Darth Vader has made his fair share of enemies, and that list only grows longer as his spinoff comic explores the Sith warrior’s lesser-known adventures. The canon series published by Marvel and titled simply Darth Vader takes place in between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but its most recent plotline connects directly to a crucial scene from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
In the process, Star Wars is retconning a piece of prequels history to give Darth Vader an exciting new enemy unlike any we’ve seen before.
You might not remember the Techno Union, but it played a small-yet-important role in the prequels as one of the Separatist groups tricked into sparking a galactic conflict by Palpatine. Leading the Techno Union was none other than Wat Tambor, aka, this guy:
One of Anakin Skywalker’s first acts as Darth Vader was to travel to Mustafar and wipe out the Separatist leaders — including Wat Tambor — who had served their purpose. Vader is essentially tying up loose ends for Palpatine, but it turns out he missed one of them. As the Darth Vader comics recently revealed, Wat Tambor had a son, and that information has come back to haunt Vader in surprising ways.
Wat Tambor II (first introduced in Darth Vader #29 last year) isn’t actually that important. Almost as soon as he showed up in the pages of the comics, he was murdered by Vader — like father, like son. But it’s Wat’s grandson, Jul Tambor, who’s set to play an important role in this chapter of Star Wars history.
Jul was first mentioned in Darth Vader #28 in October 2022 and depicted in #29 a month later. But it’s in Darth Vader #31 (via ComicBook), published in February 2023, that we finally see Jul Tambor’s true potential as a foil to Vader.
Jul Tambor is many things, but perhaps the best term to describe him is space pirate. When Vader traveled to the Tambors’ home planet of Skako Minor on a mission to suppress rebellion against the Empire, he murdered Wat II and took control of the planet. Enter: Jul Tambor.
Jul organizes a blockade that manages to retake control of Skako Minor. In response, Palpatine orders Vader to murder Jul, but Vader delegates the job, and Jul manages to capture the would-be assassin. That’s when things get interesting.
Jul uses his hostage as bait and manages to catch Vader off-guard with a swarm of electric grenades that mess with his cybernetic suit. Jul can’t finish the job, but he escapes while a weakened Vader has to be rescued.
Has Darth Vader finally met his match? Probably not. We know, of course, that Vader survives this era, only to sacrifice his own life in Return of the Jedi. So it’s very unlikely that Jul Tambor will win in the end.
The best-case scenario for Jul is that he survives the fall of the Empire and manages to make a new life for himself on Skako Minor. Maybe one day he’ll even show up in The Mandalorian or some other live-action Star Wars story. Then again, maybe by the time Darth Vader #32 rolls around in March, we’ll be saying farewell to the Tambors once and for all.
