This is what happens when we let sw writers think the dark/light binary is real. They start writing Luke Skywalker spacing out to temporarily become Dark Luke and then denounce his actions so they can be edgy but preserve the status quo.
To be fair, it wasn’t so much an actual dark inclination as it was an evil Sith artifact magically warping his mind. People tend to not remember artificially induced darkness, like Ahsoka didn’t remember anything when she was turned by the Son but Anakin actually had to have his memory erased when he turned because it was real.
I mean, yeah, Ezra also had a blank out moment but that wasn’t a magical artifact, that was just him going completely berserk and letting a foreign power take over his body. People tend to repress particularly strong traumatic events.
yeah it’s definitely an outside force acting on luke in this. basic idea here is that the blade belonged to an ancient sith called darth atrius and “so much rage was channeled through this blade they say it still resonates with the anger atrius wielded when he cut down his enemies.” it’s part of a set of two matching blades
story opens with sana starros selling one of them to some crime lord. he asks her where the other blade is and is angry he was cheated. he ignites it, yelling that he wants the other blade, and is quickly consumed by rage and cuts down his own men.
next we see a group of imperial soldiers delivering an artifact the emperor requested to darth vader. he asks them “where is the other one.” the officer says he bought it from a smuggler (implied also sana). vader says the other lightsaber must be found. deploys troops and goes to look for it himself.
we cut to luke, on business for the rebellion he says he “feels a presence. something old and powerful. and evil.” luke decides he needs to check it out, but artoo is concerned. luke says “it’s like a flood of black water. rushing in. clouding my senses. i think it’s a disturbance in the force.” luke is worried, but says he can’t just ignore it. he doubts ben or a jedi would.
following his sensation, he stumbles upon the place where sana’s deal gone wrong with the lightsaber went down. there are dead bodies everywhere, and the ancient lightsaber on the ground. luke picks up the lightsaber, and stormtroopers burst in. tell him he’s under arrest. luke ignites the saber.
next we see sana running from stormtroopers, trying to capture her. she runs into an alley, finds some kind of gang. she offers to pay them to distract the stormtroopers. they take her up on the offer and approach the stormtroopers.
before the gang members and stormtroopers can fight, vader arrives on the scene. he has both his own lightsaber and the ancient relic. without speaking, vader cuts down the gang members with such ruthlessness, even the stormtroopers are disturbed by it.
next it cuts to luke who faces off the stormtroopers with second ancient lightsaber (the pages you saw here, so i won’t summarize)
we rejoin sana who is still fleeing. darth vader is now in pursuit. he says “you do not understand the power of the weapons you have brought to this place. the echo of the dark side is heavy around them. the din is so great that even my senses are clouded.” there’s an explosion.
next we rejoin luke, who is saying “my head. it’s ringing so badly. i can barely think.”
luke makes his escape. commandeers a podracer briefly ignites the ancient lightsaber to warn off the guy it belongs to, who protests. luke makes his escape on the podracer, in the middle of a race. after sana escapes vader pauses to watch the podrace briefly. he is impressed by the mysterious human podracer (luke). luke crashes and vader makes to leave.
the comic cuts to luke, along in the wreckage. he takes out the ancient lightsaber and briefly ignites it. he then deactivates the lightsaber drops it and says “no. i’m not going to let you overwhelm me.” luke takes out his own lightsaber and cuts the ancient lightsaber in half. artoo arrives in luke’s x-wing to pick him up.
next we see vader alone, looking at the sky and holding the other lightsaber. he sees luke’s x-wing flying away from the planet. he either senses or makes a good guess that the other saber is gone. without its partner, the ancient lightsaber vader has is useless to him and the emperor. wordlessly, vader squeezes his hand and crushes the lightsaber, splitting it into two, just as luke did with the other one.
SOOOOO that’s what happens in this comic. sorry if my summary is long or more than you wanted or it seems choppy. i left out the bits that weren’t relevant, but tried to include the most telling direct quotes. i admit my original caption was kinda misleading haha. i honestly just thought luke looked cool 😹
i dunno if you read the lando comic from a couple years ago, but i think it’s kind of like the sith artifacts in that story that overtook aleksin and pavol’s minds, driving them to attack each other and then their associates (lando and lobot).
this is just the annual special for marvel star wars, not part of the comic’s main story arcs, so it’s a standalone story and idt it will come up again.
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