Darth Vader Tests Emperor Palpatine In New Star Wars Preview

Star Wars is teasing Darth Vader’s ultimate test of his own master, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious, in the pages of a new Star Wars comic book! 

Marvel’s preview for Star Wars: Darth Vader #40 shows Vader returning to the Imperial homeworld of Coruscant from his fiery castle on Mustafar, during one of the worst threats to the galaxy far, far, away: the Scourge! The rogue A.I. entity has infested many of Star Wars‘ droids and is now making the leap from robots to cybernetic beings. However, when Scourge sent C-3PO and an army of droid avatars after Vader inside his castle on Mustafar, they pushed Vader to finally push through the disruption to the Force that had been keeping him at bay and took out the droids without the aid of his cybernetic limbs and armor. Now that Vader has tapped back into the dark side of the Force, it’s clear he has a bone to pick with Palpatine! 

The last years of Star Wars’ Darth Vader comics have taken a deep dive into the twisted, toxic, relationship between Vader and Palpatine – and really the nature of “relationships” at all within the Sith order. We learned that after Palpatine learned that Vader tried (and failed) to recruit Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back the Sith Lord “punished” his apprentice by taking away his cybernetic enhancements while forcing Vader to take on missions of high danger. Palpatine has tried to kill Vader directly or indirectly several times – but now it looks like Vader is going to use the Sith customs to test his master’s mettle!

Of course, we know that by the time of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine had Vader back on a tight leash – yet at the same time, the Darth Vader comic book series is helping flesh out the emotional arc that Vader went on, which ultimately led to him finding redemption by taking down Palpatine and reclaiming his identity as Anakin Skywalker in the climatic moments of RotJ. 

Find out more about Star Wars: Darth Vader #40 below: 

SCOURGE OF CORUSCANT! What greater prize could the DROID SCOURGE imagine than CORUSCANT, an ecumenopolis filled with millions of droids? And what greater TERROR could the people of Coruscant imagine than a horde of scourged droids…led by LORD VADER himself?

Written by: Greg Pak
Art by: Raffaele Ienco, Federico Blee
Cover by: Leinil Francis Yu, Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Page Count: 28 Pages
Release Date: November 8, 2023