Pak, Greg
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
2.7 out of 5
(9 books)
TOP PICK:
Star Wars: Darth Vader - Return Of The Handmaidens
Star Wars: Darth Vader - Crimson Reign
(Art by Leoard Kirk, Guiu Vilanova and Raffaele Ienco)
Book four, tying-in to the 'Crimson Reign' event storyline. Vader gathers together a force of mercenaries and assassins to use in purging the Crimson Dawn infiltrators from the ranks of the Empire.
The writer who thought that Vader needed a comedy sidekick (Ochi of Bestoon) takes that idea a step further and gives him an entire team of zany misfits. Seriously, who's asking for this stuff? The idea of Vader using the underworld to achieve his ends is entirely in-character (see 'The Empire Strikes Back') but having these new characters all being wise-cracking comedic types is so tonally wrong for Vader that it is just jarring.
Frustratingly, there is a core concept here which I actually really liked, in which Vader tosses aside Imperial protocol and politics in order to root out the infiltrators. Because Crimson Dawn is a ruthless criminal organisation, it gives the writer more freedom for Vader to be more ruthless than if, say, the infiltrators were members of the Rebellion holding the moral high ground (Vader really hates that!). But it's a s somewhat missed opportunity because so much time is given over to establishing the team of wacky misfits.
2 out of 5
Star Wars: Darth Vader - Dark Heart Of The Sith
(Art by Raffaele Ienco)
Book one of a series set following the events of 'The Empire Strikes Back'. Vader sets out on a mission to find out how the death of his wife and birth of his son was hidden from him and who was responsible. His quest takes him back to Tatooine and from there to Naboo, where he encounters the Amidalans, friends and followers of Padme Amidala determined to avenge her death.
Altogether too much of this book is flashbacks to scenes from the prequel trilogy that featured Padme and Anakin. Seriously, about half of the book is just a fractured retelling of what we all (presumably) already know. In fact, even the book's core mystery, who hid Luke, is also something we already know, so there's no real narrative tension.
What is good, is having Vader confront several of Padme's old allies, who revere the memory of the Senator and of Anakin Skywalker. Among the familiar faces are Ric Olie, Gregar Typho and five of the Handmaidens. It is in the appearance of one of those Handmaidens that this book has its best moment; where Vader is confronted by Sabe, who looked the most like Padme. Having recently read 'Queen's Peril' by E. K. Johnston, all about the Handmaidens, it was nice to see them make an appearance in the Rebellion era.
3 out of 5
Star Wars: Darth Vader - Into The Fire
(Art by Raffaele Ienco)
Book 2, 3 ABY. Disappointed in Vader's repeated failures, Emperor Palpatine strips his apprentice of his cybernetic limbs and leaves him to burn once more on Mustafar. Vader must then relearn the power of the dark side in order to survive, defeat the assassin Ochi of Bestoon and discover the secrets which the Emperor has withheld from him.
This book makes three big mistakes, the first of which is that it rehashes the storyline of the Emperor humbling Vader. The story idea of Palpatine venting his disappointment on/about Vader has been done several times already in both the old Expanded Universe and in Charles Soule's 'Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith' series. It was never a particularly enjoyable plot thread for me anyway, but at least those other stories were set in the immediate aftermath of Episode III where Vader was still coming to terms with who he was now and the power dynamic between him and the Emperor wasn't firmly established. Here, however, Palpatine and Vader have been ruling the Empire together for more than twenty years and the idea that their relationship hasn't developed any further is both irritating and contrary to what has been established in other stories (Paul S. Kemp's 'Lords of the Sith' for example).
The second mistake is a repeat of a fault with the last book of the series, 'Dark Heart of the Sith', which sees huge portions of this book taken up with pointless flashbacks to events from the movies. Presumably if you're reading this book then you've seen the Star Wars films and don't need to be reminded over and over of things that happened in them. It's redundant and feels like filler.
The third and final mistake is that this book ties heavily into 'Rise of Skywalker', probably the worst Star Wars film ever made (I hate 'The Last Jedi' more, but at least it tried to be a movie in and of itself, instead of some soulless, nonsensical, poorly-aimed fan service). So the cameos by characters who appear in Episode IX meant less than nothing to me and Vader's trip to Exegol just made me roll my eyes. Really, was anyone asking for this?
There were a couple of good action scenes and the art is consistently good, which is why this warranted two out of five, but there's not much more than that to like.
2 out of 5
Star Wars: Darth Vader - Return Of The Handmaidens
(Art by Raffaele Ienco, Luke Ross and Ibraim Roberson)
Book 6, set between ESB and RotJ. As Sabe falls further under the sway of Darth Vader, she is tasked with assassinating Jul Tambor on Brentaal IV. However, her 'sisters', the former handmaidens of Padme Amidala, undertake to save her from her perilous mission and from the influence of the Sith Lord.
It's safe to say that I haven't particularly enjoyed Greg Pak's run on the Darth Vader series overall but he did introduce the interesting concept of having Vader face Padme's former handmaidens, who are surprisingly engaging characters in and of themselves but also come along with a heap of emotional baggage for Vader. I was therefore pleased to see them return in this book (in case the title didn't clue you in) and confront the idea that the foremost of their number may be serving the Sith willingly. I liked that we get to see a bit more of who each of the handmaidens are and how they differ from one another, as well as them serving as a mirror for Sabe's slide into the shadows.
The other thing I particularly liked here was the revelation that Vader has not been influenced by Sabe's trying to reach out to Anakin and was, instead, using it as another method of manipulating her. The suggestion in previous volumes that the mention of the name Anakin would make Vader go all touchy-feely felt so wrong, so it's nice to see it be a strategy rather than a lazy shortcut to emotional pathos.
This is undoubtedly my favourite book of Pak's run so far but it's somewhat telling that Vader is the least interesting character here. I applaud the work being doing to make the supporting characters worthwhile, but it feels like something's gone awry if Darth Vader's role in the narrative is the least engaging.
4 out of 5
Star Wars: Darth Vader - The Shadow's Shadow
(Art by Raffaele Ienco and Marco Castiello)
Book 5. When Sabe works out Vader's former identity, she uses his connection to Padme Amidala to convince the Dark Lord to help her to protect a colony of former slaves endangered by a corrupt Imperial Governor in the service of Crimson Dawn.
Whilst I wasn't entirely sold on the dynamic between Vader and Sabe, I have to say I was initially enjoying this book. I liked seeing Sabe managing to tap into the part of the Sith Lord which was still Anakin Skywalker in order to get him to help the former slaves, his childhood friends Kitster and Wald among them. Using a corrupt Imperial as the antagonist also means that we, the reader, don't have to be conflicted by seeing him carve through any 'good guys'.
Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the book was disrupted by the recurrence of one of my least-liked elements of Pak's run with Vader; the flashbacks. There a few intermittent ones early on, but then we get eight straight pages of flashbacks rehashing events from the Prequels which we all already know. It feels really lazy to me, as if the writer couldn't put together enough content of their own or, worse, didn't have the talent to effectively portray how current events are mentally affecting Vader without juxtaposing them with other events from his past in the form of 'he was sad when he left his mum, so he must be sad now'.
Once the flashbacks broke the spell of enjoyment that I'd started with, the book's other flaws (Ochi of Bestoon, not to mention that terrible title) became more apparent and I enjoyed everything else much less.
3 out of 5
Star Wars: Darth Vader - War Of The Bounty Hunters
(Art by Guiu Vilanova and Raffaele Ienco)
Book 3, tying-in to the War of the Bounty Hunters event storyline. As factions within the Empire continue to undermine Vader, he sets out to acquire the carbonite-frozen Han Solo from Crimson Dawn in order to lure Luke to him.
The War of the Bounty Hunters is, like many of Marvel's event stories, something of a jumbled mess. This book takes that as its starting point and really runs with it, producing a mixture of pointless and nonsensical twists and turns that adds nothing to either the event itself or, more importantly, to Vader's personal story. In fact, Vader's actions here are so unfathomable that their only justification is simply that his behaviour had to be twisted to fit the needs of the event. For no good reason he suddenly decides he wants to kill Luke, when the whole father/son plot is set up and paid-off in 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of the Jedi' to show that Vader wants Luke to join him and that's what gives Luke the opening to redeem Anakin. On top of that, Vader also suddenly decides that possessing Han is really important. For some reason. Despite having had possession of Han in Episode V and allowing Boba Fett to take him.
Added to the massive plot holes are more of the irritating flashbacks to scenes from the movies we're all already familiar with, a series of entirely predictable 'twist' betrayals and, inexplicably, a comedy sidekick for the Sith Lord. Now, some people might find Ochi of Bestoon amusing or charming, but I definitely wasn't one of them and couldn't fathom for a second why Vader would keep him around.
Whilst by no means unreadable, this is definitely the worst book of the series so far, primarily because of it's painfully awkward attempts to fit in to the plot of War of the Bounty Hunters (of which the main book is by Charles Soule)
2 out of 5
Star Wars: Rebels And Rogues
(Art by Phil Noto)
Book 12. The heroes of the Rebellion are split up and sent on different missions. Han and Leia have to infiltrate a planet rife with corruption, Luke seeks a trainer in the Force to help him save a Rebel base and Chewbacca and C-3PO encounter rock-based lifeforms on a remote world.
This is a distinct step down from Kieron Gillen's run on this series and considering not all of Gillen's stuff was great, that says a great deal about what we get here.
There are three main storylines threaded throughout the book and two of them are pretty bad. The one with Chewie and Threepio re-treads ground covered by countless sci-fi stories over the years, with the main characters being shocked to learn that the uninhabited rock planet is actually inhabited by rock people. Honestly, Star Wars has even done this before (with Threepio, no less) in the 'Droids' comics from Dark Horse. Far worse, however, is the storyline which follows Luke. Here Pak throws away all of the character development done for Luke across 60-odd issues preceding these ones and instead he becomes a naieve rube that gets taken in by the first con artiste who claims to know the Force. Honestly, I know he's a farmboy from a remote world, but here he comes across as a moron too.
The one redeeming element of this book is Han and Leia's storyline, where Pak manages to perfectly walk the line between their bickering and their genuine respect and affection for one another.
2 out of 5
The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk Part 1
(Art by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, Michael Avon Oeming, Alex Nino, Marshall Rogers, Jeffrey Huet, Danny Miki, Sandu Florea, Mike Allred and Tom Palmer)
Part of the Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection, this book sees Hulk tricked by the heroes he called friends and sent into deep space. His journey goes awry and he finds himself on the brutal planet Sakaar, where he is enslaved as a gladiator. Finally free of his inhibitions, Hulk fights his way to freedom and then unleashes his anger against the despotic Emperor who took it from him.
I saw the movie 'Thor: Ragnarok' long before reading this, so it's fair to say that many of the elements here seemed very familiar already (since that movie borrows a lot from this story). However, I soon realised that it wasn't just having seen that film that made this feel like familiar territory, because it mixes up elements of 'John Carter of Mars', the Conan stories and, transparently, the story of Spartacus' gladiator slave revolt. It's a solid and enjoyable mash-up of all those elements, but it nevertheless feels like a well-worn story rather than something particularly fresh.
I will, of course, have to read part two to really get a sense of the saga overall but this is a solid first half.
3 out of 5
The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk Part 2
(Art by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, Gary Frank, Jeffrey Huet, Sandu Florea and Jon Sibal)
Part of the Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection. Here Hulk and his rebellious former gladiators take control of Sakaar but then have to deal not only with the pressures of governing a planet but also constant threats from their seemingly-defeated foes.
Much like 'Part 1', this book very much put me in mind of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories; specifically the ones which feature an older Conan who had become King but is constantly pulled towards his wandering ways. Where the previous book was about Hulk working his way up from having nothing, not even his freedom, this second half is more about how he copes with he has gained and, tragically, how vulnerable it all is.
Overall it's more of the same, which is fine but not mind-blowing, but the sting in the tail at the end lifts the storyline overall as we see a vengeful Hulk turn his eyes towards Earth once more. There's also a nice epilogue in which Amadeus Cho, a young genius, verbally tears into Mister Fantastic and highlights how monstrous a betrayal it was for the Illuminati to turn on Hulk in the first place.
3 out of 5