It's been awhile since I read this issue (or even reread it, a few months back) and your response made me want to go reread it all over again!
I think this is at least part of what I mentioned before--or at least related to it--where Dark Lord of the Sith seemed like a standard, paint-by-the-numbers comic to me at first. It seemed like a chance for Vader to be badass, for him to go through the motions of getting a new kyber crystal, etc. That it wasn't until I was five issues in that I started seeing the structure of the story as a framing device for Anakin's choices and his inability to face them. That once I saw that, I could never see the comic as anything else.
But when I read issue #1 without any of the stuff that came later, I was definitely just sort of, "Eh, it's all right, I think!" about it.
Giving the issue a quick skimming over again, I find that Vader's silence speaks more to me, that there's something really aching about them. Knowing where this comic is going and the examination of Anakin Skywalker's psychology, I can trust that, yes, it is meant to show that he's in a confused and angry place right now, he's directionless and adrift. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say. He's lost everything--Padme, Obi-Wan, the Jedi, Ahsoka, everyone he knew, even the gentle facade of his friend Palpatine--and so he says nothing. What can he say? There's nothing.
And I typed all that up before going back to the moment just after the above scene and:
"Are you at a loss, my friend? Take heart. Your path is simple."
He should be devastated (for more than two minutes)! How dead is he inside to find it "acceptable"? How is ANYTHING about that suit acceptable?
It really is a fascinating look on how desperately Anakin wants to die, but can't admit that he wants to die. Even in the moment after Sidious tells him that Padme's dead, even when Vader wakes up to everything on fire and having been lost, even when all that's left is pain and rage, he still keeps getting back up. He still finds things "acceptable", not because they're good or what he wanted, but because he doesn't care about any of it anymore. All that's left is that this is his destiny.
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carisma_sensei
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Date: 2018-12-28 08:22 pm (UTC)I think this is at least part of what I mentioned before--or at least related to it--where Dark Lord of the Sith seemed like a standard, paint-by-the-numbers comic to me at first. It seemed like a chance for Vader to be badass, for him to go through the motions of getting a new kyber crystal, etc. That it wasn't until I was five issues in that I started seeing the structure of the story as a framing device for Anakin's choices and his inability to face them. That once I saw that, I could never see the comic as anything else.
But when I read issue #1 without any of the stuff that came later, I was definitely just sort of, "Eh, it's all right, I think!" about it.
Giving the issue a quick skimming over again, I find that Vader's silence speaks more to me, that there's something really aching about them. Knowing where this comic is going and the examination of Anakin Skywalker's psychology, I can trust that, yes, it is meant to show that he's in a confused and angry place right now, he's directionless and adrift. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say. He's lost everything--Padme, Obi-Wan, the Jedi, Ahsoka, everyone he knew, even the gentle facade of his friend Palpatine--and so he says nothing. What can he say? There's nothing.
And I typed all that up before going back to the moment just after the above scene and:
"Are you at a loss, my friend? Take heart. Your path is simple."
He should be devastated (for more than two minutes)! How dead is he inside to find it "acceptable"? How is ANYTHING about that suit acceptable?
It really is a fascinating look on how desperately Anakin wants to die, but can't admit that he wants to die. Even in the moment after Sidious tells him that Padme's dead, even when Vader wakes up to everything on fire and having been lost, even when all that's left is pain and rage, he still keeps getting back up. He still finds things "acceptable", not because they're good or what he wanted, but because he doesn't care about any of it anymore. All that's left is that this is his destiny.