Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #2

History

The series was announced in October 2024 and launched in February 2025, positioned by Marvel and Lucasfilm Publishing as a spiritual successor to two of writer Charles Soule's most celebrated Star Wars runs: his 2017 Darth Vader arc with Giuseppe Camuncoli and his 2019 Rise of Kylo Ren miniseries with Will Sliney. Editor Mark Paniccia, a longtime steward of Marvel's Star Wars line, shepherded the book alongside artist Luke Ross — a veteran of Star Wars: Jango Fett, War of the Bounty Hunters, and Thrawn — and colorist Nolan Woodard, whose deliberate red-tinted palette for the flashback sequences consciously echoes the visual language Soule established in his earlier Darth Vader work. The story arc encompassing issues #1 through #6 carries the subtitle 'Reign of Kylo Ren,' with issue #2 serving as 'Part 2' of that arc; the series was subsequently collected in trade paperback form under the title Star Wars: Legacy of Vader — The Reign of Kylo Ren, Vol. 1.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published March 12, 2025, by Marvel Comics; written by Charles Soule, with interior art by Luke Ross, colors by Nolan Woodard, letters by VC Joe Caramagna, and a main cover by Derrick Chew (variant cover by Alan Quah). Edited by Mark Paniccia.
• Titled 'Reign of Kylo Ren, Part 2' (cover-dated May 2025); the story is set in 34 ABY, between the events of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
• Kylo Ren travels to Tatooine with Vaneé — Darth Vader's former attendant, here reimagined as a severed head sustained in a yellow solution and mounted on a crab-like droid body — who serves as an unreliable narrator guiding Ren through his grandfather's history using files stolen from Emperor Palpatine after the Battle of Endor.
• The issue establishes within current Disney-era canon that Darth Vader never killed Watto; the Toydarian junk dealer's eventual fate is left ambiguous, but Vaneé confirms it was not at Vader's hand.
• A full double-page flashback spread depicts a young Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) enjoying a loving childhood with Han Solo, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO — a direct visual rebuttal to Vaneé's assumption that Kylo, like Anakin, was forged in suffering.
• Gardulla the Hutt — first mentioned in The Phantom Menace as Anakin and Shmi Skywalker's slave owner before Watto — appears as the issue's primary antagonist in an expanded canon role, confirmed to be alive and operating on Tatooine during the sequel-trilogy era.
• The issue introduces an unnamed, unnamed Force-sensitive creature functioning as Gardulla's bodyguard; the creature disarms Kylo Ren's lightsaber using the Force and leaves him captured in chains, ending the issue on a cliffhanger. Gardulla's dialogue implies the creature was acquired specifically as a countermeasure after Jabba the Hutt's death at Leia's hands.
• Colorist Nolan Woodard employs a deliberate red-and-white palette for all flashback sequences, visually connecting the series to Soule's earlier 2017 Marvel Darth Vader run and suggesting that Kylo Ren's own rage colors how he perceives even cherished memories.

Cast · 12 characters

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Variants (4)