Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #10 – “Book II: Shadows and Secrets (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, Darth Vader is getting scrutinized by Thanoth the Inspector and he’s not having a good time about it. Meanwhile, Aphra is shoving millions of credits in this one dude’s face looking for information about a guy named Commodex Tahn.

Aphra thinks information about this guy will be very useful to Vader.

Because Commodex Tahn is/was a mortician on Naboo.

And Vader may want to see Padmé’s decomposing corpse, I guess? That would be a weird turn of events.

Darth Vader (Vol. 1), Issue #10 [December, 2015]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“Book II: Shadows and Secrets (Part 4)”

A big elephant-looking alien surrenders to Darth Vader in the Dragon’s Mansion on Alpha Prime.

“Will you reveal to whom you sold explosives?” Vader asks.

“Yes!”

“A shame.”

This big elephant-looking alien is perhaps the Dragon and this is his Mansion. Vader cuts him down with a lightsaber, presumably killing him even though I don’t see blood pouring every which way. Thanoth is like wtf, the dude wasn’t going to explode the building! He didn’t even have a trigger! He was bluffing! Vader is like “eh”.

Well, the only way to go is forward, I suppose. Thanoth finds the Dragon’s vault full of sensitive documents and a stash of secret photos of nude Gungans. “Three failures and it will immolate its contents, I suspect,” says Thanoth. “Of the finest quality. It’ll take at least a month to open safely. I must try. Immediately.”

What’s the rush, homie? Ain’t no urgency here! In fact, opening the vault is dumb as shit! Let’s forget it entirely. Nope? Okay, okay, Thanoth is allowed to try it but he must not fail. That’ll learn ‘em. Heh heh.

In less than four seconds Thanoth cracks open the vault successfully.

Vader is nonplussed. As far from plussed as you can imagine! Thanoth has his reasons for cracking the keypad code as fast as he did, all of which are super boring and nerdy and not worth even mentioning here.

“You are… talented and persistent, Thanoth,” Vader compliments with the air of someone who is about 4 seconds away from decapitating a bitch with a lightsaber.

Let the showering of smooches commence!

Thanoth accepts the compliment and, of course, reminds Lord Vader that this persistence will help him uncover the core of crime! And also whodunit. “I will have to do this alone,” Thanoth tells him. “You cut a somewhat noticeable figure, Lord Vader… I also suspect the final step will involve a certain brutality. When the time comes, we must be ready to move with force.”

Vader just stares at him, probably popping a little stiffy over the word “force”, and then tells him to carry on. Then he says some vapid pseudo-intimidating shit and walks away.

On Naboo, in one of those cozy Nabooian royal homes, Commodex Tahn enjoys a lovely evening drink next to his faithful protocol droid WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN HIS HOUSE GETS BOMBED! LOL!

“Defenses down. Destroy the droids. Shoot up the place. Stun only when you’re in range of the target. We need him alive.” Aphra storms the house with a small army of droids while Tahn runs to get his oversized gun. Lock and load, baby. *Clint Eastwood snarl*

Tahn doesn’t really get to use his gun much before BT-1 melts the sucker right in his hands. Aphra finds this less than amusing, but at least Tahn is alive. “Find whatever safe he has,” Aphra orders. “Get it open, Beetee. Clean it out. We need to make this look like a robbery.”

Tahn looks disgruntled!

I SAID SHUT UP! *knocks Tahn in the face so hard with the butt of a gun that he poops out his teeth*

When addressed as “Commodex Tahn”, the guy looks confused. Bewildered, even. Perplexed, you might say. Aphra tells him that you have to wake up pretty early in the morning to fool her into thinking that you ain’t Commodex Tahn, chief! Like, 7:45am. “You prepared Senator Amidala’s body for burial. We need your fond nostalgic memories of that sad time.”

Tahn is like “no way Jose” and stands his ground! Queen Amidala shat out diamonds and ambrosia and no one is going to sully her memory with betrayal and, er… nostalgic memories!

These two, Aphra and Tahn, they exchange some words about morality and honor and other useless horseshit. Between growing up in a galactic war and a bitter divorce between her parents, Aphra didn’t have much room for staying innocent. “The thing with wars,” she says, “if the war doesn’t get you, all the scum opportunists profiting from the chaos will. Raiders came in. Mom told me to run. I did. But I came back with this awesome cannon I found in a cave I was exploring and blew them all to pieces. I saved everyone.”

Aphra talks some more unprompted because that’s exactly what people tend to do in these hostage situations. Tahn apologizes for her less-than-ideal situation, but she tells him to stuff it. Everyone has a sob story. It was a war, dingus!

Amidala might have been a good queen, but she wasn’t a strong queen, was she? Strong beats good and weak any day! It’s like rock, paper, scissors only “strong” is the dynamite that blows it all up real good.

“Amidala was good and strong,” Tahn insists.

“Not strong enough,” replies Aphra.

Aphra orders O-O-O to torture the guy until he is willing to talk. O-O-O tortures the guy until he is willing to talk.

“Amidala’s hologram when she was buried made her appear she was still pregnant. But you, Mr. Mortician, were one of the very few people who had access to the body. You know the truth.”

Yeah! She was just fat! Cow City! Mooo!

TELL ME WHERE AL CAPONE IS BURIED! WHERE IS THAT FAT PIECE OF SHIT?

Hey Tahn, just confirm that Amidala had a son, ok? Amidala had a son who was taken away and let’s just cut to the chase here before O-O-O continues sticking his rusty razor-blade penis attachment into your fingernails.

Tahn confirms what Aphra already knows. Aphra thanks him for his services to the Great Almighty Empire of Pancakes and has O-O-O kill him. *dusts off hands*

O-O-O thinks they could have tortured Tahn for more information, but Aphra doesn’t need to know any more than she does: that some little pantswetter son of Queen Amidala is out there somewhere jerking off into a sock. “Vader’ll be glad to know the full story.” And then they fuck on out of Naboo and into our hearts.

Later, on Anthan Prime, Aphra reports what she has learned to Vader. Vader is like “cool”.

“…anything else on the to-do list, Lord Vader?” she asks. And yeah, we need to find the Death Star Blower-Upper. No shit and for real this time. Some Imperial officer is trying to find him too, and they need to find him first so they can, I don’t know, have a party. “The Ante was hinting he knows a lot. If Imperial intelligence has a lead, I’ll bet he’ll have better.” Vader huffs and puffs and takes out his inhaler. “You have the funds. Arrange a meeting. Offer what is required.”

As a side note, that Thanoth motherfucker is really getting in the way lately.

“Anything to worry about?” Aphra asks.
“I have no fears,” Vader responds. “He suspects nothing.”

Zoom into a fucking tracking device on Vader’s helmet.

Final Thoughts

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BUG DARK LORD VADER AND GET AWAY WITH IT? He will say really mean things to you and then you’ll be sorry.

Vader really cares about finding this Death Star kid. Maybe he should’ve been home throwing the ol’ baseball around when he was a kid instead of Dark Lording in the galaxy like he has something to prove (tiny penis).