Did You Know R2-D2 Once Beat Vader In A Lightsaber Duel?

Lucasfilm released an anthology series on Disney+ this summer. Star Wars Visions was created by famous Japanese animation studios in the anime style and with stories that were rather “out-there” and not part of current cannon. While Visions was Lucasfilm’s first foray into anime, it was far from being the first time, that Star Wars stories were told in this art style. Between 1998 and 1999, adaptations of all three films of the original trilogy were released as multi-issue manga, followed by a two-issue adaptation of The Phantom Menace. Then, in 2009, two manga issues detailing some of the early The Clone Wars stories were published in Japan.

More recently, Claudia Gray’s young adult novel Lost Stars was turned into a manga, as well as several stories from Ken Liu’s junior novel The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Back in December 2005 and October 2006 the publishing house Tokyopop released two anthologies called Star Wars Manga Black and Star Wars Manga Silver in Japan and in the United Kingdom (unfortunately not in the United States). These stories were a kind of spiritual ancestors to Star Wars Visions as they were rather “out-there” as well. They were also marked as “Infinities,” the term used for stories that were either in the vein of Marvel’s What if...? or were clearly non-cannon in other aspects.

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One of the stories in Star Wars Manga Silver is called “Vader vs. Artoo & Threepio.” Its 18 pages are completely drawn in black and white (like nearly all stories of Star Wars Manga) and its style is slightly more realistic and less “manga-ish” than most of the other stories. “Vader vs. Artoo & Threepio” starts with R2-D2 and C-3PO being captured by Imperials on a planet that seems to be Endor. There is no information on how they were captured, but it is clear that they did not turn themselves in like Luke Skywalker did. The cleverness of this story stems from the fact, that nearly all of the dialogs consist of quotes from The Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi, but in a different context.

While 3PO introduces himself to Vader in this typical “fluent in over 6 million forms of communication” manner, Vader just pushes him aside and is only interested in R2-D2. The Dark Lord takes the two droids to the Executor, which strangely has a carbon-freezing chamber that looks quite similar to the one on Cloud City.

Vader tells R2 that he does not understand his power and that the droid should join him so that they could finally end the war, mimicking his speech to Luke in Empire Strikes Back. R2-D2 does not seem too convinced though, which infuriates Vader, shouting that it is his destiny. When the little astromech droid still resists, Vader turns to C-3PO, stating that if he cannot be turned to the dark side, then maybe the golden protocol-droid will.

3PO tries to escape, but Vader follows him, exclaiming that R2 never told him what happened to his creator, implying that unlike 3PO, R2’s memory banks were never wiped. When 3PO retorts that the astromech droid had told him enough and that Vader had killed his creator, the Sith responds with:

C-3PO reacts to this revelation in a similar way as Luke did in Empire Strikes Back—with denial. Then, he starts to calculate the odds of this being true. When he explains that his memory was wiped after the end of the Clone Wars, Vader tries to restore it with the help of the dark side of the Force.

With 3PO cornered, the desperate R2-D2 suddenly pulls out a lightsaber from one of his compartments and starts to fight the Sith, using his rocket thrusters to fly and spin around Vader not unlike Yoda bouncing around in his duel with Dooku.

The astromech droid manages to smash Vader’s lightsaber out of his hand and then slice off his chest panel, leaving the Dark Lord wounded and helpless. When C-3PO sees his opportunity to escape, he unintentionally pushes Vader into the carbon-freezing chamber, activating the assembly, and putting Vader in “perfect hibernation.”

Although it is clearly non-cannon, "Vader vs. Artoo & Threepio" is a fun little story. R2-D2 taking the place of Luke is a clever switch, and points to the important role the little astromech droid, the Swiss-army knife of Star Wars, had on the events of the saga.

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Written By Gerald Petschk

Source(s): Screen Rant

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