Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Book I: Vader (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, we get to meet Doctor Aphra, a space archaeologist and she seems to kick way more ass than any other Star Wars character since Princess Leia and Han Solo. She’s way more interesting than Darth “Diarrhea Pants” Vader.

Vader is interested in her services since she is able to tinker with droids and make them ruthless killing machines, so that’s pretty cool actually. Too bad she’s on the side of the dark side’s side, which I had determined early on that I’m not too interested in rooting for.

Anyway, Aphra gives Vader the idea to travel to Geonosis to build their robot army. Sounds like some Clone Wars shit, but this is all happening years after that business. We’ll see what becomes of this.

Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [June, 2015]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“Book I: Vader (Part 4)”

A quick side note: does being on the dark side mean you have to reduce your entire personality to “I’m a big ol’ bad guy”? Sure, Vader is like “do what I say or I’ll fuck your face”, but does he play checkers with anyone? Grand Moff Tarkin? Does he read books? Does he cook? Or is it just morning, noon, and night of “grrr, I’m EVIL”? How boring.

And then the red lightsaber? Garish.

And don’t even get me started on the Dark Lord’s codpiece. Of all the styles and designs he could have chosen, he went with My Little Pony’s Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash? Basic.

We’ve landed on GEONOSIS! A Geonosian Queen has taken control of a droid factory. Aphra was tasked with liberating it for the droids… “But we can always steal it for us, eh?” she says to the ever stoic and boring Darth Vader. Aphra instructs her killer droids to enter a cave and begin with the taking over and the stealing and the grand larceny.

“Ever been to Geonosis, my Lord?” Aphra asks Darth Vader as he has his back turned to her, staring at the wasteland. He quickly recounts a nice little kiss between he and Padmé suckin’ face.

If I wanted a good probing I’d go visit Probeon, the Outer Rim’s probe planet!

Geez. OK, Lord Crabby. “I’m a rogue archaeologist,” she responds boldly. “You have to expect a little digging.” And, to this, Vader demands compliance and silence. Lighten up, Francis.

Vader hopes that these two droids are able to map the route for them, but in the end “they’re expendable”. He ain’t care about two droids! He’s gonna raise a whole army! And where does a Sith Lord keep is armies? Up his sleevies! LOLOLOL OLOLOL LOLLOL!

Deep in the cavern, O-O-O and BT-1 encounter a bunch of scary droids. The killy kind. “Oh my!” O-O-O ejaculates. Triple-Oh tries to reason with this advancing troop of frightening robots, but they continue staring them down intimidatingly. Well, Triple-Oh can’t talk some sense into them. That’s fine. “BT, if you will…”

BT-1 torches the fuckers.

Aphra and Vader have been following close behind, and Aphra is pleased to see that an active factory does indeed exist down in this basement! Aphra talks a lot, possibly annoying Vader to no end. She surmises that perhaps this Geonosian Queen doesn’t see these robots as droids, but rather children. “And now for our devilishly clever plan to steal a robot womb factory off a homicidally broody alien queen,” Aphra smiles. When asked if Vader still thinks this is a good idea, Vader responds with a rousing “hell yeah, dogg”.

Then he starts fighting the big, ugly alien queen.

Eat Force, you horrible alien queen with your horrible, glowing, prolapsed butthole!

“Has the Empire not taken enough from the Geonosians with your bombs?” the queen shrieks.

“No,” Vader responds. lol

Queenie calls for her children to fight the good fight, but Vader is ready to kick some ass and take NO names. BT-1 helps him flamethrow these fuckers to the ground. After some inscrutable panels of fighting and crumbling foundations, Aphra crashes Vader’s ship through the ceiling and Vader helps abduct a handful of droids. “MY WOMB!” yells the queen. “MY CHILDREN! BRING ME BACK MY CHILDREN!”

No.

Mission accomplished! *trumpets* *balloons* *orgies*

Later, Aphra fixes up one of the droids and Triple-Oh appraises it. Apparently, he’s got some great ideas on how to enhance droids! Bing bang boom! “In a few hours, you’ll have your droid army…” Aphra says. “…so, are you planning to kill me now or later?”

BIZZOOORTT!! Heh heh. Uhm… “If I get a choice, I’d like the lightsaber right through the neck. No warning. Nice and quick.”

BRRRRTT!! “If I get a veto, ejection into space. Always had nightmares about that.”

AWOOOOGAH!! Vader stares at her with that vacant helmet look. Who knows what this guy is thinking at any given moment! Am I right, folks?

“I’d rather not die, you understand. But I’m happy my blood’s doodling in the margins of a story worth telling…”

…

…

“You have proven yourself resourceful,” Vader says, mustering up as much appreciation as his inner Whiny Baby Anakin Skywalker can. “You are safe as long as I have use for you.”

You may, however, whitemail me. No one ever talks about whitemailing.

Aphra stares at him in disbelief. “You know, you can trust me… but you shouldn’t. I’m a walking, talking, stupid risk. You need to win, Lord Vader. This is for a higher cause.”

Pretty altruistic for a bad gal. She tells him, when the time comes to kill her, use the goddurned lightsaber. Please.

Triple-Oh interrupts the tender moment with some news from a bounty hunter. Not Boba Tea Fett. It’s Black Krrsantan, whoever the everloving shit that is. I don’t know. There are way too many bounty hunters to keep track of. Like, two. “He claims to have a very important delivery for you.” The Bad Wookiee comes in with some agent trapped in his arms.

Sounds good! Vader’s scat fetish videos have finally arrived. Germany is a great country! Oh wait.

Vader’s gonna deal with this guy first. “You detected my agent before he could follow you to your base,” Vader says, getting in his face. “You were shipping illegal alien organ supplies, which is most interesting…”

This guy says torture him! He don’t care! He thrives on it! He ain’t saying shit! He’ll lie! Waterboard him! That’s FUN for him! Poke his eyeballs out! Who needs ‘em?!

“If I wanted you to talk, you would,” Vader growls. Does Vader growl? Maybe he just rasps. He does a lot of that for sure.

Then Vader billows away. “But I do not have the time.”

“However,” he continues as he leaves the room. “I do have a specialist.”

O-O-O perks up! “Hello! I’m Triple-Zero and I’m looking forward immensely to torturing you today.”

Cool stuff. We don’t see what Triple-Oh does, but he later has news. For one thing, this guy is named Doctor Cylo-IV, some human/robot hybrid thing cobbled together from kitchen appliances and erector sets. “I know the location of his research base, the nature of his commission from the Emperor, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” he jubilates.

And he’s dead now! More good news!

His base is a “novel organic structure” inside an “outer nebulae”. Triple-Oh has “forwarded” the navigation route to the “computer”. Time to meet Vader’s “rivals”: the Emperor’s “replacements” for him!

Set a course for PAIN. “Immediately”.

Final Thoughts

Vader’s gonna kill these bitches. What else is there to say?