Marvel’s Next Star Wars Comic Will Explore Anakin Skywalker’s Early Days As Darth Vader

Think Batman: Year One, but with more heavy breathing and red lightsaber action.

Image: Marvel Comics. Art by Chris Samnee

IGN has announced that Marvel is unleashing a followup to its sublime Darth Vader comic series — except this time, it will be a prequel, beginning literally moments after the very end of Revenge of the Sith. Written by Charles Soule and with art from Giuseppe Camuncoli, Darth Vader (yes, it will share the same name as the previous series, with a new numbering order) will chart Anakin’s horrifying realisation of the cyborg monster he’s become, while also exploring his earliest days as the Emperor’s fist across the galaxy. And his first task? Building the iconic red lightsaber, according to Soule:

The first arc is going to revolve around Vader’s construction of his red lightsaber, because at the end of Revenge of the Sith, he obviously loses his blue saber when he gets all chopped up and Obi-Wan takes it to eventually give to Luke down the road. So we end up with a character who is known as having this iconic sword, like his magical red sword, but he doesn’t have it yet. So what better way to start a big huge series than with a quest for a magic sword? We’re going to explore the mythology around lightsabers to some degree, which will be very fun. I’m really lucky that I get to tell that story. Seems like a big piece of the puzzle for him.

We actually already know a little bit about the construction of Sith lightsabers in Disney’s new canon, courtesy of the Ahsoka novel, which revealed that red is not a natural colour of the kyber crystals that power lightsabers — it comes from channelling Dark Side energy into them, which causes the crystal to “bleed” and create a red blade colour. But still, while we’re still in these relatively early stages of Disney’s wider Star Wars canon, it will be interesting to see this story get officially told.

Darth Vader #1 is set to release in June.