Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was the scourge of the Jedi, a master of the dark side of the Force, and one of the Emperor's most trusted servants. The Emperor tasked him with the elimination of the Jedi Knights. During the dark times that accompanied the rise of the Empire, Vader and his agents destroyed the Jedi. He betrayed his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and was reportedly responsible for the death of Luke Skywalker's father.

Before his fall into darkness, Vader had shown promise as a Jedi apprentice. He had served with Kenobi on a mission that rescued the planet Skye from devastation in the Clone Wars. Upon his betrayal of the Jedi, Vader was then nearly killed in an epic duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi. During the battle, Vader fell backwards into a volcanic pit, where he was burned alive. Horribly wounded by the flames, Vader's body was dragged from the molten pit and encased and preserved in a dark armored suit. This guise became Vader's means of survival as well as his identity. His ravaged features would forever be hidden behind his gruesome metal mask. Only in the privacy of his meditation chamber would he remove his helmet and expose his scarred visage, seen only to the medical droids that attended such procedures.

With the rise of the Empire, Vader returned to Skye, where he personally installed the wicked Kharys as Imperial legate. Vader gave her some training in the Force, such as the ability to wield a lightsaber.

As the Rebellion against the Empire spread, the Emperor dispatched Vader on numerous missions to enforce the Emperor's will against seditious elements. Darth Vader sought secret plans stolen by the Rebels, plans that carried the technical readouts of the Empire's most powerful weapon: the Death Star battle station. Vader captured Rebel operative Princess Leia Organa, and had her tortured aboard the Death Star to reveal the location of the Rebel hidden fortress.

When a rescue team successfully liberated the princess, Vader found himself face-to-face with his former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Vader proclaimed that he was now the master, and he slew Obi-Wan with his lightsaber blade. Strangely, though, Obi-Wan vanished. His sliced robes fell to the floor, with only empty air contained within.

When Rebel forces launched a starfighter attack on the Death Star, Vader piloted his own specially modified TIE fighter into the fray. Vader and his personal wingmen managed to destroy the most Rebel pilots in the battle, but he was forced out of the conflict when his own vessel was crippled by Millennium Falcon, a freighter allied to the Rebellion.

Vader's starfighter went spinning away out of control. The Rebels destroyed the Death Star, and the Dark Lord was stranded in the emptiness of space. After rejoining the Imperial forces, Vader continued his search for the Rebels, as well as his own personal search for the identity of the young Force-sensitive responsible for the destruction of the Death Star. During a raid on a Rebel information retrieval unit on Ultaar, Vader was chagrined to discover that someone else was pursuing the same young man -- the bounty hunter Valance had beaten him to Ultaar and ransacked it for information about Vader's quarry.

In mid-transit to Ultaar, Vader had sensed an intriguing presence in the Force. Though he didn't know it, Vader's mind had brushed upon the disembodied mind of a meditating Luke Skywalker, and such contact sent the young Skywalker into a temporary coma. Realizing that a Force-sensitive mind was alive and free in the Empire, Vader commanded his forces to backtrack to the place of mental contact. Captain Wermis directed Vader's personal Star Destroyer to the space station, the Wheel.

Upon arrival at the station, Vader's Star Destroyer tracked two fleeing vessels. One, a space yacht, contained the Force-sensitive individual -- Luke Skywalker. The other, Vader recognized as the ship responsible for his defeat at Yavin, Millennium Falcon. While Vader concentrated on the Falcon, Luke used the power of the Force to attack Vader's mind with pure rage. Vader, unprepared for the mental assault, was overwhelmed by Skywalker's power. He was distracted long enough for both vessels to escape.