After serving mostly as background and supporting characters in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Padmé Amidala’s handmaidens from Naboo have become key players in the current Star Wars canon thanks to author E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Shadow novel trilogy and writer Greg Pak’s excellent run on Marvel’s Star Wars: Darth Vader comic book.
In Darth Vader volume III, issue #29– out today from Marvel– the handmaiden known as Dormé (played by actress Rose Byrne in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones) arrives on Vader’s Super Star Destroyer the Executor with Sith assassin Ochi of Bestoon, as part of a quest to extract her friend Sabé from the grasp of the Empire.
Sabé, meanwhile, is on the planet Brentaal IV, ostensibly following a mission ordered by Lord Vader himself to assassinate the leader of the Techno-Union Army, Jul Tambor (grandson of Wat Tambor, another very minor– but memorable– character from Attack of the Clones). But Jul tries to sway Sabé over to his side, demonstrating the plight of his exiled people, who have been forced to abandon their home planet of Skako Minor. Back on the Executor, Dormé poses as Sabé, fooling stormtroopers under the handmaiden’s command as she seeks information that will help recover her former compatriot. When Dormé is called in for an impromptu audience with Lord Vader, however, the concern becomes that she may not be able to pull off the disguise under much more discerning scrutiny. Vader sees through the ruse immediately, of course, calling out Dormé for being unable to murder two treasonous troopers, an action that the handmaiden claims Sabé wouldn’t be abe to carry out either.
Vader’s response to that is that Dormé maybe doesn’t know Sabé very well anymore, and with that we cut back to Brentaal IV, where it certainly seems as though Sabé has killed Jul Tambor in cold blood. Now, I’m sure more details about these circumstances are going to come out in the next issue, as we don’t quite have enough information yet to determine what exactly happened, but Greg Pak and artist Luke Ross have framed the events in such a way that certainly look incriminating. The question at hand is whether Sabé really is loyal to Vader and the Empire, or is secretly furthering an undercover cause for either herself or crime syndicate Crimson Dawn. And while the latter definitely seems the more likely of the two scenarios, the former would probably be more interesting– though I seriously doubt they’d go down that route. Regardless, Star Wars: Darth Vader remains an entertaining and compelling read in this period leading up to the events of Return of the Jedi, and I’m looking forward to see how the remainder of this handmaiden plot plays out, and how it might tie in to the Hidden Empire crossover.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #29 is available now wherever comic books are sold.