Darth Vader #1

History

The series was publicly announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2014, with Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca named as the creative team alongside Jason Aaron and John Cassaday's concurrent Star Wars title. Marvel editor Jordan D. White approached Gillen around 2014 to write the book; Gillen, who has said The Empire Strikes Back was the first film he ever saw in a cinema, initially felt apprehensive about whether he was the right fit but ultimately accepted, dropping his Iron Man assignment to take the job. Gillen worked closely with the newly formed Lucasfilm Story Group — whose role was to ensure all new comics harmonized with the films and upcoming productions — navigating tricky continuity questions such as whether Vader and Boba Fett's meeting in issue #1 could plausibly be their canonical first encounter without contradicting The Empire Strikes Back. He cited I, Claudius, The Godfather, and both adaptations of House of Cards as key tonal inspirations for depicting the Empire's internal power struggles, and deliberately chose to write Vader without thought-caption narration boxes, preserving the character's mythic opacity.

Trivia · 7 facts

• Written by Kieron Gillen with art by Salvador Larroca and a cover by Adi Granov; released February 11, 2015 (cover-dated April 2015).
• First issue of Darth Vader's first-ever ongoing solo comic series at Marvel, and the first of the six-part opening story arc titled 'Vader.'
• Set immediately after A New Hope and coordinated with Jason Aaron's concurrent Star Wars series, with both books sharing a unified canon overseen by the Lucasfilm Story Group.
• First appearance of Black Krrsantan, the Wookiee bounty hunter and former gladiator created by Gillen, Larroca, and editors Jordan D. White and Heather Antos; Krrsantan later made his live-action debut in the Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett (2022), portrayed by Carey Jones.
• The issue's plot sends a disgraced Vader — punished by Palpatine for the Death Star's destruction — to Tatooine to negotiate with Jabba the Hutt, where he also hires bounty hunters (including Krrsantan) for a private mission to find the Rebel pilot who destroyed the Death Star.
• The series launched here eventually introduced Doctor Aphra (in issue #3), who became the first original Star Wars character not from the films to headline her own canon ongoing comic series.
• The series ran for 25 issues (February 2015 – October 2016), concluding the Gillen-Larroca collaboration that was later collected in its entirety in a hardcover Omnibus edition, with the full run also incorporated into the Star Wars: Darth Vader Modern Era Epic Collection.

Cast · 10 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Darth Vader

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#3 1st appearance — Chelli Lona Aphra

Variants (24)