Star Wars Comic Finally Explains Darth Vader's Movie Castle

Screen Rant

By Andrew Dyce

Published May 8, 2018

Darth Vader's castle was added to the Star Wars movie canon with Rogue One, but its mysterious origin story is finally coming to comics.

Rogue One made Darth Vader's castle part of the new canon, and now its origin story will be revealed thanks to Star Wars comics. The original trilogy of films never even suggested that the servant and apprentice of Emperor Palpatine would have a home or base of operations. But as extended universe mythology and series-inspired artwork took shape, the idea of a "fortress" just as chilling as Vader took root.

The idea was folded into the new, Disney-owned Star Wars canon with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Connecting to the prequel films that saw Anakin Skywalker physically transformed into Darth Vader, the Mustafar castle's location clued fans in to a larger Force mystery. And soon, the Darth Vader comic series will explain the castle's origins - and how it became the one place in the galaxy Darth Vader might actually call his "home."

The promise of that coming explanation comes from writer Charles Soule directly, who along with artist Giuseppe Camuncoli have proven that some of Vader's best stories have yet to be told. And after setting in place the new origin of Darth Vader's lightsaber, and how Vader can survive underwater, Soule took to Twitter to reveal that "the next big arc in the Darth Vader series is called FORTRESS VADER. It's about how he got this" along with artwork of the now-canonical black castle.

The Darth Vader comic series has already offered a hint or two that Vader's fortress would bear more significance to the villain's story than fans had seen before. Even in Rogue One, the castle seems to be just a castle - perhaps erected near the site of Anakin's figurative death at the hands of his former master, Obi-wan Kenobi. In the comic, Vader is sent to that very spot by the Emperor directly, claiming it possesses "energy" that will call to Vader.

It is here where Vader finally denies the pull of the Light Side of The Force, and channels his pain into a kyber crystal - "bleeding" it to turn red as a true Sith. The chicken-or-egg nature of the fortress and its connection to the Dark Side will likely be a main element of the "Fortress Vader" story, even before the tellers worry about including the meditative/regenerative bacta tank shown in Rogue One.

That isn't the only bit of existing lore that they may seek to fold into the origins of the fortress. Background details from Rogue One claim that the tall, black towers of the fortress are Vader's making... but the castle was built over a much older, possibly ancient structure tied to the Dark Side.

Not to mention its connection to the current Star Wars movies, with Supreme Leader Snoke wearing a piece of Vader's Castle in a ring upon his finger.

A means to either channel the power of the site and its black stone, pay tribute to the last true Sith, or simply intimidate others with mysticism - it's all possible. Hopefully, the comic team will find a way to build on these separate threads to enrich the existing mythology.

Considering just how well they've shed light on the true, more interesting nature of Darth Vader, we have no doubts.