Star Wars: Darth Vader Preview Seemingly Debunks That Surprise Return

The debut issue of Star Wars: Darth Vader brought with it a shocking reveal in its final page, as the Sith Lord seemingly reunited with someone appearing to be Padmé Amidala, though a preview from StarWars.com of the second issue in the series would seemingly confirm that it wasn’t his former love after all. The new issue doesn’t hit shelves until March 11th, so it would seem that there’s a lot more to this story, but the character’s confusion over being referred to as Padmé, and the very real fact that the character died in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, appears to set the record straight that this assuredly isn’t Luke and Leia’s mother.

In the first issue of the series, Vader attempts to enact his revenge against those who kept Luke a secret from him for all those years, which leads him to Coruscant. On the final page, he sees a character he calls “Padmé.” The preview images from the upcoming issue show the character herself being somewhat bewildered to be called Padmé, in addition to her complete confusion as to who Vader is. When his companion droid discusses her physical similarities to Padmé and then announces that Vader works for the Emperor, the character then claims to be the former Queen of Naboo, potentially because she knows she would be considered a threat to Vader otherwise.

Given the nature of the galaxy far, far away, it would be hard to rule out a character returning from death, but it would seem much more likely that this character is potentially a former Royal Handmaiden of Naboo.

The Royal Handmaidens not only served to assist Padmé, but also took the queen’s place, on occasion, to serve as her decoy. Given Vader’s fractured state of mind in this comic series, it’s possible that, when confronted with someone who shared a strong resemblance to his former love, Vader assumes it is really her. It could then be possible that, rather than expressing his rage, he is at least briefly deterred by discovering one of Padmé’s closest confidants to embrace one of the only connections to her he has left.

Stay tuned for details on Star Wars: Darth Vader, with issue #2 hitting shelves on March 11th. You can head to StarWars.com for the full preview.

Do you think this is really Padmé? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!