StarWars.com: How excited are you to be writing this series?
Kieron Gillen: It’s kind of like, I was so excited that I almost turned down the job originally. [Laughs] I was aware of the size of it, and I thought, “Well, maybe it’s better if someone else does it.” Then they told me about the fledgling idea of the book, and I thought, actually — wow, I’m about to be really egotistical [Laughs] — of all the guys at Marvel, I think I’m the most aligned to write the Darth Vader book. I’ve always been interested in how the antagonists and villains work, and what makes people bad, and all these kinds of things. It kind of just ties into so many things in my writing, and I’ve always wanted to do something based around villains, or something much more on the dark side — no pun intended. The idea of actually doing that with arguably the greatest villain in pop culture is [amazing].
StarWars.com: This is part of the new canon and continuity alignment. What does it mean to you to be writing stories included in that?
Kieron Gillen: That’s the other big part of the thing. It’s not just like I’m writing Star Wars in some random, small thing. I’m going to be writing fundamental things with tremendous import, and they are in the canon. If you think about the period when we’re doing the book, after A New Hope and leading into Empire, that is such a phenomenally important time for all the characters.
You just think about the genuinely fundamental things that we never got to see. We never see the moment where Darth realizes he actually has a son. That’s kind of the flip of the “I am your father” scene. We never really get to see Vader having that moment, you know what I mean?
StarWars.com: Yes. It’s probably pretty surprising for him, as well.
Kieron Gillen: Exactly. That’s going to be really powerful. I quite like playing for high stakes.
StarWars.com: Where do we find Vader in your comic? What’s the basic premise?
Kieron Gillen: The high-level concept is that it picks up very shortly after the destruction of the Death Star. Vader is the sole survivor of the greatest military disaster of all time. A disaster he isn’t entirely to blame for, but at least some of the blame is his. He completely let the Rebels escape with the plans. So this kind of comes back to him. So there’s an implied sense that Vader might not be in the Emperor’s best graces at this point in the story. [Laughs]
The weird thing is, when you look at him at the start of Empire, he’s actually in a far more dominant position than he was at the end of Star Wars.
StarWars.com: Right. In A New Hope, Tarkin is really his boss, in many ways. And in Empire, with Tarkin gone, Vader has a much greater level of control. So there was a change.
Kieron Gillen: Exactly. He treats people with more contempt. He acts out more violently without being censored by any of his peers. Vader by that point is in a much more powerful position. That for me was the implied storyline — basically, the fall and rise of Darth Vader, and it leads into where we see him at the start of Empire. That’s a really good backbone for a story.
If I’m not referencing Star Wars, because that’s our magnetic north, I reference House of Cards. It’s about somebody in a position of power who feels slighted, and then turns to tactics he may not have chosen before to achieve his aims and to rebuild his power structure. That’s kind of how the book works. In Jason’s book, Vader’s primarily the antagonist. He’s a force of nature they cannot seem to escape. In my book, that’s what he does on Tuesday. Vader has so many more responsibilities and problems to deal with than anyone could possibly understand. There are things that people above him may want him to do, versus what he actually needs to do to achieve his own aims, which is not the least bit to discover what the hell was going on with that mysterious fighter pilot who was strong with the Force. Vader has certain rivals in the story. There are spiritual versus materialist wings of the Empire. There’s that kind of internal fight; Vader’s very much a Force purist, and there are a lot of people that simply don’t believe in that old stupid religion.
Then there’s a lot of stuff that touches on the underworld. When Vader’s reaching out to people to try to get stuff done, he can’t really do it in front of the Empire. One of the things I’ve always found fascinating is the bounty hunter briefing scene in Empire. It tells you two things. One, Vader really is a micro-manager. [Laughs] And two, he knows them. He specifically says, “No disintegrations,” [to Boba Fett]. He knows enough about this dude, and these dudes, to brief them in specific ways. So we’re digging into that relationship a little bit — how Vader knows this stuff.
So, yeah, that’s the idea. It’s a story set inside the Empire, but a lot of the driving force is Vader’s own personal choices and the people he keeps around him to achieve his aims. The one problem with doing a book like this is it’s just kind of, Vader plus dudes in uniform plus stormtroopers. It’s very gray, you know? If you move the story into the underworld and [bring in] some of the more colorful characters, you get a much wider tone without undermining Vader.
StarWars.com: With bounty hunters and the underworld, you can have shady characters, but they don’t necessarily have to be evil. There are different sides to them.
Kieron Gillen: Yeah. The different bounty hunters, in terms of how good or bad they are, are interesting. And also, if Vader’s going against someone who’s less ethical than he is, you can even be on Vader’s side and not feel so bad about it. [Laughs]
StarWars.com: I’m wondering if your love of Star Wars from when you were younger has influenced how you’re approaching this, and have you done any new research in terms of going back and watching the films to see if you can learn something new?
Kieron Gillen: Oh yeah, definitely. Empire was the first movie I ever saw in the cinema. It’s like Tolkien is to me. This is at the root of me as a writer of fantastical fiction. So I’m trying to reconnect with those emotions and work out, “Well, why did that move you? What was so interesting about it?” How can I try and create a similar emotion?
I actually sat and watched the movies, taking quite ludicrously detailed notes on them, trying to subtext the scenes and discovering new ways of seeing. Minor stuff I find fascinating, like the Republic not being officially dissolved until the start of A New Hope. And the Emperor’s long-term plans — he spent 20 years building the Death Star. I think it’s fascinating that the Emperor’s plan of subjugating the universe is actually a very materialistic one. There’s all sorts of random, weird stuff I’ve picked up. It’s surprising, because I’ve seen the movie so many times over the years. But if you actually sit and really deconstruct with your writer’s brain, you can go to interesting places.
StarWars.com: Is there anything you’d want Star Wars fans in particular to know about your series?
Kieron Gillen: Yeah, I’m petrified. [Laughs] It feels like I’m a writing a very fundamental period for him. It’s almost like Vader has been living a lie for 20 years. He just simply hasn’t known something. The discovery of Luke and the discovery of everything else going on is such an important period of his life, maybe the most important period since his fall.
StarWars.com: At the end of Revenge of the Sith, there’s that scene where the Emperor tells Vader he killed Padmé. And Vader essentially knows, for the first time, that the Emperor is lying to him about something. His discovery of Luke confirms it.
Kieron Gillen: Yeah. The push and pull between Vader and the Emperor is at the heart of the book. On some level Vader wants to prove himself to the Emperor, on another level he wants to depose him. That’s the way of the Sith. There’s really good personal drama.