Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #1
REIGN OF KYLO REN PART 1
Han Solo and Leia Organa ‘s son, Ben Solo, was once a promising young student to his uncle Luke Skywalker. But Ben’s resentment of his family’s legacy made him susceptible to the pull of the dark side, transforming him into Kylo Ren, First Order tyrant and master of the Knights of Ren.
Kylo’s desire to finish what his grandfather Darth Vader started has led him down sinister paths: murdering his father, slaying his former master to supplant him as Supreme Leader and attempting to decimate the remaining Resistance forces on Crait.
Now a volatile Kylo vows to continue to destroy the past at all costs. But in the process, he might discover that some parts of the past are not so easily killed….
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Luke Ross
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Nolan Woodward
Cover artist: Derrick Chew
Editor: Mark Pannicia
Publication date: February 5 2025
We’re beyond the Battle of Crait, and the newly installed Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is inspecting his troops in the opening pages of this new era for Marvel Star Wars comics. We’re not only a decade into the second era of Marvel but a decade beyond the start of the Sequel trilogy, so what better time to swiftly welcome back Charles Soule and Luke Ross to monthly comics, and what better character to focus on than the former Ben Solo. We quickly learn that Ren is a changed, driven man. Opening (ironically) two crates, we see the deceaded halves of the slain Supreme Leader Snoke, and watch as Ren lifts those halves using the Force to show the massed troops what their enemies did, and how he as the new Supreme Leader shall lead them to glory.
The troops rally, but quickly we see Ren wracked with torturous memories that plague him to distraction, his own doubts gnawing at him as he ignites his lightsaber and calls for General Hux. Hux arrives, and we confirm that yes, Ren is blaming Rey for the death of Snoke but we also learn that military operations are not his area of expertise. He wants Hux to tell him what Snoke had planned, but Hux reminds him that he – Kylo Ren – is now the Supreme Leader, and he has the power to bring to reality the New Order in a way his forefathers couldn’t. He details the forces available to Ren – ships, support craft and the like – and begins to explain how they could take a system, but Ren shuts him down, their old competitiveness resurfacing. He gives Hux a specific task; build a throne worthy of him, and he leaves by telling Hux to get it right the first time.
We find Ren staring at the melted helmet of his grandfather Darth Vader, and view a fascinating scene as he realises that he isn’t Vader, or his legacy. He’s not his father, mother, uncle or anyone else, and he determines to end the legacy of Vader, and we see him flying to Mustafar, landing in the trees in sheets of rain as he walks towards Vader’s castle. The locals are ready for his arrival, and we watch as they bravely attack to defend, a futile gesture as he literally slices them in half, his anger rising as he eases into his new role as Supreme Leader.
The last of the warriors defeated he enters the castle, a voice echoing through the cavernous halls. It’s Vaders aid Vaneé, now essentially a disembodied head in a jar carried by a droid body. He offers his service to Ren, asks his lineage, but Kylo has little need for a relic of the past. He wishes to erase it and start anew, but Vaneé tells him Vaders power was his past, the fuel for his rage, and that he knows Ren is lost, otherwise he wouldn’t have come to Mustafar.
We end as Ren orders ‘show me’ and conclude the first issue of a whole new – and hopefully illuminating – era for comics. The sequel trilogy is a vast canvas upon which to tell stories, considering how little we know of the era and its events. Here, Soule – in much the same way we did in his run on Darth Vader – can get inside Ren’s head and see not only what makes him tick, but what makes him so motivated.
You could argue his past is even more complicated than his fathers. Anakin – like Rey – was nobody, a slave boy tied to his mother who gained notice when his prodigious talents began to surface. From there a long, dark descent began, one that Ben Solo could parallel after his own priviledged start to life. The son of the last Princess of Alderaan and a Corellian rebel hero, nephew of the last Jedi and a rare beacon of hope in a time when heroes were in short supply. His destiny was to join his uncle in bringing about a resurgence of the Jedi; instead, he was the instrument of its destruction, and his turn to Snoke and the dark a crushing blow to Luke and his goal of restoring the Jedi.
So much potential, and a solid start that very much lays out the mood of Kylo Ren after Crait and the death of his uncle and his former master and a marker for the rest of the series as we navigate the year between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
