Darth Vader Discovered the Secret Prisoner of Exegol Before His Death

Warning: contains spoilers for Star Wars: Darth Vader #11!

Prior to Darth Vader‘s death in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Marvel Comics has revealed that he rebelled against his master, Emperor Palpatine, journeying to Exegol in order to learn his master’s darkest secrets. Despite battling Palpatine on the planet’s surface, Vader left Exegol once again acknowledging the Emperor as his master, having discovered the secret prisoner of Exegol and witnessed the true power of Darth Sidious in the process.

Star Wars: Darth Vader #13 – from Greg Pak, Raffaele Ienco, Neeraj Menon, and VC’s Joe Caramagna – concludes the Sith warrior’s rebellion against Palpatine, which began with his discovery of Luke Skywalker’s parentage. Having ignored the Emperor’s summons to instead investigate the true fate of Padmé Amidala, Vader was punished by Darth Sidious, who tortured and dismembered him, leaving him in the sands of Mustafar – forbidden to use the Force – with assassins closing in. Palpatine insisted his intent was to strengthen his apprentice’s connection to the Dark Side, and Vader overcame every obstacle, locating Exegol and arriving atop the galaxy’s deadliest predator to end the Emperor for good.

But the Emperor is both powerful and canny, killing the summa-verminoth monster that Vader had tamed and leading him on a chase into the Sith Eternal’s hidden facility, wherein Vader witnesses the cult’s cloning technology and Palpatine’s Final Order fleet of Star Destroyers. But most disturbing of all was Darth Sidious’ prisoner: a mountain of kyber crystal, there to power the cannons of the Emperor’s fleet. A living mineral, the kyber crystal is continually tortured by the Sith Eternal, screaming as its power is tapped in the Emperor’s service.

Kyber crystal is the material used to power lightsabers, but for the Sith to properly utilize its power, the crystal must be made to suffer (the reason Sith lightsabers are red.) The mountain of living crystal is Palpatine’s ultimate proof of the thesis that pain leads to power. As the Emperor showcases, “Unlimited power. Beyond anything you have ever experienced,” Vader is cowed, perhaps by his master’s insistence that only through inescapable pain can he share in this incredible power, or perhaps by a vision given to him by the summa-verminoth which convinces him this is not the moment to strike.

Emperor Palpatine has long been a symbol of supreme evil in Star Wars, but in revealing that his efforts on Exegol involved the constant torture of the kyber crystal – likely for decades – fans see one of the purest expressions of his horrific cruelty. Where Darth Vader strikes down his enemies with but a sliver of kyber crystal, the Emperor has claimed a mountain, empowering a fleet of ships, each of which can destroy entire worlds. The kyber mountain explicitly ties Palpatine’s evil to his power, demonstrating to Vader why attempting to surpass his master is such a futile endeavor.

Emperor Palpatine observes that despite understanding the journey from pain to power, Darth Vader must seemingly choose this path over and over again, and the confrontation between master and apprentice on Exegol turns out to be one of Vader’s most crucial lessons. In this moment, Darth Vader realizes that only Emperor Palpatine’s cruelty can help him unlock the full power of the Dark Side. When he later sacrifices himself for Luke, it’s not simply a matter of choosing his child over his master, but of placing his love for another over the ultimate power he spent most of his adult life suffering to attain. Darth Vader‘s ultimate redemption depended on the understanding he gained on Exegol, and knowing the full extent of what he was giving up by betraying Emperor Palpatine and the Dark Side.

About The Author

Robert Wood
(399 Articles Published)

Robert Wood is a comics editor for Screen Rant and the author of ‘The False Elephant (and 99 Other Unreasonably Short Stories).’ He received his Master’s in English Literature from Lancaster University, and now happily spends his days applying it to Daredevil and the Hulk.

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