Comic Review - Vaneé Takes Kylo Ren On a Tour of Anakin Skywalker's Tatooine in "Star Wars: Legacy of Vader" #2
Today saw the release of the second issue in the ongoing title Star Wars: Legacy of Vader from Marvel Comics, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
Legacy of Vader #2 begins on the Tatooine, where Vaneé– the caretaker of Fortress Vader back on Mustafar– has brought Kylo Ren on a tour of his grandfather Anakin Skywalker’s past on the infamous desert planet. The first thing I really liked right off the bat in this issue was Vaneé insisting that Tatooine is in fact important to the Skywalker legacy, despite Luke’s speech about it being far from the center of the galaxy in the original Star Wars film. Vaneé tells Kylo how he managed to access Emperor Palpatine’s files on Darth Vader after both of the Sith Lords were killed during the Battle of Endor, and then they visit the Grand Arena of Mos Espa, where Anakin famously won the Boonta Eve Classic in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. There, Ren learns how his grandfather was the only human ever to win the race, and then he and Vaneé are jumped by some local street toughs, who Kylo dispatches using his Force and lightsaber abilities rather easily.
After Vaneé informs his young companion that Anakin Skywalker was indeed once kept as a slave, we get a nice full double-page flashback filling in some gaps of Kylo Ren’s own youth, when Ben Solo looked to be a fairly happy kid growing up with two loving parents (Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa), friends who provided suitable role models (Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO) and an uncle (Luke Skywalker) who wished only to properly train his nephew in the ways of the Jedi. But Kylo insists to Vaneé that he had just as painful a youth as Anakin did, and together they pay a visit to the ruins of Watto’s junk shop. Here, Vaneé informs Ren that Vader– despite assumptions made by fans after preview panels of this comic were released– never got around to killing Watto (I’m assuming the scheming Toydarian eventually died of natural causes), and that there is in fact an earlier slave owner of Anakin’s that is still alive… namely Gardulla the Hutt.
So the final third of this issue sees Kylo Ren traveling through the Tatooine desert to Gardulla’s wasteland fortress, where he eliminated the guards and two rancors outside, then assumes he will have just as easy a time “erasing" Gardulla from his family’s history. That proves to be a trickier proposition than he planned, as Gardulla has a trick up her sleeve– a mysterious Force-using creature who manages to swipe away Kylo’s lightsaber, leaving him vulnerable to imprisonment by the fortress’s remaining guards. And that’s how this chapter ends for the “Jedi Killer" on his quest to eliminate pretty much all records of his family’s existence. It’s another great, compelling issue by writer Charles Soule, accentuated all the more by the excellent work of artist Luke Ross and colorist Nolan Woodard. I’m really digging how Soule is allowing Ren the opportunity to delve into his grandfather’s past and maybe learn some lessons along the way, and I also like Vaneé as the somewhat unreliable tour guide on this journey. Apparently he tipped off Gardulla the Hutt of Kylo’s approach… does the caretaker want Vader’s heir eliminated so he can keep the Mustafar castle all to himself? I’m very curious to get more information next month, not to mention excited to see how Kylo escapes his imprisonment and deals with that curious Force-wielding monster.
Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #2 is available now wherever comic books are sold.