Darth Vader Series Cancellation Spark Concerns Over Plans For Star Wars: Episode IX

Star Wars fans better brace themselves – this isn't going to be good news. Some may have been hoping for the appearance of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode IX, but now that the highly anticipated comic book series Star Wars: Shadow of Vader has been canceled, the odds of the character's appearance have become very, very slim.

Polygon just recently wrote about the Shadow of Vader, announcing the cancellation of the Star Wars comic book miniseries after Disney's decision to fire the project's lead writer, Chuck Wendig. Star Wars fans might remember the novelist and comic book writer for his Aftermath trilogy, a canon series of novels that are set after the events of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

According to the publication, Wendig had already completed three issues out of his five-issue Vader series when he was unexpectedly removed from the project because of what his editor says was "too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity" in the writer's Twitter presence.

"I mean, it's a bummer. I wrote the hell out of a few scripts and outlined a few more, and the books had a few small to large touchstones to my [Star Wars] novel series, Aftermath. And there was tons of excitement over the book at New York Comic Con," Wendig told Polygon in an interview.

However, despite the disappointing news update, Wendig is ready to move on from this recent blow.

"But Marvel has to do what Marvel has to do," the writer said in resignation, "Mostly I think they put themselves in a bad position by the way they knocked me from the book in the first place — and I'm sad that this was continued fallout from that. Onward, I suppose, to bigger and better things!"

Now, with the highly anticipated Darth Vader series out of the picture, fans have begun wondering about the fate of Vader in Episode IX. Could Lucasfilm be planning to knock out the iconic baddie from the studio's upcoming Star Wars film too?

Let's wait and see.

Star Wars: Episode IX hits cinemas December 20, 2019.

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