Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- As Momin's final host is implied to be Force Sensitive, that raises questions about Momin's work for Vader. Was he truly trying to complete the portal the whole time and genuinely failing, or was he stalling and waiting until he was in a position to capitalize on the portal before creating a functioning one?
- Did Vader kill Commander Fox in order to highlight his newfound ruthlessness and lack of tolerance for failure, or was he sating a grudge towards him for indirectly causing Ahsoka to leave the Jedi Order and killing hid friend Fives?
- Did Vader execute Iskat because he believed the accusation against her? Or because he's become angry and frustrated now that they've run out of Jedi to kill, so he's turning on the former Jedi in his own ranks.
Catharsis Factor: The fact that Vader killed Commander Fox is this towards some fans after killing fan favorite Fives in The Clone Wars.
Complete Monster: Issues #19-25—"Fortress Vader" arc: Darth Momin began his evil at a young age when he butchered his family's pet cat to make a sculpture from its remains. After killing his master, Momin devoted his time to studying the Dark Side and eventually dedicated his later morbid creations to the Dark Side itself. As a testament to his philosophy that the only true forms of art are the ones that elicit pain and fear from those who see it, Momin and his acolytes constructed a superweapon designed specifically to preserve the perpetual terror of an entire city before its citizens were vaporized into ash. His spirit living on inside his mask, Momin helps Darth Vader construct his fortress to open a doorway in the Force, causing destructive storms and eruptions across Mustafar, before betraying him and using the doorway to reunite with his original body.
Epileptic Trees: The Tenth Brother being Prosset Dibs, who had previously debuted in another comic and fostered similar thoughts to Barriss has been a source of evidence for Barriss possibly being an Inquisitor or at least a Dark-sider in service of Palpatine. This ends up being confirmed in Star Wars: Tales of the Empire.
Even Better Sequel: Is considered this towards the 2015 series, which was already well liked, but Dark Lord of the Sith takes Vader to entirely new levels. It's becoming something of a fan favorite, with many stating it's one of the best stories, in general, in the entire canon (and to come out of the Disney canon), to the extent the author, Charles Soule, is becoming My Real Daddy for a good portion of the Star Wars fanbase.
Fridge Brilliance: In issue 18, Tarkin was briefly Force-choked by Vader. This explains why he was so disturbed in ANH when Vader did it to Motti: he'd been there himself, and while Tarkin had been choked by a Vader tired from days of being hunted and wounded after being struck by lightning Motti was dealing with a fully healthy Vader.
Fridge Horror: We do get to see some snippets of Sith Lord Momin's past life where he mutilated his own cat and created a horrendous monument made of corpses for the sake of art. Just how depraved and monstrous was he that both the Jedi and the Sith tried to purge him from their official histories?
Funny Moments:
- Ferren Barr, a Padawan that survived Order 66, is confronted by Inquisitors and Purge Troopers, so what does he do? He reveals the former Inquisitors as former Jedi, the latter as the final batch of Clonetroopers complete with chip, and then, with the help of a Jedi Mind Trick, does this◊. By his grin, Barr understands perfectly how hilarious it is-and he doesn't even see the Inquisitors' faces.
- There's something oddly funny about Tarkin's relatively short stature and Vader's tall height being used as plot points in Issue #18. Tarkin uses this information as Chekhov's Gun, choosing to have the hunt take stage on a world with frequent thunderstorms. Lightning strikes Vader just before he can defeat Tarkin.
- In Issue #23, with every failed attempt to create the titular fortress on Mustafar, Vader kills Momin's host (but not Momin himself). On the eighth attempt, Vader has Momin possess a Mustafarian lava flea, with the helmet awkwardly placed on the flea's horn◊. As the ninth (and final host) is humanoid, it's implied that Vader put the helmet on a wild animal not because he was running out of humanoid hosts, but to punish Momin further.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- A deviantArt user named Engelha5t (whose account has unfortunately been deactivated) was infamous for creating multiple Rebellion-era fan-edits of various Star Wars characters using The Clone Wars vectors in anticipation for Rebels. One of these edits◊ was of Madame Jocasta, who had survived Order 66. Guess who survived Order 66?
- The Grand Inquisitor's fan nickname of "Inky" led to the Fifth Brother being nicknamed Clyde (as a reference to the Pac-Man ghosts), which then led to the Seventh Sister being nicknamed "Bonnie" (as a reference to the outlaw duo). What's the Sixth Brother's canon real name? Bil Valen.
I Knew It!:
- A few circles suspected that the Tenth Brother's true identity was Prosset Dibs from the Jedi of the Republic comic, due to their resemblance (and suspicion that Tenth Brother was a Miraluka, the same species as Dibs) and Dibs' Face–Heel Turn as well as Dibs using the word "inquisition" while arguing with Mace.
- A bigger fan theory going all the way back to the days of Revenge of the Sith was confirmed in the final issue. Palpatine manipulated the Force to cause Shmi Skywalker to conceive her son, Anakin — effectively making Palpatine Anakin's father and the progenitor of the Skywalker family. Or at least that's what Darth Vader thinks.
Magnificent Bastard: Ferren Barr was once a Jedi Padawan. Going on the run when the Order fell, Barr has a vision of the fall of the Empire and sets about gathering information and putting together acolytes to aid with his goal. Barr travels to the Mon Calamari homeworld Mon Cala to have their king resist the Empire, before murdering the Imperial ambassador to inflame tensions and draw out military action. When the Inquisitors arrive, Barr entraps them by ordering their own troopers to "execute Order 66," knowing the programming will recognize the Inquisitors as Jedi. Escaping to face Vader amidst the bombardment of Mon Cala, Barr boasts that his actions may kill billions, but countless others will hear of the Empire's evil and unite to face them, with Mon Calamari soldiers returning to one day liberate their world. Before falling at the hands of Vader, Barr gloats that while he may not be a Jedi, he still beat the Sith.
Memetic Mutation: "It is... acceptable."^Explanation
Narm Charm:
- The opening pages of the comic actually manage to make Darth Vader's Narmy Big "NO!" from Revenge of the Sith tragic.
- The final issue turns the infamous "Are you an angel?" line into something chilling when it's delivered from Padmé to Vader in a Force vision.
- Really, one of the series' biggest strengths is doing Call Backs to more contentious dialogue from the prequels and turning them into powerful scenes. The highly memetic "I have the high ground!" scene becomes pretty nightmarish when the dialogue remains the same but the scene is flipped so Vader wins his fight with Obi-Wan, who delivers the "you were the chosen one!" monologue as he is the one burning on the shore of the Mustafar river, rather than Vader.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While the series as a whole is very popular, some fans didn't like how Vader's Adaptational Personality Change compared to Legends, where he was more overtly regretful of his past acts and took a while to settle into his new life, whereas in this he's much more ruthless from the get-go and dispels any regrets much more quickly.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The first issue of the Burning Seas arc ends with The Reveal that there's a Jedi who knows Vader's true identity, with the implication that this Jedi is someone we know due to their face being concealed. The following issue reveals that it's a new character, though his resemblance to Saesee Tiin made a few viewers initially think that Tiin somehow survived Revenge of the Sith.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It turns out the Inquisitors already exist as Inquisitors and not their original selves, meaning their backstories won't be explored here. In fairness, Word of God said that the comic would explore the origins of the Inquisitorius, not the origins of each individual Inquisitor. The title of this comic book even makes it clear that this comic is ultimately not about them, but about Vader.
Unexpected Character:
- Madame Jocasta as the first target of the Grand Inquisitor and second Jedi that Vader goes after. It was assumed that she had died during the attack on the Temple by Vader and the 501^st since that's usually where that character is, which was the case in Legends.
- The Inquisitors appear as soon as Issue #6, with already at least eight of them and they're the same age as they are in Rebels.

YMMV / Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith

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