WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: Darth Vader#6, by Greg Pak, Raffaele Ienco, Neeraj Menon, and VC's Joe Caramanga, on sale now.
There are few characters in the Star Wars universe more tortured, physically and mentally, than Darth Vader, the Jedi Knight formerly known as Anakin Skywalker. After killing the love of his life in an emotional outburst -- ironically, after selling his soul to the Sith to protect hers -- Anakin was cut down by his mentor and best friend Obi-Wan Kenobi on the fiery planet of Mustafar before his eventual rebirth as the imposing Darth Vader. And as Vader bears the consequences of his recent failures, he is forced to relive his most painful memories once again at the site of his greatest defeat.
While serving as Emperor Palpatine's right hand, Vader had steadily been humiliated during the era of the original Star Wars trilogy. Ever since allowing the plans to the original Death Star fall into the hands of the Rebel Alliance during Rogue One, Vader has strove to regain Palpatine's favor, a dynamic that became more dire after the Death Star was destroyed by the Rebels in the disastrous Battle of Yavin. Recently, Vader had failed to turn his son Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force, as depicted in Empire Strikes Back, and similarly been unable to kill Sabe, the former handmaiden and double of his late wife Padme Amidala. In the wake of these setbacks, Vader reported back to Palpatine on Coruscant to answer for his recent mistakes in full in Star Wars: Darth Vader #6.
After blasting Vader with a burst of Force lightning to bring him to his knees, the Sith Lord was subjected to a beating at the hands of Palpatine's royal guards without his trusty lightsaber to defend himself. While Vader managed to rise back up and stave off his attackers, Palpatine responded by forcibly taking back the prosthetic limbs he fitted Anakin with after rescuing him from the fiery banks of Mustafar decades ago. Now immobile and completely at the mercy of his master, Vader finds himself having to prove his own worth to Palpatine by being brought back to the planet where Anakin truly transformed into Vader all those years ago.
Palpatine leaves the limbless Vader on the lava banks of Mustafar while observing his status from relative safety nearby. Being stranded on the same fiery landscape robbed of his mobility once again triggers Vader's memories of his past life as Anakin, reliving all his greatest failures leading up to his eventual transformation into a being more machine than man as well as the recent victims to his rage.
And as Vader struggles to regain his bearings and drag himself away from the lava and back to his castle, Palpatine quietly reveals he has upped the ante by tasking a Sith assassin from The Rise of Skywalker to hunt for Vader to give his protege the ultimate challenge.
Darth Vader's silent and stoic facade conceal an anguished, tortured soul, constantly awash in traumatic memories and physical torment at what he has become. Back at the setting of Revenge of the Sith's fateful climax, Vader is forced to confront these memories and unresolved trauma head-on as he contemplates the life he has chosen for himself. And with an assassin on the hunt, Vader's fiery search for self-worth comes with a lethal ticking clock if the Sith Lord can't act quickly.