Warning: SPOILERS for Darth Vader #23
Star Wars fans had better be sitting down, because Darth Vader‘s comic book just revealed the single greatest feat that the Sith Lord ever achieved – finally tearing down the wall between the living and the dead. Fulfilling the dream that first pulled Anakin Skywalker to Emperor Palpatine’s side.
That’s the bombshell event that the Darth Vader series has been building to for months, as it slowly unraveled the secret meaning of Darth Vader’s castle. It was enough of a shock to learn that despite how massive a change it might seem to the existing Star Wars canon, Darth Vader built his castle to resurrect Padmé, using the Dark Side of The Force to access the life beyond death. But the even more shocking moment… is when Darth Vader actually achieved that very goal, in a moment every Star Wars fan will want to see for themselves.
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Vader’s Castle is a Door Into The Force
Most fans may assume that if Darth Vader was on a secret mission to bring his dead wife back to life, Emperor Palpatine would be one of the people kept in the dark (pun intended). But as the story thus far has revealed, Darth Vader’s master has long suspected that the apprentice’s late love was the real reason he sought to make his home on the lava planet Mustafar. Sure, that’s where Anakin Skywalker was truly killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi so Vader could rise. But the Force Locus Point that pulled Vader to it is the real selling point. Because at that point in time and space, Vader explained… it seemed that anything could be possible.
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Emperor Palatine went a step further, and actually worked to help his apprentice achieve his goal (or so it seems, for now) by entrusting him with an ancient relic: the helmet of the Sith Lord Momin, a famous architect and sculptor among historians of the Dark Side. And after communicating his plans for a suitable castle to Vader, Lord Momin went about building it. The goal? To create a massive tuning fork of Dark Side energy, and amplify the Force Locus Point buried deep below the castle.
Put more simply: help reveal the door between life and death that Anakin Skywalker dreamed he could find, and master. And on his ninth attempt, Lord Momin succeeded. At which point Darth Vader unleashed his full strength in The Force to pry it open… and succeeded.
Darth Vader Opens The Door To Death
Yes, Star Wars fans, it’s official: Darth Vader really did manage to pierce the barrier between this life and the next, using a sensitivity and fluency in The Force that Lord Momin claims exceeds even his own. Or, exceeded his own, back when he was actually in a living body. It’s a historic moment in Anakin Skywalker’s life and journey through The Force, and thanks to writer Charles Soule and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli, the previously secret victory is now permanently commemorated in the soaring twin spires of Vader’s castle.
The last design of Lord Momin, and the first to truly live up to the promise of “making the impossible possible” through the Dark Side of The Force. Next stop, Padmé…?
Page 2 of 2: Does Darth Vader Succeed in Retrieving Padmé?
Darth Vader Just Changed Star Wars Forever
On the surface, it might not seem to be a massive change to the status quo to confirm that in the Star Wars mythology, those who pass on don’t really ‘disappear.’ The fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi was a literal ghost capable of appearing to Luke and offering advice arguably showed characters don’t even need to be alive to play a major role. Over time the appearance of “Force Ghosts” have demonstrated how malleable the wall between life and death is for those Jedi who study it, and the new movies have raised the stakes even further. Not only can Rey be called to by Obi-Wan’s voice, but The Last Jedi potentially broke the series logic by having Master Yoda launch a lightning bolt in the real world.
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If the barrier between the living and those “returned to The Force” can be pierced in this direction, then why can’t someone force their way into death, too? This issue of Darth Vader ends before the Sith Lord can actually be reunited with his beloved Padmé, so the story isn’t over just yet. But in Camuncoli’s artwork, the realm of death appears to be a physical plain and not just a metaphorical one. So no matter how you cut it, this scene has changed the way Star Wars fans will think about the afterlife (or, for lack of more precise terms, the physical space in which the dead continue to exist within The Force).
The question now becomes: if Darth Vader has done the impossible and opened the door into the afterlife of The Force… can he enter it, too?
Will Darth Vader Succeed in Retrieving Padme?
Considering how massively important a story “Fortress Vader” has turned out to be for Vader’s character (before it’s even finished!) it’s impossible to know where the tale will end. Will Anakin Skywalker finally get his one wish of protecting his beloved Padmé from death itself, but fail to consider some crucial part of his plot? Or will he have this opportunity to do what no other Sith has done, only to have it snatched away from him? Or, most tragic to consider: has Darth Vader sought out the only bit of light that still pulls at Anakin Skywalker… so that he might crush it?
Heartbreaking as that would be for some fans, it would forge a new connection between Darth Vader and his grandson Kylo Ren, just as the latter’s story prepares to reach its own crescendo in Star Wars: Episode 9. Only time will tell, and at this point, we’re more than happy to go along for the ride.
Darth Vader #23 is available now from Marvel Comics.