Star Wars fans i've reviewed alot of the movies over the years heck i've even taken a crack at reviewing some episodes of Rebels (might do a full review of that soon BTW) but i've never reviewed anything from the Star Wars comics or read any of them for that matter well now that changes with my review of Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 2 Shadows And Secrets.
As far as I can work out the plot of this arc is Darth is secretly trying to find out who blew up the Death Star while at the same time trying to prevent the Empire from finding out who stole some weapons. I'll full on admit I havn't read the first six issues of this series and to me that's a damn shame because the plot presented in this book is generally really interesting altho they don't really go into detail as to why Darth can't go looking for Luke.
While reading the book for the life of me I couldn't work out where in the timeline this book takes place because the opening statement makes it sound like it takes place after A New Hope but then a character says something about Jabba not being with them so that made me wonder if it took place after Return Of the Jedi and yes I know Vader dies in that movie it was just me having a blonde moment and forgetting about Vaders death but yes story wise this does take place after A New Hope.
I will admit even the idea of Vader knowing who Jabba is is honestly kinda exciting since there pretty much the two biggest bad guys in the whole series at least for the general audience but for me what would have been even cooler is seeing them interact in this story since it would be a battle of wits Vader can't kill Jabba because there would be a bounty on his head before Jabba's body hit the floor and Jabba can't kill Vader because he would have alot of the empire after him.
Working on this book was writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca and I have to say that the art in the book is truly freaking gorgeous heck just look at the above picture if you want prove of how great the artwork is and the same thing can also be said for the writing in fact the quote on the back of the book was saying how good the writing is and that was from a website called Newsarama and I have to agree with them this book is so well written to me this felt like it could have been a movie all itself.
Speaking of the writing Darth himself is written so well in this book and i'm not sure if many will agree with this statement or not but the way he's written here is better then how he was written in the prequel films this book presents us with a more morally complex character you see him play the empire in order to get what he wants which also brings out his more cunning side and to me that helps make him a more rounded character since now he's more then just the emperor's muscle he's a human being.
I'm not really sure if anyone agrees with me on this or what people think of this character in general but I really did enjoy the character of Aphra she's a fun spunky character and her interactions with Darth are some of the best scenes in the whole book altho there is something about her that I just don't like and it's the fact that she's another smuggler to me that trope in Star Wars is getting really stale and of course she comes with a tragic backstory and i'm sat here thinking "not every thief needs a tragic backstory" it doesn't take anything away from the character but it doesn't add anything either.
Honestly the Aphra character must have been popular because she now has her own ongoing series Doctor Aphra which is re-teaming writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca and I hope that she continues to get more popular because I can really see her showing up in either a TV series or in a future movie that's how much I believe in her.
I admit I wasn't expecting this book to be as gruesome and as gory as it was you straight up see get things put through there throats and you see them get holes in there body it doesn't distract from the main focus of the story in fact it might add to it since it shows you how violent the empire can be instead of just telling you about how violent they can be and that to me is really refreshing to see in any Star Wars media.
Now I picked volumes two and three of this series and any rational person would expect volume three to cover the Vader Down storyline since that was the next story told in the series but no volume three instead covers The Shu-torun War which is issues 16-19 plus the Darth Vader Annual and for some reason they chose to release Vader Down as a limited series which to me is quite strange because now if I want to see that storyline and continue this pretty sweet Star Wars comics collection instead of going to the next number in the collection I have to search out a separate book.
Overall I really did enjoy this book and it made me look forward to reading Volume 3 but at the same time this book was so good that Volume 3 now has a lot to live up to so this book gets a modest 8 out of 10 from me.