Marvel's December solicitations reveal Darth Vader is about to confront a monstrous alien cut from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The Star Wars sequel trilogy came to a dramatic - if not entirely satisfactory - conclusion in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Unfortunately, that film left a lot of unanswered questions and major plot holes, which of course are now being explored and resolved in various tie-ins.
Writer Greg Pak has promised his current Darth Vader run will have a major Rise of Skywalker connection. These comics are set shortly after the end of The Empire Strikes Back, and the Emperor is furious with Darth Vader for failing to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side. The November solicitations have promised Vader will find himself hunted by the Sith assassin Ochi of Bestoon, the Sith assassin who would later kill Rey's parents. Now the December solicitations have confirmed the story will continue to tie the original and sequel trilogies together.
The solicitation for Darth Vader #8 confirms the Sith Lord will confront the Eye of Webbish Bog, a monstrous creature cut from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. And it looks as though their first encounter won't be a pleasant one for Darth Vader. Here's the full solicitation:
- STAR WARS: DARTH VADER #8
- GREG PAK (W) • RAFFAELE IENCO (A) • Cover by AARON KUDER
- EMPIRE STRIKES BACK VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPOUSE
- CONCEPT DESIGN VARIANT COVER BY RAFFAELE IENCO
- INTO THE FIRE! Hungry for vengeance after his brutal punishment at the hands of THE EMPEROR, can DARTH VADER uncover his master’s secrets in the depths of MUSTAFAR?
- Stripped of his greatest weapons, can the dark lord survive the fire and the EYE? Or will he be overcome as the EYE turns Vader’s every question back to his own terrible secrets?
The original opening scenes of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker saw Kylo Ren confront a monstrous alien creature while on Mustafar, a being called the Eye of Webbish Bog who served as guardian of Darth Vader's Sith Holocron. Although the scene was cut from the original movie, it was restored to canon in Rae Carson's novelization, which described it like this:
"A giant emerged, a hairless creature sheening with wetness, bits of lake detritus clinging to its pasty skin. Its eyes were squeezed shut, but it could still see after a fashion, because draped over its massive bald head and across one shoulder was a second creature with long spidery tentacles. The two were locked in symbiosis. Kylo sensed the giant’s pain, as though it were a slave to the spidery being that clung to it. Yet neither could it survive alone."
It seems Greg Pak is about to describe Darth Vader's first encounter with the Eye of Webbish Bog. But notice that Darth Vader is investigating his Master's secrets, suggesting the Eye is actually a servant of Palpatine. Presumably, Vader will successfully bend it to his will, given decades later the Eye would tell Kylo Ren it was a servant of Darth Vader, trusted to protect his secrets rather than Palpatine's.