Star Wars: Marvel Officially Cancels ‘Shadow of Vader’ Miniseries

Following Marvel firing writer Chuck Wendig from the announced Star Wars: Shadow of Vader miniseries, fans wondered what the fate of the series would be, with The Hollywood Reporter confirming that the book has officially been scrapped.

The book was announced by Lucasfilm at New York Comic Con, with StarWars.com previously describing the series, “Each issue will feature a different set of characters: Issue #1 is a Friday the 13th homage, with Vader hunting down kids at summer camp; issue #2 stars the one-and-only Willrow Hood; issue #3 centers on a morgue attendant on the Death Star; issue #4 diverges to focus on the Acolytes of the Beyond; issue #5 follows a New Republic pilot — whose parents were killed by Vader — who joins the Resistance only to learn that Leia’s father is the Sith Lord.”

Shortly after announcing the new series, Wendig took to Twitter to announce that he had been fired from the book.

“Today I got the call. I’m fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring. Seriously, that’s what Mark [Paniccia], the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part,” Wendig wrote on Twitter. “My understanding over this call was that this was a Marvel decision, not an [Lucasfilm] decision, but I can’t really confirm that. The editor said he had made the call. He seemed genuinely upset at my tweets and profanity, so maybe that’s accurate. And again, that’s his right to do so.

“If they honestly feel that my presence will damage the book, I don’t want that. I want the book to shine, and artists like Juanan Ramirez and Greg Smallwood to do their amazing thing. Artists like that are gods in my mind, so I’m happy to not distract from their literal magic. But it does set a troubling precedent. One we’ve seen already – James Gunn, Jessica White, and so on – of folks fired because they riled up the wasp’s nest of asterisk-gate.”

Wendig had previously confirmed that he had written three of the books, leaving fans to wonder if a new writer would step in to bring the series to its conclusion. The series was slated to debut in January of 2019, though its omission from solicitations confirmed the book had been delayed indefinitely.

Comic book retailers received the message from Marvel earlier this week reading, “STAR WARS SHADOW OF VADER #1 (OF 5) & variants (NOV180993-6, $4.99, FOC 12/3/18) and STAR WARS SHADOW OF VADER #2 (OF 5) & variants (NOV180991-2, $3.99, FOC 12/17/18) have been cancelled and will not be resolicited.”

With the Darth Vader series ending with issue #25, Shadow of Vader would likely have satisfied fans looking for the Sith Lord’s adventures, though this official cancellation will now see a glaring void of the character in the world of comics.

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