Six Years Ago Today, Darth Vader’s Darkest Journey Became His Most Personal

Darth Vader has always been defined by Padmé. As the Dark Lord of the Sith told Obi-Wan Kenobi, he believed he had put Anakin Skywalker to death; and he thought that because, in Vader’s view, Anakin died with Padmé. Darth Vader is simply what was left, a funeral pyre on which Anakin Skywalker’s soul burned. Even then, Vader dreamed of resurrecting his beloved Padmé; Vader chose Mustafar as his base because he believed the Force vergence there could be used to bring her back from the Netherworld of the Force.

For Vader, everything changed when he discovered he had a son. Though Vader would have denied it, something in him was reborn with the knowledge. Vader initially dreamed of overthrowing Palpatine, taking Luke on as his apprentice under the Sith Rule of Two. When Luke rejected this, the Sith Lord swore to avenge himself on all those who – in his view – had made his son weak. That was the beginning of Vader’s darkest quest, one that brought him face-to-face with a woman who bore Padmé’s face in Darth Vader #3, released six years ago today.

Darth Vader’s Quest Took Him to the Queen’s Shadow

The tale is told in Greg Pak and Raffaele Ienco Darth Vader comic, running through the first five issues. There, Darth Vader begins his quest by visiting the chambers of Padmé Amidala, which had been set aside since her death nearly 20 years ago – a never-visited shrine. It didn’t take Vader long to learn the chambers had been broken into shortly after Padmé’s death, and he tracked a signal all the way back to a rebel cell with some very familiar faces. The Handmaidens of Naboo had become the nucleus of a rebel group called the Amidalans, who fought in honor of Padmé and Anakin Skywalker.

Vader had always told himself that Padmé would have joined the Empire to be with him. In truth, he was deceiving himself; the Amidalans showed what Padmé would really have done, how fiercely she would have fought against the Empire and the Sith. Over the weeks that followed, Vader became increasingly focused on corrupting one particular handmaiden – Sabé, the Queen’s Shadow who had served as Padmé’s doppelganger. Again, the reason was simple; he wanted to believe Padmé would have sided with him, and she bore Padmé’s face. For a brief time, Sabé allowed that fantasy to continue. But the partnership was a temporary thing, and it came to an abrupt end, to nobody’s real surprise.

The quest continued, with Vader tearing at the wound in his own soul. In the end, he found his way to a medical facility on Polis Massa, where Obi-Wan took Padmé after she was so badly injured on Mustafar. Vader even found footage of Padmé’s death; of her final appeal to Obi-Wan, and of her belief there was still good in Anakin. For the first time in decades, Darth Vader allowed himself to feel true grief. What’s more, though he couldn’t know it, that goodness within him had been resurrected by Padmé’s faith. The Sith couldn’t face it, not really, but he knew: Padmé would never have joined the Empire. But she believed he would not remain in the dark, either.

Padmé’s Faith in Anakin Lit the Fire of Hope

A furious Palpatine tried to burn the grief out of Darth Vader, torturing him on his return. But, looking back now Pak and Ienco’s run is long since complete, I think this was a turning point in the story of Darth Vader. The Sith Lord had spent two decades hiding from the truth of what he’d done; notice that Padmé’s chamber had been left alone, never visited. Now, at last, Darth Vader faced the brutal truth that he had killed the woman he loved. He allied with the handmaiden who bore Padmé’s face, he visited his wife’s tomb, and – crucially – he balked when the moment came to desecrate it, choosing another way instead. There was no hiding, not now.

But, most important of all, he learned that Padmé still believed there was good in him. Her last thoughts were of Anakin Skywalker, and she did not believe her husband to be dead; she thought he could be redeemed. Padmé’s words echoed through the decades, finding their home in Darth Vader’s heart, where they made the Sith begin asking a single question: was she right? Something in Darth Vader awoke then, something of Anakin, and it would ultimately rise to the fore when faced with Luke’s confidence that his father could still return to the light.

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