I HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING THIS COMIC, Darth Vader: Black, White & Red, it's an anthology of several stories set around creepy themes and has some absolutely stunning artwork, the color palettes used to incredible effect and setting up a really creep read that's great especially if it's near Halloween. But also I recommend it because it's Vader at some of his most brutal, the walking nightmare that's unstoppable, a lot like that feeling I had the first time I watched the Rogue One hallway scene, while still understanding that this is a sad, pathetic, miserable fuckup of a human being. Yeah, it's badass when he's floating severed arms in mid-air to keep them firing on the people who are shooting at him or when he's murdering everyone in the room while strapped down to a table, just the power of his mind and the Force, or when an insect queen has stabbed him with her stinger to control his mind/bring him "peace" and he just rips that stinger right out through his stomach and murders her while walking away with the most over the top dramatic, "If the Endless Mercy is truly the vessel of your deliverance... then let it serve now as your tomb. The only peace in the galaxy is death itself, Doctor. Wherever there is life, there is suffering--and the dark side shall always endure." line. But I also can't read that and not realize this is someone who is so miserable and in such a hell of his own making, who steeps himself in the dark side every single day and that keeps him trapped in the prison of his own mind, that he wants to die but can't. This man wants so badly to die, but there are only two people in the galaxy who could achieve it and they both refused to strike him down, one because it would burn his own heart to ash to kill what's left of Anakin Skywalker and the other because he has more uses for his pet enforcer. The only peace he can imagine at all in his life now is death and he can't grant it to himself and no one can grant it for him, so he's trapped in this life, in this suffering and pain. And no matter how badass he is, no matter how many people he murders in the most nightmarish ways, no matter how many one-versus-a-thousand men fights he walks away from with everyone but himself dead, he will always be that miserable wretch trapped inside a suit that forces him to keep living. Right up until he finds someone he's willing to let go for, someone he's willing to put above his own pain and suffering. But until then? He's just 800 pounds of misery in a 300 pound mechanical suit of torment.








