The spine tingling conclusion of “Five Days of Sith”. This might be the first time that I’ve used the phrase “spine tingling” when referring to a Star Wars comic book. That last page, my god. This is not what I expected from the ending of this arc. Brian Wood brings his best again. It’s going to break my heart the day that I won’t be reviewing Star Wars comic books from Dark Horse anymore. You know, because Marvel doesn’t send us review copies. But that’s all I’ll say about that. I have been so lucky the last few weeks with reviews. I haven’t read one sub-par thing, from anybody really. But this tops all of the others. Star Wars #14 is going to be the best issue of the month. I really can’t see anything else being able to top this. And there’s still a lot of month left to go. Darth Vader’s dreams are haunted by Obi-Wan Kenobi. He thinks back to the fateful day of Princess Leia’s rescue by the rebels who were, at that time, unknown to him. And the murder of his former master. The Rebel Alliance’s victory over his flagship has exposed spies within the empire. Vader has decided that an unsanctioned mission is needed to discover the identities of these spies. His reputation must be restored, but first, his head must be cleared.

The most impressive thing about this issue is that right when you’ve decided that it’s just another issue of Brian Wood’s Star Wars, he totally surprises you and throws in some bone chilling stuff. He really makes you afraid of Darth Vader in this issue. We all already know that he’s an intimidating guy, but somehow we’ve forgotten it over the years. You don’t really get to see this side of him all of the time. The fact of the matter is, that being intimidated by someone and being afraid of them are two different things completely. Desperation is not something normally shown with this character. Desperate men do drastic things.

Facundo Percio has been doing tremendously well with this arc. But if I may be so bold, Wood has been putting some pretty intense stuff in these scripts, so he didn’t really have any other choice but to deliver. I really like the way that he draws all of the interaction between Vader and the Emperor. I love the use of shadows and lights working off of each other. Plus it was pretty cool to see the Vader and Obi-Wan fight reimagined. That whole dream sequence looked great.

So there you have it I guess. If that doesn’t send you running for your local comic shop, I don’t know what will. If you love Star Wars, and you love Darth Vader even more, then you better get going. I may have just found my “best issue of the year” for the Comic Bastards End of the Year Roundup. I know that it’s early, but nobody saw Crash winning best picture back in 2006 either.

Score: 5/5

Writer: Brian Wood Artist: Facundo Percio Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 2/5/14