As it turns out, Marvel’s First Family and Darth Vader share a unique weakness to sand that has haunted them since the earliest days of their careers.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #35, available now from Marvel Comics.
Star Wars and Marvel Comics have two of the most influential media franchises in history, and they’ve been in conversation with each other for much of that time. Aspects of both worlds have bled into each other through inspiration or osmosis for decades, and Fantastic Four #35 has just revealed another interesting connection between the Dark Lord of the Sith and the Fantastic Four. As it turns out, Marvel’s First Family and Darth Vader share a unique disdain for sand that has haunted them since their earliest days.
In Dan Slott, John Romita Jr, JP Mayer, Scott Hanna & Marte Gracia’s Fantastic Four #35, variants of Kang the Conqueror meet at their shared stronghold in Neverwhere to accept a challenge left to them by their ancestor, Franklin Richards. Franklin has tasked his descendants with collecting four pieces of a mysterious artifact he’s dubbed “The Prize,” pieces that he’s scattered across Reed Richard’s timeline, claiming that whoever gathers all of the pieces will be declared his one true heir. Knowing that each of them can’t outrace each other thanks to their mastery over time travel, the Kangs decides that whoever kills the Fantastic Four within the alternative timelines will create in the most interesting way possible shall be dubbed the winner of the contest.
Rama-Tut, the oldest variant, decides to go after the piece of the Prize hidden earliest on the timeline. This puts him into conflict with a version of the Fantastic Four who have only recently gotten their powers and haven’t had much time to master them. The inexperienced team is still able to defeat Tut’s army of robotic mummies, but the Pharoh from the Future reveals that they were a distraction to hide his real plan and opens a portal beneath the deserts of Egypt, flooding the Baxter Building with metric tons of sand. As it turns out, a torrent of sand is the perfect counter for each of the Fantastic Fours abilities; snuffing out the Human Torch’s flames, flattening out Mister Fantastic’s elastic body, entombing Invisible Woman within her own shield and wearing down Thing’s rocky skin.
While this variant of the Fantastic Four is secretly saved from death by Scion, one of the Kang variants taking part in the contest (who is ultimately revealed to be a disguised Mister Fantastic), their close-call proves that great volumes of sand can be an effective weapon against the team. Although the other Kangs mock Tut for using such an archaic strategy against their mortal adversaries, his near-success proves that even the Fantastic Four of the modern-day could have some difficulty if Kang or another one of their many villains decides to use a similar strategy against them. In that regard, the Fantastic Four have something in common with Darth Vader.
Even before the fires of Mustafar transformed him from an able-bodied Jedi Knight to a cybernetic Sith Lord, Anakin Skywalker had a very vocal dislike for sand, which reminded him of his harsh upbringing as a slave on Tatooine. Upon becoming Darth Vader, however, sand was upgraded from a minor nuisance to an actual threat to the Dark Lord’s life. The complex patchwork of wires, joints and gears within Vader is the only thing keeping him alive and mobile, and these delicate systems could easily be compromised by grains of sand or a similar material. Vader’s eloquent cape is actually a defense against sand, as the cloth that it’s woven from is designed to prevent sand from entering his armor.
While Hayden Christian’s awkward delivery of “I don’t like sand; it’s rough, coarse, irritating and it gets everywhere.” turned a moment of emotional weakness into a meme, sand is officially a deadly threat to the galaxy’s deadliest Sith. The fact that Vader’s cape is one of the main elements that Geroge Lucas burrowed from Dr. Doom when he designed Vader makes the fact that he and the Fantastic Four share a weakness to sand as interesting as it is alarming.
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