Star Wars comics are primed to reveal what happened right after Darth Vader massacred the Separatist leaders on Mustafar in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The sequel trilogy is the story of Anakin Skywalker’s downfall, with the young Jedi secretly manipulated by Palpatine and seduced by the lure of the dark side. It all came to a head in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, with Anakin Skywalker transforming into Darth Vader at last. His first mission was to seal his fate by participating in Order 66, slaughtering the younglings at the Jedi Temple.
With that done, Darth Sidious dispatched his apprentice to the planet Mustafar, in order to kill the Separatist leaders. Mustafar is a world steeped in the Dark Side of the Force, and no doubt the soon-to-be Emperor intended his apprentice’s descent to continue as he committed acts of violence in a place that is so powerful. But events took a twist even Palpatine did not expect, when Padmé pursued her husband to Mustafar – and inadvertently brought Obi-Wan Kenobi with her. But what happened to Anakin Skywalker in the hours he spent on Mustafar, after he had killed the Separatist leaders and before Padmé arrived?
Star Wars has been content to leave that as a small gap in the timeline – until now. StarWars.com has just released a preview for IDW Publishing’s Halloween-themed one-shot Star Wars Adventures: Shadow of Vader’s Castle. It tells the story of the young Mustafarian boy Kakan, who had always wanted to meet a Jedi and heard one had arrived at the lava mines. He rushed to the scene – but he did not find a Jedi there. Instead, he was chilled to discover Darth Vader. Writer Cavan Scott observes:
Returning to Mustafar is a Halloween dream come true, especially as this time we’re taking on the form of the portmanteau horror movies that first got me into horror as a kid. In this issue, we have an Imperial investigator facing horrors within the walls of Vader’s lair, a Star Wars take on a classic tale, and a monster mash-up that I still can’t believe they let me get away with! And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a very special prologue that sends us diving back into the events of Revenge of the Sith.
It’s fitting for the lava fumes from Mustafar – a world so strong in the Dark Side of the Force – to trigger horrific hallucinations, and force people to confront their darkest fears. The vision of Qui-Gon Jinn, the potential father figure Anakin Skywalker was so cruelly denied, is surely the most potent of all these. “What have you become?” Darth Vader imagines Qui-Gon asking him, and he’s clearly rattled.
It’s easy to discount this prologue as being simply a cool short story, but it raises an intriguing question; how did this experience affect Darth Vader ahead of Padmé’s arrival on Mustafar? It remains to be seen what happens to Kakan – does he survive, or does he meet the same fate as the Younglings? – but this would have definitely left Darth Vader quite unbalanced when Padmé landed on Mustafar. It’s fascinating to speculate whether the Star Wars saga would have turned out differently had Kakan not been there.
