Cover: Derrick Chew

Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #5

Aug 2025 · Marvel · 3.99 USD

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“Reign of Kylo Ren, Part 5”

About this Issue

Issue #5 of Star Wars: Legacy of Vader delivers the narrative payoff to the Naboo arc that began in issue #4, placing Kylo Ren in the morally ambiguous role of conqueror-turned-reluctant-rebel on his grandmother Padmé Amidala's homeworld — a storytelling twist that deepens Charles Soule's portrait of an unstable Supreme Leader caught between power and purposelessness. The issue is also significant as the arc-closer that seeds General Hux's growing disillusionment, foreshadowing his eventual role as a Resistance informant in The Rise of Skywalker. As part of the first ongoing comic series to explore the narrative gap between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker in the new Disney canon, the Naboo chapters collectively represent a rare attempt to dramatize First Order internal politics at the precise moment the organization was most fractured.

writer Charles Soule · artist, inker Stefano Raffaele · colorist Nolan Woodard · letterer VC's Joe Caramagna · cover Derrick Chew

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History

The series was announced at New York Comic-Con 2024 and launched February 5, 2025, with writer Charles Soule — already the author of *The Rise of Kylo Ren* (2019) and the *Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith* run — returning to connect those two bodies of work. Soule has described the project as filling a timeline region deliberately left open for new invention, with editor Mark Paniccia overseeing. Beginning with issue #4, artist Stefano Raffaele replaced series-launch penciller Luke Ross on the Naboo chapters, with colorist Nolan Woodard and letterer VC Joe Caramagna continuing throughout; cover duties remained with Derrick Chew for the main cover.

Trivia · 8 facts

Published June 25, 2025 by Marvel Comics; written by Charles Soule, art and inks by Stefano Raffaele, colors by Nolan Woodard, letters by VC Joe Caramagna, cover by Derrick Chew.
The issue is set in 34 ABY per Wookieepedia's continuity reasoning, placing it squarely in the gap between *The Last Jedi* and *The Rise of Skywalker*.
Kylo Ren orchestrates and then abruptly abandons the First Order's invasion of Naboo — apparently playing a secret game that leaves General Hux furious and increasingly alienated from the Supreme Leader's command.
The issue develops the Hux–Kylo Ren power struggle, with Raffaele's art emphasizing the escalating friction between the two characters on the Star Destroyer bridge scenes and across the Naboo cityscape.
Armitage Hux appears in a prominent supporting role; Vaneé (Vader's former attendant, traveling with Kylo throughout the arc) is also present. Neither character has their first comic appearance here — Hux debuted in *Star Wars: The Force Awakens* #1 (2016), while Vaneé's comic debut predates this series.
Stefano Raffaele took over interior art from Luke Ross beginning in the Naboo arc (issues #4–5), marking a mid-arc artist changeover on the ongoing series.
Issue #5 shipped with four covers: main cover by Derrick Chew, an Aka Variant, an Aka Virgin Variant, a Chris Sprouse *The Force Awakens* 10th Anniversary Variant, and a Rachael Stott Pride Variant.
The issue was subsequently collected in *Star Wars: Legacy of Vader — The Reign of Kylo Ren Vol. 1*, which gathers issues #1–6 along with the Free Comic Book Day 2025 *Legacy of Vaneé* story.