Comic Review: In “Star Wars: Darth Vader” (2020) #13, the Sith Lord Goes Up Against Droid Bounty Hunter IG-88
It says a lot about the enigma that is the cult-favorite character of assassin droid IG-88 that up until recently I wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be “alive” or “dead” in the post-Empire Strikes Back era of the current Star Wars canon. I remembered a quote from either Dave Filoni or Jon Favreau saying they were originally going to feature IG-88 (instead of his assembly-line cousin IG-11) in The Mandalorian, but didn’t want to invalidate the scene in which the droid is spotted propped up against a Ugnaught workshop wall on Bespin’s Cloud City, seemingly deactivated.
Regardless, it seems ol’ IG-88-- always one of my favorite blink-and-you’ll-miss-him background characters of the Original Trilogy-- is fully functional, considering he shows up to wreak mechanical havoc between the events of Empire and Return of the Jedi in this month’s issue of Marvel’s Star Wars: Darth Vader comic book, out today from writer Greg Pak and illustrator Rafaelle Ienco.
Darth Vader #13 picks up where the last issue left off, with the titular Dark Lord of the Sith seeking to track down the carbonite-frozen Han Solo, believing his would-be-Jedi son Luke Skywalker wouldn’t be too far behind. Vader and Ochi of Bestoon have traveled to meet with the somewhat off-puttingly buff Bokku the Hutt in order to gather more information on Solo’s whereabouts, and the Hutt takes them to a deep-space droid outpost in what turns out to be a trap for the Sith Lord. Meanwhile, Vader is still haunted by red-tinged flashbacks of recent events in the Jedi-formerly-known-as-Anakin-Skywalker’s life, such as the duel with his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his humiliation at the hands of his current one, Emperor Palpatine. Ochi and Vader go up against the Droid Crush of Bestoon, who are working alongside IG-88 at the behest of an unknown employer-- revealed in the issue’s final pages-- and the Dark Lord must prove his mettle as his machine parts begin to fail him during one-on-one combat against the infamously deadly droid.
Greg Pak is making a valiant effort so far of tying in Darth Vader into this summer’s Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event, though it still strikes me as a little funny that Vader is so vehemently pursuing Han-in-carbonite so soon after freely allowing Boba Fett to take his prize from Cloud City. I guess suffering an emotional loss in a lightsaber fight with your estranged offspring can change your mind pretty quickly about something like that, but it still feels to me like a fairly flimsy excuse for the Sith Lord to join in on this It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World-style hunt for that carbonite block. I did quite enjoy seeing Vader and IG-88 go up against each other in this way, especially when we discover how the droid ever-so-briefly gains the upper hand in the battle. It’s an entertaining outing, and I like the continued unlikely pairing of Darth and Ochi enough that the issue coasts by on their interplay. I have to wonder what Vader’s endgame is going to look like at the conclusion of this arc, but I also trust in Pak’s skill to make it interesting.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #13 is available now wherever comic books are sold.