Review: ‘Darth Vader’ #44 – Traitors Are Everywhere in ‘Soldiers of The Schism’
Darth Vader continues to build his forces in the Schism Imperial in issue #44 of the Darth Vader comic. Nothing huge really happens in this issue but it is still an interesting read, as the balance of power within the group has almost entirely shifted in Vader’s favor even as the other members all have their own motives and morals.
A surprising amount of time is spent introducing a new character who will seemingly be a key player in the fate of the Schism Imperial; a man who is painted as almost sympathetic and a little pitiful at first glance, but is different from the rest of his Imperial cohorts in that he actually is governed by a sense of honor.
The main mission in this issue revolves around this new character and his story is wonderfully written, but once it’s over there’s a sense that it was just a small part of a larger story — Vader amassing his forces before his next big attack on the Emperor. There are plenty of political machinations happening in the background though, which adds a lovely layer of intrigue ahead of future issues.
Spoilers ahead…
Fabarian is definitely unique when it comes to Imperials, in that he actually seems to care about protecting civilians. He’s horrified in the flashback when women and children are killed at the Emperor’s orders, and asks the baron at the end of the issue if his plan would involve killing women and children. It was very satisfying to see him get revenge on the baron, in that it felt righteous rather than self-serving.
The man has a code above himself, which immediately makes him more sympathetic than the rest of the Schism Imperial, who are all out for themselves. This code will surely put him at odds with the likes of Darth Vader and Sly Moore at some point.
It was a clever idea to present him as a man who had been punished for uncovering Palpatine and Vader’s roles in causing civilian casualties during the Droid Scourge attack on Coruscant. To see him punished further for forgetting to cancel the baron’s parking ticket reminded me a lot of the Empire’s cruelty in Andor, and it was hard not to feel sorry for him.
That’s until it’s revealed that it was part of the plan all along to access the baron’s data on a new type of battle droid, as Fabarian has already been recruited by the Schism Imperial. It’s clear that the balance of power has shifted to Vader — these people serve him now, with Sly Moore happy to do so until the Emperor is dead, at which point she plans to remove Vader as well to restore order to the Empire.
Sly Moore is playing a very dangerous game. It’s unclear if she really does want to bring order to the Empire by killing Palpatine, or if she set the whole thing up as a way to gather all of the Empire’s traitors in one place for the Emperor to smite them. She certainly makes it seem like the latter when she reports to Palpatine on Vader’s activities, claiming that Vader himself is aware that she’s doing it.
Moore is playing the two Sith off each other for now, but it’s hard to imagine this won’t blow up in her face at some point and she’ll end up dead by their hands. This has become the most interesting element of this arc so far — the political intrigue even managed to overshadow the brief bit of action we got, as Vader recruited yet more droids to his army.
The last thing we see is Enric Pryde getting recruited to the Schism Imperial. I’m not sure how this will play out, as in The Rise of Skywalker he was devoutly loyal to Emperor Palpatine. Surely this means he won’t be on board with the Schism’s plans to kill him. We’ll have to see how this all plays out.
Rating: 7/10
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
