chase consumes me. Like, he's so, he's so like. I love him. Oh, I just got so caught up in the heat of the moment. I just got so caught up in the investigation. I just, I love solving puzzles and clues.

Like, oh, you're so right. I just totally consumed me. Okay. May I make, and then, and then Vader. makes it his idea. This is actually the genius part. This is the genius. He incapsed him for sure.

He in seps him. He says, Lord Vader, may I make a daring suggestion? And Vader's obviously like, do so. And he makes the pitch. He's like, we need to make a play for the plasma devils now. This woman, no one knows about her but us. She's not like, if this is a propaganda mission, getting her. is not is not

the same value of propaganda as getting the plasma devils who by the way who the fuck are the plasma devils like they are just like brought in remember we saw those three panels earlier when Tashir starts talking about them they're the ones like washing the empire

we didn't mention this but we get these like three panels of various places nearby where like stormtroopers just like hung up you know like in the in the jungle it's clear that the plasma devils have been beating their asses and like being kind of public with it. So that is why this works. It's like we don't know who the plasma devils are as Star Wars fans.

We've never heard that phrase before this book. But apparently the people in this Star Sector have. Star Sector, is that a Star Wars thing? Do they have star sectors? Have I just made that up? I think that's... They've talked about sectors before. They talked about sectors.

Yeah, there's sectors. So they agree. They're like, Tash is going to be. Tash is going to be pissed but as long as we take out the plasma devils I think we can earn ourselves enough goodwill that losing

Afra, losing this woman because they don't know who Afra is is fine. That'd be really funny if Vader did all this that fucked up. It's like, that's right. We can get to Dr. Afra later. Who? To who? The archaeologist.

Yeah, I mean, the one the auntie just told us about it. He said her name real quick. I heard it. Oh, I actually love this because before Vader's like, you know what, we're wasting our time, the last thing Thanos says is, uh, I'm confident we'll be able to bring her to Imperial justice and perhaps even her patron. There has to be one. A mission like this would have required an internal leak dot dot dot. Yep. And so I think that is the moment. Thanos is like, he's queuing him. Oh shit. I think it's the other way. I think

Now, I think he's saying, remember Vader, like, you can't, we can't just let her go. She's probably has a leak. And so if she gets brought in, she'll reveal the leak. And I now I'm kind of wondering earlier I was like, is he auditioning to be part of Vader's crew? What if it's the opposite? What if he's like, is Vader a good enough horse to back? Let me, I figured out it was Vader right away. But let me see if this Vader,

guy is all he's cracked up to be and if he can pass my test I'll throw in with him that's interesting they go get the fucking plasma devils it's a very dangerous moment for both of them right it's like Benoff has enough here to hang Vader

but also Vader's like well I would just I would strangle you before I let that happen yeah and they go to get the plasma devils and Vader just wipes them it's not a big deal It's too

They do look kind of cool too But like maybe they're in that Star Wars book Maybe they're in the Star Wars comic in these issues We don't know That's probably right Star pilots or something It's like sort of a Oral history of being a star fighter pilot

In the Civil War But here's what sucks You're like a pilot and you're like I'm making an escape And there's no imperial fighters nearby But Vader's a surface to air missile With a lightsaber you just can you can just like

yeah you can basically football throw the lightsaber and just like cut your ship in half I also love in this panel when the lightsaber return I mean these these two pages of Vader throwing the lightsaber into

the ship but the textures switch up of him like of the lightsaber returning back to his hand there's like little wave around the lightsaber and around his hand to symbolize the force.

And it's in this like chalky texture, which is very different to anything else, to the textures we've been seeing so far. I just really love playing around with that to symbolize, um, symbolize the force itself. It's very cool. Yeah,

when, when he moves the guy's arm to shoot, uh, the ante in the previous chapter, it's, it's a different version of the effect. It's still kind of chalky, but it's like this dark,

black, you know, outlining force stuff. So it is really interesting here that it's white. I don't think that it's like a light side, dark side thing, but I do think it's like a really clever design difference, you know?

Different, different energy, different vibe. Rip to the plasma devils, I guess. Yeah, they got fucking got real quick. And guess who's pissed about it? The cringe twins.

Damn. Yeah. That was their job. Well, they sure they just done their damn job. They shouldn't have killed the guy who knows where the fucking plasma devils are. How about start there? Start there. Real quick note on the plasma devils thing, I love that as they're about to take off,

we get the really great panel of the like plasma devil red leader equivalent with the helmet on being like plasma devils. May the force be with you. And it's just like it's cool when he says it. He has aura. The panel is great. It's almost like there's like metallic things behind him that look like rays of the sun And the next page is

It doesn't matter They don't have the force The force isn't with them The force is with Darth Vader You know Darth Vader throws the lightsaber Like you said like a heat seeking missile You know

It's just not They just don't have it Oh well Yeah You're not Luke Skywalker You're not Luke Skywalker Again going back to the return of the Jedi bit Where I just feel like

Or maybe it was Empire where some of the some of the pilots are like you want us to do what like we are not Luke Skywalker like we don't have the force we have X wings I'm in a Y wing it's not even that maneuverable

well you know I also do like this portrait of the rebellion as still kind of like a franchise operation where it's like yeah there's the rebel alliance but like it's a real casual alliance Like these guys, this is kind of like when the Mandalorians are knocking over those gas stations, right? Where it's like we got some Y wings, we string up some stormtroopers. We're helping the cause.

Yeah. Doing a lot of looting, but also we're getting some good kills. Yeah. And, you know, the minute Vader shows up, that's a wrap on that group. And then sort of a debrief sequence here with the blailing alliance of Palpatine. potential successors. Taz dealing with just a garbage

group of subordinates really the cringe twins are pissy. The fake General Grievous is peevish. There's a real you are not serious people quality to Tage in these scenes. Yeah, there's a point

where general carbons like I've made great steps towards and Vader cuts in is like, do you have the boy? And he's like, oh no, sorry, that's Taj saying, do you have the boy? And he says, no, Grand General,

not yet. And Tal's like, what a surprise. Like, no one, no one is getting marks on their homework right now. Everyone is late. It is the deadline and a writer submits to you an outline.

Oh. Yeah, flashbacks. I mean, and then in a way, like, this is where Vader, Vader didn't turn in the right assignment, but he turned in an assignment. You know what I mean? Vader is a student who was like, yeah, I kind of like took the essay, you know,

requirement that you gave me as a prompt and kind of did my own thing with it. And you read the essay and you're like, okay, but it's, it's a good essay. It's not what I asked for, but nobody, I think I've told the story on a microphone before, but there was a time when I was an, undergrad where I was in a class with like six other people, it was a philosophy class. And I, this like literally was one of the things that got me into therapy because I felt

really bad about this. There were six other people in the class. It was a political philosophy class. I had skimmed the reading at best. And I was, we're in the class. And I'm like talking, I'm answering questions. It's a, you know, really tight seminar class. So it's like really discussion focused.

And about, I don't know, 25 minutes into the class. We were talking about John Rawls or something. One of the, the professor was like, why is Austin the only one who did the reading? And I did not do the reading. I had, like, read the abstract. I'd read the first paragraph, the last couple of paragraphs. I was busy working on a paper that night. And I just kind of, like, was able to do it, you know?

I was able to, like, get the ideas through the conversation and engaged in a big way. And I was like, I can't, am I just? This is like big imposter syndrome spike, right? Because, like, oh, I'm just bullshitting my way through my way. my whole life. I'm like 19 years old. And I can pretend to be the smartest person in the room. And I like immediately was in therapy for the next five years over this. And that's, but Vader is doing that here. Vader did not do his job here. Vader is doing his own shit. But he did some shit. And nobody else, nobody else did the reading either. But he can pretend he did the reading,

you know? So good job Vader. But he also wants out of the class. Like he doesn't even, he doesn't even want to be in the damn class. You're right. He already took this class. But if the general had gotten Luke Skywalker of General Carbon, which by the way, stupid-ass name,

K-A-R-B-I-N, Carbon, get out of here. If he had been like, I've captured Luke Skywalker, Vader might be done for. You know what I mean? At least the twins are done for. Maybe they're being protected

by the fact that nobody else got anything done either. You know? But, ugh. And this is like, I like the degree to which this is still Clone Wars Palpatine. Here's another bullshit thing I cooked up in the lab. Yes. General Tash or Tage, I don't really know.

I don't remember your name. You saddle him with this group of experiments. It's like I'm putting you in charge. You're going to put the military back in the sound footing after we've gotten our asses kicked. in the end, but crucially, hang on. Yeah, yeah. Stabilize the galaxy. I'm trusting the fleet.

We're recovering from the dust, are disaster. Also, though, you need to put my crop of interns in mission critical roles. And I haven't really test driven these kids. I expect great things, but you got to give them really important jobs

and get back to me on how they do. Yeah. Speaking of checking on how your pet projects are doing, Vader reconnects with Afra. Yeah. She seems down bad a bit. Just a bit.

But what's funny is that Vader says to her the past few days have given me an appreciation of talent. He's clocking that everyone around him is completely incompetent. And he's like, oh, Afra, She's got the Jews.

Like she's, she can, she can keep up with me. However, like we, he needs to make sure that he, she understands that she can't pull one over on him. Like,

you can keep, you can keep up as much as I want you to keep up. Like there, there has to be a very strict boundary line of power, of dynamic there. But she reveals the place in which Luke is hiding, apparently, which is Vrogas, Vrogas Vos, a place where there might be a Jedi temple. He's really pissed about this.

He's like, no, there's not. There isn't. Leave me alone. No, I don't want company. It's kind of personal. And the final reveal is that Carbon was watching this from somewhere. A ship nearby, I don't know. This, again, this seems really stupid for Carbon.

Like he's like, literally at the end is he going, he, Carbon can help you in your, he's even, he's even channeling chief. Oh, Carbon can help you in your shameless attempt to usurp my mission. oh dear rival you will find the troublesome boy you're right roguus voss but he won't be alone yeah and it's like just tell palpatine that vader went and did this investigation on the side and knows where loose got just fucking tell so instead he's like this is my big play i'm gonna go fight two i'm to go fight two Jedi. Dumbass.

You have to get extra credit. It's true. It's true. I guess Carbon is a failed disgrace general. And I think this is a case

of like, yes. Sometimes the reason you fucked up is the reason you're gonna fuck up again, right? This is the like,

you were given a second chance and you're about to do the same thing. I don't know exactly what the circumstances your first thing was, but you're doing it again. He also got

the grievous build and I think he thinks that means he's got the Jedi Hunter pack, but you do not have it like that. You do not have it like that. There's no chance. Little thing, like, I don't know, maybe. So first of all,

he was like, give me the six pack grievous build though. Like his suit has like, he's, remember, he's on Calamari. He's like, give me the fucking six pack.

Yep. And then he's got, there's some life field pouches happening here. Yeah. I don't know why he just has those hanging. It doesn't look good. What do you got? Hang on.

Is this a Leifield pit? Look at his fucking feet. His feet, yeah, I know. Yeah. It could be. It could be. It could be just be the grievous has fucked up feet too.

I don't know. But this is, those are iconic Leifield feet. He must be a little dagger feet. Rob Leifield feet because I think Rob, the article that I'm sure you read all of that from is long gone from the internet, but I bet you can find, because we come up in the same era.

If you search Rob Leifield feet, he's a, Rob Liefeld is a comics artist from the 90s. I remember the 80s and the 90s. Also, I think it's Life Feld. I always say Field also, but it's Life Feld, L-I-E-F-E-L-D. You will see why Rob is pointing out the feat. They aren't.

They aren't great. And the pouches. Importantly, the pouches. Yeah, next time we're... An iconic design style of that era of comics. 100%. Go look at what, like, cable looked like is maybe the most distinct comic character

from Rob Leifeld's art or that time that Captain America had a huge chest. Oh no! Yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff out there. Next time we're reading the Vader-Down trade paperback. I already said the names of what those issues were.

They'll be in the description if you need more and maybe I'll add them to the Blue Sky Post also. Vader-down. Vader-down. Vader down. Vader cracked Vader cracked I cracked

I cracked Vader I cracked Vader Vader has a purple shield on We got to get him right Yeah maybe it's a gold shield for Vader Vader's a gold shield We passed over But like there's that squad of rebels That's like ooh

We found Vader's spaceship What a bonus for us It's like what is happening I forgot about that Yeah dude get out of here Dude he has the mythic The mythic lightsaber And you guys have

You guys have drop ARs. You guys are fucked. I do love the line the one guy has though, right, where he's like,

we only need to be lucky once. Oh, he's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah, you know, like we just gotta be lucky once. Vayner's there,

Thatcher? Yeah. Well, like, there's a real, like, you play a video, you play Dark Souls,

you play Elton Ring, and it's like, the boss has to beat you infinite times. You just got to beat the boss once, you know? we just got to keep throwing bodies at Vader.

Someone's going to get lucky, you know? His motherfarkers going to get caught on geometry at some point. At some point, exactly. 100%. We're going to cheese him once, you know? I don't know. Personally, I would have just stayed far away, waited for him to get back in the ship and blowing him up while he was in the ship,

you know? Yeah. He probably goes on to see. Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, next time, Vader down. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast. for a choice.

And spare a thought to poor Dr. Afra and her hipy mom. Dr. Afra. I can do that too. Yeah. Dr. Afra and General Tadjay. General Tadjay. Dr. Afra's hippie mom.