The latest issue of Legacy of Vader was released and we’re back to witness the confrontation between Kylo Ren and former Jedi, Grandea, on the planet, Lahtee. As promised, a significant portion of this month’s issue was devoted to an Order 66 flashback. If you’re rolling your eyes at yet another Order 66 flashback, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by the end of it.
For Ren, after last month’s easy sweep of Corellia, Grandea proves to be a much more challenging opponent for the Sith. No doubt, exactly what Vaneé had in mind when he suggested that Kylo Ren hunt for bigger game. In keeping with consistency for the series, both Ren and readers get a bit of a history lesson. However, the lesson gets taken a step further for Ren when he finally learns a valuable piece of information concerning his former Master. All in all, it was a solid issue with stunning coloring–shout out to colorist, Nolan Woodard for his exceptional work this issue.
Spoilers ahead…
The issue begins with Grandea immediately putting Kylo Ren back on his heels and forcing him away from the crowd. She doles out a bit of elderly Force wisdom, informing Ren that she isn’t tapping into his mind, but rather he’s yelling into the Force, “I’m Kylo Ren. I’m Kylo Ren.” Of course, this is meant to remind and emphasize to the audience that this whole mission is an ill-fated effort on Ren’s part to solidify his connection to the dark side. He clings desperately to his Sith identity.
Grandea then begins to share her story of Order 66. It starts out pretty benign with Grandea escaping through the use of a mind trick, an ability for which she always had an innate talent. She turns the clones on each other and flees. This is all well and good, but I found it interesting that Soule decides to double down on the approach, putting this ability front and center as part of Grandea’s method of evasion, using it liberally and effectively erasing any trace of her presence wherever she went during the reign of the Empire. In the climactic moment of her hiding, she is discovered by Inquisitors, but has honed her mind trick ability so much by this point that she is able to convince them they already killed her, thus buying herself relative safety. I loved the warm, fuzzy coloring for the flashback here before Woodard switched back to the sharp, contrasting colors of the present.
Grandea’s way with the Force turns into a valuable lesson for Kylo Ren. He outmatches her physically, but not mentally and she is able to trip him up by revealing to him that Luke Skywalker has died. It took me a moment to reflect on Luke’s death scene in The Last Jedi, but of course, it’s highly possible Kylo Ren would, in fact, just assume that Luke cut off his Force projection and did not die.
Ren’s journey throughout the series to erase his family history by understanding it and thereby strengthen his own place in Sith history has always been inextricably linked to his understanding, or lack thereof, of his own identity. From the very beginning, his attempts to connect with the dark side of the Force have been lacking, resulting in a mish mash of brute force measures that ultimately fail. Both Ren and Vader arrived at the dark side through fear, but Vader, crucially, also dealt with attachment and obsession and after Padmé’s death, his own self-hatred. Ren, on the other hand has had no such compass leading him erringly down the path of the dark side. Instead, he flails–following Snoke, killing his father, killing Snoke, attempting to kill Luke. Now, he hunts phantoms to avoid Rey. Grandea’s question at the end of the issue is more torturous for him than Gardulla the Hutt’s prison could ever be–Who are you? Remove the façade of control and Ren must reckon with his own confusion.
To twist the knife just a bit further, Grandea disappears before Ren’s eyes just as Luke did at the end of The Last Jedi. Once again, he’s failed. Vaneé surely watches with glee. Where will Ren go from here? We may or may not find out next issue as it appears we’ll be taking a bit of a detour with the Knights of Ren, and I am very much looking forward to Soule’s take on the group.
Rating: 9/10
When she isn’t watching her friends and family’s eyes glaze over at the mention of The Clone Wars, she’s at the park with her dog, Melvin, or on the couch with a book in one hand and a drink in the other. Physically, she lives in Ohio; spiritually, she lives in Naboo.
source: www.starwarsnewsnet.com