Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Book I: Vader (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Vader, with the help of the very helpful helper Doctor Aphra, infiltrates a droid factory on Geonosis and steals a handful of them for Vader’s pursuits to build up an army.

O-O-O, their protocol droid, tortured a man who knew a thing or two about Emperor Palpatine’s commission to set up a base to train up replacements for Vader. Considering he sucks and all.

So Vader’s going to be all “not today” on their asses.

Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [July, 2015]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“Book I: Vader (Part 5)”

“You know, I don’t want to jinx anything…” Aphra says to Vader as she pilots the ship “…but I think we’ve found the bad guy’s secret base.”

Indeed they have! Just kidding! But really! Nope! But yes! Ha, no. But yes! The “secret base” looks like a giant floating robot space fish with an entire city built on its back. Aphra calls it impressive. Vader calls it an abomination. Time to board the big metal fish! Aphra is excited! “This is the greatest job of my life,” she breathes.

A bunch of worker drones on the base are hanging out playing checkers and stroking their schlongs when a sudden ion burst occurs, courtesy of Doctor Aphra-disiac. Circuits are down, doors are sealed, communications are down, and the NES keeps blinking on and off. Unauthorized docking must be occurring! Zip zoom bippity boom! Let’s take care of these space pirates!

The guards grab their guns and get ready by one of the sealed doors. Slowly, as if a red lightsaber were cutting a hole in the door, a red lightsaber cuts a hole in the door. Ready to shoot, the door crumbles open and a stupid protocol droid starts waving its arms in the air.

I’m too pretty to die!

“Identify yourself!” yells a guard with the most erect penis of a gun I’ve ever seen. “What are you doing?”

Triple-Oh gibbers for a bit before BT-1 shows up to start beeping and/or booping. “I’m a distraction,” he finally utters before Vader appears in all his majestic, poopypants glory. While he and Aphra wear magnetic clamps on their boots, Vader tears a huge sphincter into the side of the skin membrane-like walls and the entire crew gets jettisoned out into space. Once those mopes are taken care of, Aphra works on resealing the wall while Vader moves in with his droid army.

Later, Aphra finds a command console and pulls up the floor plan of the base. There are still two main areas that may be filled with more “bad guys” who want to stop the “good guys”. The Barracks and the Dojo.

Excellent! Team Red, you go to the Dojo! Team Blue, you’re with Vader. Onward to the Barracks!

Let’s keep making our way through this giant ballsack.

Triple-Oh and BT-1 hang back, surmising that they are not involved and can head back to the ship…

Team Red storms the Dojo where they find two unarmed people, a man and a woman, wearing what looks like Jedi robes but they certainly cannot be. The Jedi are all fucking dead! Forget I said anything about the Jedi. Suddenly, Aphra loses contact with Team Red. Vader assembles his troops and heads toward the Dojo.

OH SHIT, THEY’RE JEDI! These two definitely-armed people recognize Vader and unsheath the lightsabers smugly.

“At last,” says the man named Morit, who Jedi Forces the door behind Vader closed. Vader’s army is now left behind. It’s just Vader now. Just Vader and the prom king and queen over here.

Oh snap! Vader can sense that the door closing wasn’t a Force thing at all! The Force is weak with these two! No Jedi! No Sith! Just a couple of assholes!

The woman, named Aiolin, starts whipping her lightsaber around and hoping it hits something. Morit says he and his sister don’t want to be the likes of Jedi or Sith! Pah! They’re all fucking dead as doornails. Aiolin says she was a great admirer of the Jedi or the Sith or whoever can Force their way out of a paper bag.

Fighting ceases when a man emerges. He’s the man who was with Palpatine in Issue #1 while Vader was getting a scolding. He looks like a Terminator T-1000. “Your presence confirms my suspicions, Vader. Be grateful I did not program myself to be capable of holding an illogical grudge.”

Oh wait, this is the Cylo-IV from the previous issue whom O-O-O interrogated and killed! But not really. This is Cylo-V now, a new and improved model. When the previous model didn’t return, he was activated. This time he’s hella immortal and won’t take no guff from no one.

Mama, someone shot muh eyeball!

Vader is not impressed. While he knew Cylo-MCMLXXVII or whatever was making apprentices here on Bad Guy Base, per Palpatine’s requests, he didn’t know that the apprentices were all gonna be bullshit. “There is nothing about the Force about anything here,” Vader whines like a little Anakin baby.

Don’t you remember, Vader old boy? They’re making replacements. For your fucking job, dude. Palpatine thinks you suck eggs and they’re making some great progress pulling you out of the role and placing you in Accounting with Susan and her lazy eye.

Cylo calls the Force obsolete. Vader calls that BLASPHEMOUS. He’s about ready to grind Cylo into manure-laced Manwich mix when another robed figure shows up to stop him. So many robed figures are showing up here. Must be a convention.

Emperor Palpatine is this new arrival, and Vader starts getting all “buhhh, buhlubuhb” about it. But this is perfect! Cylo-V can show the Emperor exactly HOW and WHY his replacements can do a much better job than *motions with thumb to Vader* this walking blowjob over here.

“Enough grandstanding, Cylo,” Palpatine rasps. “You have my presence. Show me something worthy of my attention.”

Final Thoughts

The fifth-issue slump! Always building up to the final issue of the storyline, but never truly delivering on the cliffhanger-y suspense.

Captain America : dumb :: Darth Vader : devoid of personality

See you next time.