Austin Gorton Comic Reviews

According to a text piece in the back of the issue by Bob Gale, the series has an initial order of four issues from IDW - whether more follow depends on sales, of course, and it remains to be seen just how many worthwhile stories there are to tell, even given the series' expansive approach to it settings. But those are concerns for the future. While there's certainly nothing in this issue that is required reading or radically changes the text of the films, fans of the series will nevertheless be entertained, and there's definitely potential in the idea of an anthology series featuring a variety of different creators set all across the Back to the Future universe. This first issue meets that potential.

Nevertheless, this pair of stories successfully builds on the foundation laid by the first issue, continuing the anthology approach that allows stories to take place from all over the Back to the Future timeline (and, essentially, multiverse) but also developing its own internal continuity that helps the series stand as its own thing (and not just as an extension of the movies), while also having the kind of fun with plotting that only comes when a narrative has access to a time machine.

Certainly, this is not required reading; anyone reading the regular Star Wars book who skips this won't miss out on an important chapter in the continuing adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, etc. But this is nevertheless an entertaining issue which makes a significant contribution to the Star Wars comic book universe, widening the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire to show that not all battles are fought with lightsabers and spectacular explosions, and how easily evil can twist the most heroic of intentions to its advantage.

Finally, Luke encounters a holographic representation of Shaak Ti (the only Jedi depicted in that scene who seemed familiar), who was a member of the Jedi Council in Episodes II and III and is notable for having two different death scenes scripted (and one filmed) in Revenge of the Sith. Originally, she was killed by Grievous aboard his ship early in the movie, and later on, she was supposed to have been killed during Darth Vader's attack on the Jedi Temple. The former was filmed but ultimately cut (and appears as a deleted scene on the Blu ray set), while the latter never made it to screen (but was referenced in an episode of Clone Wars). Both deaths were ultimately deemed non-canonical, and the character actually turned up alive in the Force Unleashed video game, where she is killed by Darth Vader's apprentice (the star of the game), though that death, too, has now been rendered non-canonical until proven otherwise.

Threepio refers to Artoo at one point in this issue as a "thermocapsulary dehousing assister", a throwback to the early days of licensed Star Wars fiction; that was the term first used to describe Artoo's job (before the now more common term "astromech droid") in the New Hope novelization, as well as issues #1 and #19 of the original Marvel comic book series.

One of the spectators expresses dismay that Luke isn't "the little green one" (obviously a reference to Yoda) while another suggests that Luke isn't even fit to be a Padawan, suggesting Jedi lore perhaps isn't as unknown and cloaked in mystery at this time as has been previously suggested (or just that patrons of Grakkus' arena are more in the know on this stuff than the average galactic citizen).

Darth Vader now has access to Grakkus' trove of Jedi artifacts; it'll be interesting to see if and how he chooses to make use of them.

So while the overall plot of the crossover is only moved ahead incrementally, there's still plenty to recommend and enjoy here as Gillen smartly deploys his regular cast to maximum gain, naturally integrating them into the story while still keeping the focus on the heroic Rebels of Star Wars and, most of all, Darth Vader himself.

In the end, this issue remains consistent with the others in the storyline: entertaining individual moments in service of a larger narrative that is barely moved forward by each individual chapter. This particular issue does build on Leia's earlier characterization in the story to its benefit, and the arrival of a third faction into the mix (along with Black Krrsantan) at issue's end suggests that, maybe, the overall plot will be widening as the end approaches. But for all the fun moments sprinkled throughout, "Vader Down" remains a storyline in which the parts are far greater than the whole.

Instead, while individual moments from the story, like Vader single-handedly dispatching wave after wave of Rebel troops, or Triple Zero cosplaying as Threepio, or Chewbacca living up to his hype by ripping off Triple Zero's arms, or even Leia quietly accepting that her friends mean more to her than killing Vader, will long be remembered, "Vader Down" as a whole seems more likely to fade away.

It's a development that may turn off some long-time fans picking up the series hoping to see the continuing adventures of Keith, Lance, Pidge, etc. (ie the most popular iteration of Voltron), but it's a development that may also inject some new life into the property, suggesting as it does the possibility of interesting stories involving the lion-based Voltron outside of the characters familiar from the animated series and later comics, and playing up the mythic element of Voltron as an eternal force for good. Hopefully, in future issues, Bunn & Shepherd will be better able to marry action to character development and unpack the new premise introduced here in an exciting manner. As it is, much of the success of this first issue lies in the promise of things to come, rather than what's in the issue itself.