Marvel’s Darth Vader comic book series will end at issue #25

Ever since Disney tasked Marvel with creating a new Star Wars comic book universe, the results have been rather damn good. The solo (not that one) Darth Vader series has been exceptionally brilliant. Equal parts dark side badassery and political deception at the tip of a lightsaber, writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca have created the definitive take on the Sith apprentice that helps set the scene for his actions in films such as The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Also, Darth Vader has a murderous protocol droid and homicidal R2 unit in his employ. Anyway, the Darth Vader series is already nearing the end, as issue #25 will be the final comic book in the current run. Something that Kieron Gillen had planned the moment he began working on a saga featuring the Jedi formerly known as Anakin Skywalker. “It was a situation where, you know, we’ve always said all the way through, from Darth Vader #1, that this was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end,” Gillen said to IGN.

And we kind of looked where we were after Vader Down, and we realized we were probably actually nearer to the end than we thought we were. And it was a situation where we were like, “Okay, it’s better to actually end this story in a way which we think is the most effective. We don’t want to pad it out extraneously.” That was the kind of thing, we were like, “Oh yeah, this is the end of this particular story,” in which case it’s a natural place for Vader to move on.

The current series has been set specifically after Star Wars: A New Hope. It featured Vader having to recover from the destruction of the Death Star, taking responsibility for the most dreaded weapon in the Empire being destroyed by Rebels. It’s Vader at his lowest, as he has to fend off threats to the Empire that have him in the crosshairs specifically, rebuilding his base of power before the events of The Empire Strikes Back occur.

But Gillen is keeping quiet on which timeframe we’ll see the comic book series end at:

I mean, I don’t really want to talk about the specific timeframe, but I always described the story in interviews as the story of how Darth Vader recovers his position post-A New Hope. You know, he’s arguably responsible for the biggest disaster of all time – or at least, the only person responsible still alive – and by Empire he’s in a much more powerful state. We get Vader in an incredibly powerful position by the end of the story. So definitely Vader, by the end of the story, is the man we meet in Empire.

The beginning of the end kicks off in issue #20 this week, as Vader and his master Emperor Palpatine dive into a revelation behind the creation of the most feared right-hand man in the Empire.

Last Updated: May 16, 2016