Star Wars as a broad franchise loves answering questions that probably never really needed answering, but its comic books love to do so especially. A whole new revamping of Star Wars continuity over the last decade has allowed them to flourish in this regards, giving us intriguing interiority for heroes and villains alike, connections drawing the eras of Star Wars closer together, and, occasionally, be a little silly about things. This latest example is probably a good mix of all three.
The future of Star Wars comics at Marvel is at a bit of a turning point this year, as the door begins to close on the era of the High Republic, and the mainline Star Wars book prepares to enter a new volume—and go beyond the original trilogy for the first time. That new book, coming this may from Alex Segura and Phil Noto, will be joined by two other comics chronologically straddling either side of it. Jedi Knights, by Marc Guggenheim and Madibek Musabekov, will be set before the events of the prequels and explore the Jedi Order’s best and brightest, while Legacy of Vader, from Charles Soule and Luke Ross, will be set between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, and follow Kylo Ren as he reckons with tightening his grip over the First Order and more deeply exploring his connection to his grandfather.
It’s in that latter series, of all places, we’re seemingly going to get an answer to the question on every Star Wars fans’ lips: whatever happened to Watto?
As revealed in a trio of teasing previews from Legacy of Vader‘s second issue, due out in March, by Marvel Star Wars editor Mark Paniccia on social media today, Kylo—apparently joined by Vader’s former attendant Vaneé, who has lopped his head off and put it in a droid body, b’omarr monk-style—will venture to Tatooine in some capacity to explore Vader’s history with his home planet… and realize that at some point he showed back up just to pay Watto a violent visit.
https://x.com/MarkPaniccia/status/1882799792323244050
It’s not yet explicitly been confirmed that that’s Watto (Vader killed lots of people, a lot of the time!), but that sure as hell does look like Anakin making a point of going back home to off his former slave master. If it is as it presumably looks, it marks the first time we’d have ever actually been shown Watto’s death, too, both in contemporary continuity or even in the old expanded universe. In the EU, Watto was alive at least by the time of the MMO Star Wars Galaxies, and was only ever shown getting got in the non-canonical Star Wars Visionaries comic anthology, where he was killed by a returned Darth Maul.
That said, come on. This is totally an Anakin Skywalker move. One of the best thing about the Darth Vader comics at Marvel in particular is how they’ve managed to draw a line between the Anakin we saw in prequel material and Vader’s fearsome presence in the Original Trilogy—and especially the fact that Anakin is an incredibly petty man with a flair for drama. And justifiably so in this instance: one of the great tragedies we see in Phantom Menace is when Anakin explicitly asks Qui-Gon if the Jedi is on Tatooine to free slaves, only for him to swiftly put down the notion entirely. The Jedi Order might have taken him in, but it never deigned to tackle this injustice Anakin had experienced as a child for myriad reasons—a failure that pushes him down the path of the dark side when he returns to Tatooine in Attack of the Clones. But also, in general! Anakin kind of loved to hold a grudge, and that absolutely did not change when he was transformed into Darth Vader. Give him the opportunity of being the Emperor’s Personal Top Killing Guy with the remit to largely do whatever he wants, and Anakin’s going to use it with impunity.
What makes this even funnier, and arguably even more of an Anakin Skywalker move, is that we already know that this isn’t something Vader promptly goes and does the second the Empire is formed. We know in current Star Wars canon that Watto is alive at least a few years into Obi-Wan’s exile on Tatooine, because he’s mentioned in one of the stories in the New Hope anthology From A Certain Point of View as someone Obi-Wan occasionally bought supplies from. If Anakin last saw Watto in Attack of the Clones, around three years before the rise of the Empire, that probably means there’s at least half a decade or more between then and him suddenly showing up as a giant, black-armored terror one day while Watto’s minding his own business. He waited, went and did so many things in the name of the Emperor, and then decided “wait, fuck that guy.”
Anakin Skywalker may have been more machine than man as he became Darth Vader, but the man that remained will always be That Bitch.
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