Writer Marc Bernardin, who made his Star Wars comics debut in the pages of June’s Darth Vader – Black, White & Red #3, has shared the parameters from Disney/Lucasfilm about how powerful he could portray the Sith Lord in the story.
“It was odd, the things that they did have parameters about. ‘Darth Vader isn’t that powerful. Darth Vader can’t quite do that. Darth Vader’s use of the Force manifests this way, not that way,'” Bernardin said on Fatman Beyond, the podcast he hosts with Kevin Smith, calling the parameters “sort of small, in-world canon things.”
Among them: a note about Vader’s meditation chamber, the life support pod seen in The Empire Strikes Back. “‘He wouldn’t have that on his own private shuttle, that’s only on [his flagship] Executor,'” Bernardin recalled. “By and large, Lucasfilm was really easy to work with. They did not f— with the core parts of the story I was interested in telling. They only made it better.”
In “Diplomatic Impunity,” written by Bernardin with art by Stefano Raffaele, Vader recruits Imperial Lieutenant Sulaco to accompany him on a “diplomatic mission” to her homeworld on Sarjenn 3. Vader repels a blaster bolt with the Force before using his lightsaber to deflect another shot back at a Rebel sniper. As Vader and Sulaco advance on the Rebel stronghold, he raises his hand into the air, clenches his fist — and turns a well-defended wall into rubble. The story then shows Vader halting a Rebel rocket mid-air with a flick of his wrist and wielding the Force to demolish a tower.
