Darth Momin, also known simply as Momin, was a humanoid male Sith Lord, dark side scholar and sculptor. At a young age, his artwork led to his imprisonment by those who found it disturbing and repulsive for the very materials he had employed. The Sith Lady Darth Shaa freed him, claimed Momin as her apprentice, and trained him in the dark side of the Force. However, feeling he was second to none and that calling oneself "Master" was anathema to the dark side, Momin killed Shaa and began exploring its lore on his own. He eventually designed weapons like the Fermata Cage and a superweapon capable of destroying an entire city, but his deepest desire was to freeze people in time during their moment of terror. As the Jedi intervened during Momin's attempt, he lost control of the energy he wielded and his physical body was destroyed, leaving only his mask with his consciousness inside.
Many years later, Darth Sidious recovered Momin's mask from the Jedi Archive . After learning of Momin's story from the mask, Sidious gave it to his Sith apprentice Darth Vader as a gift for his journey to Mustafar, which Vader sought to make his personal stronghold. There, the mask possessed one of the officers and began designing a fortress. After Vader killed the host body and examined the mask, it told him of Momin's past. Vader then allowed it to possess a Mustafarian and grant Momin's consciousness a new physical form. Vader discussed the fortress Momin had designed, and soon permitted its construction.
Momin, with the help of Imperial resources supplied by Vader and a succession of host bodies, began designing a fortress that could tune the energies of the dark side locus on Mustafar and open the door to the dark side of the Force. While Momin's fortresses were repeatedly destroyed by the harsh natural conditions on the planet, the ninth design was successful. Shortly after the fortress was finished, whilst Vader was distracted by an invasion of Mustafarians, Momin undermined him and opened the door to the dark side. He used it to resurrect his physical body. Vader soon returned to the fortress and used it to obliterate the Mustafarian attackers. Momin then confronted him and, after a short duel, Vader used the Force to ram him with a stone slab. Momin was crushed against the wall and died.
Years later, Momin's mask was on the Darth Sidious personal yacht, the Imperialis. During the ship's infiltration, the mask corrupted two infiltrators, forcing the others to abandon and destroy the Imperialis. Momin's death at the hands of Vader created a Force nexus in the cave, thus creating visions that could haunt people. Sometime in between 3 and 4 ABY, the Knights of Ren encountered a vision of Momin at Fortress Vader.
Momin was imprisoned for his creations.
Early into his life, Momin experimented with the Force to create. One day, he mutilated his family's pet rada-cat, Flitta, whom his father had convinced his mother to get, and made a sculpture out of its flesh, bones and organs. When Momin's mother searched around for it, thinking Flitta had run away again, she walked in on Momin's sculpture, horrified at her son's new creation. Around that point in his life, Momin came to believe that if an individual did not feel anything when seeing his creations, then he had created nothing. This principle stuck with him as he sculpted more of his own creations using animal skulls and other materials that were obscene to the normal individual. When he showed his work in front of others, they scowled and looked with abject horror at it. Subsequently, they had Momin arrested, confiscating his tools and locking him away.
Although he was imprisoned, Momin's name spread throughout the galaxy, and, eventually, the Sith Lady Darth Shaa came and freed him. She made him her Sith apprentice and taught him about the dark side of the Force. Momin received a pair of lightsabers which he used to sculpt his own mask, before disfiguring his face to wear it. Under the Sith tutelage, Momin adopted the Darth title. During his training, many things that Momin had known about himself but had never fully understood finally became clear to him. However, he found the role of apprentice distasteful, feeling he was second to none. Shaa disagreed with him, so he proved his point to her by killing her during a duel in between 1100 BBY and 1000 BBY.
Momin activates his weapon.
Now without a master, Darth Momin aspired to learn about the dark side and visited many great sites. He never took an apprentice of his own, finding the idea of calling oneself a "Master" offensive, and, instead, became enamored with the idea of creating a work of art that would satisfy the dark side of the Force itself. To that end, he continued his journey and sought the knowledge of places strong in the dark side, as well as Sith holocrons. A project Momin created was the Fermata Cage. He also reached out to the Force for guidance in what he should create, and it told him to choose a city.
With the guidance given to him by the Force, Momin embarked upon his newest project. Using resources he had inherited from Shaa, and the assistance of acolytes who were desperate to help him in his work, he designed his own weapon: an engine with enough power to obliterate an entire city. To make it worthy of the Force, Momin planned to pour the Force into his engine at the moment of ignition and use it to slow down time, forever trapping the expressions of horror and pain on the city's inhabitants. Momin chose a city to attempt this on, and brought his weapon before it to enact his plan. However, the Jedi found him and boarded the weapon as he activated it. The presence of the light side of the Force disrupted his concentration and made him lose control over the engine. This led to his own apparent destruction in between 1100 BBY and 1000 BBY by disintegrating into nothing, leaving only his mask which contained his spirit.
Momin was considered a heretic by the Sith and his teachings were covered up, with his unique applications of the Force never being replicated. His name was never recorded in either Jedi holocrons or Sith holocrons, and many years after his death, his works were thought to have been lost. Momin's mask, with his spirit still inside, was eventually stored in a in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. In 19 BBY, the Sith Lord Darth Vader fought the former Chief Librarian Jocasta Nu in the Temple; Vader learned of the vault's existence when Nu fled into it. After killing the Jedi, Vader informed his master, Darth Sidious, of the vault and the Sith Lord took the helmet into his collection of Sith artifacts.
When Sidious later examined the mask, Momin's spirit revealed his past to the Emperor. Sidious later gifted the helmet to Vader, believing that the artifact would guide his apprentice during his studies on Mustafar. Vader brought with him Sidious' Chief Architect, Colonel Alva Brenne, and her aide, Lieutenant Roggo, to design a sanctum for his use. Brenne examined the helmet on their journey to Mustafar, questioning its origin. While she consulted with Vader on Mustafar, the mask came to possess Roggo, and Momin used the officer's body to design a fortress. Brenne walked in on this and Momin shot her. Vader was alerted to the commotion and walked in on Momin's completed design, killing the host body.
Momin conversing with Vader through a possessed Mustafarian.
Vader took the mask to the Sith cave on Mustafar and reached into it with the Force. Momin's spirit responded by showing his past to Vader. As he closed his story, he attempted to possess Vader with the mask, but the Sith Lord resisted. When leaving the cave, however, Vader ran into a group of Mustafarians. He killed two of them, but used the mask to possess another one, giving Momin a body again. The two returned to the cave and Momin claimed the fortress he designed could tune the energies of the locus inside the Sith cave and open the door to the dark side. Momin then told Vader he would find his late love, Padmé Amidala, there. Vader did not believe this and Force choked him. Momin, though, assured Vader he was not lying and yearned to build the fortress he had designed. Vader allowed this, but assured him he would suffer if he betrayed him.
Construction began with Momin's design for Vader's fortress. With the help of Imperial resources sent to Mustafar, the structure was soon finished. However, when Vader attempted to open the door to the dark side, it failed, and the fortress was wrecked. The pair tried again with more designs, with Momin's guidance, but they too failed. As a side effect, Vader's efforts to open the door affected the rest of Mustafar, causing lava storms to wreak havoc on the Mustafarians. Lava fleas also began regularly attacking the construction site. Following the failure of Momin's fifth design, he concluded that he was using too many focusing spires on the fortress, making the energy of the dark side locus uncontrollable. Vader, though, killed his Mustafarian host as punishment for his failures, having his mask possess a stormtrooper in its place.
Once Momin was in control of his new host, he told Vader his next fortress design would be successful and ordered the construction workers to clean up the wreckage of his most recent design. After he said that, they were interrupted by a lava flea attack. When Momin asked a magma trooper why the attack was occurring, the trooper claimed it was one of many that were happening daily, speculating that the construction site may be a breeding ground for the insectoid creatures. The trooper joined the fight, and Momin expressed his fascination at how the lava fleas were conspiring to destroy the site and his vision.
Momin designed a sixth fortress which, despite his assurance of its success, also failed, and was wrecked like the others. Vader killed his stormtrooper host and had his helmet possess an Imperial officer. Momin had confidence in the seventh design, but it too failed, and Vader replaced the host with a lava flea. When Momin's eighth design failed, Vader killed the lava flea and had the mask possess a construction worker. By 12 BBY, Momin had a great amount of confidence in his ninth design, which Vader assured would be the last. Vader too felt a great amount of power in the focusing chamber built into the Sith cave and began to channel the Force from inside it. As the door to the dark side called on Vader to open it, Momin told him he may want to wait for the right moment to do so. Vader Force pushed him aside and concluded that that it was the moment.
Momin resurrects himself
As Vader began opening the door to the dark side, Captain Junus, the commander of the fortress' garrison, then contacted him about another attack, one the Imperial forces could not thwart on their own. Vader was forced to leave the cave to see this for himself. Momin then double-crossed Vader and began channeling the Force through the fortress himself. As Vader witnessed the attackers outside, he realized what Momin was doing and was struck by a lightning bolt. Momin then opened the door to the dark side, where his original body was waiting. After donning the mask and killing his previous host, Momin's physical and spiritual forms were reunited.
Momin is killed by Darth Vader
Vader fought the attacking army of Mustafarians, but their chieftains were able manipulate the lava to wipe out his army. Vader survived, albeit barely, and returned to the chamber where Momin was waiting. Momin stayed out of sight as the cyborg controlled the fortress with the Force to obliterate the invading army.
Momin then stepped out, sensing that Vader was exhausted from the brutal ordeal of the battle outside. He accused his pawn of attempting to control the dark side, whereas he should have been seeking to serve it. He attacked Vader and claimed that he was weak, lamenting the apparent regression of Sith power in the millennia since his death. He also claimed that Vader would not be able to open the door to the dark side, as the dark side would have rejected him.
As the two Sith Lords dueled, the exhausted Vader was dealt several devastating wounds, and eventually Momin sliced off his sword arm. As Momin gloated over his apparent victory, Vader, unperturbed, asked Momin if he had lied about what opening the portal to the dark side could accomplish. Momin stated that he had not lied, but that Vader was too weak and impure to open such a portal. Satisfied with Momin's confirmation, Vader used the Force to slam a massive stone slab into Momin. Momin attempted to hold off the attack, exclaiming that, because the dark side loved him, it would never allow him to be killed. Vader simply stated that, if that were the case, then he would indeed live. Ultimately, Vader's power overwhelmed his incredulous foe and smashed the Sith Lord flat against the cave wall, fatally crushing Momin's body once again.
Although Darth Momin was dead, a dark essence remained in his helmet
Immediately after killing Momin, Vader entered through the portal the Sith Lord had built. Once there, he saw parts of his past life when he went by the name Anakin Skywalker and some of his future. However, Vader was ultimately unable to resurrect Amidala as she refused to come with the Sith Lord in his inability to let go, stating that she no longer knew him as she jumped away from his reach and died. Having failed, Vader left the portal and destroyed Momin's final work due to the failure to resurrect his wife. Nevertheless, the experience led to Vader fully committing himself to the dark side of the Force.
Though Momin was killed in his confrontation with Vader, a dark essence of his power remained within his helmet, which Vader returned to Sidious. A short time after the Battle of Yavin, Momin's mask was stored on Sidious' personal yacht, the Imperialis. It was located in a vault of Sith artifacts, under the protection of two Royal Guards. The guards came to be corrupted by the mask's influence until Lando Calrissian and his team—consisting of Lobot, Korin Pers, Aleksin, and Pavol—stole the Emperor's ship and killed them. Pers believed the Sith artifacts were created by Momin. While they examined at the artifacts, Momin's mask corrupted Aleksin, and he turned on the rest of the infiltrators. Pavol was soon corrupted as well, and the others were forced to abandon and destroy the Imperialis.
Sometime after Momin was killed by Vader in Fortress Vader, the death of Momin's spirit created a Dark Side Force nexus that surrounded the cave, thus creating visions that could haunt visitors. Between 3 ABY and 4 ABY, Ren and the Knights of Ren were assigned by Crimson Dawn leader Qi'ra to steal the Screaming Key from Fortress Vader, upon arriving at the cave located below the castle, the Force nexus created a vision in which Momin's severed head was lying on the ground, and the eyes of the mask started to glow; terrified, Knight of Ren Bazzra shot at the illusion, causing the vision to disintegrate to ash. Ren told Bazzra not to be concerned about the things that were dead, but about the things that were alive.
In the years following the fall of the Galactic Empire, Vader's son, the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, traveled the galaxy to rediscover the history of the Jedi Order that had been suppressed by the Empire. Shortly after the Raid on Nightside, Luke Skywalker explained to Lando Calrissian the possibility of the Sith Darth Noctyss influencing a female individual via the lightsaber that the Sith had once owned. This led to Calrissian recounting his own encounter with the helmet of Momin during his attempted theft of the Imperialis. During his self-imposed exile on Ahch-To, Skywalker wrote a book he titled The Secrets of the Jedi, which chronicled the information he had learned during his travels. In the book, Skywalker described Momin's involvement in the construction of Fortress Vader, taking note of how the unique shape of the structure was based on designs by the ancient Sith Lord.
From a young age, Momin came to believe in the simple principle that only two emotions were truly pure: pain and fear. As the emotions that were felt by any being from the moment they were born, he believed that experiencing these emotions was the only way to reconnect with the animal that exists within everyone. Momin's principle was to create work that would elicit these emotions in others. He believed that if an individual did not feel anything when encountering a creation, then its creator had made nothing. He did not realize his true potential until Lady Shaa began training him. Following her death, Momin became very independent and sought out the lore of the dark side for himself. He came to realize that normal people did not understand his creations, having locked him away when he was younger, and only the Force was his audience. In order to be worthy of it, he cultivated an idea that involved freezing a city of innocents in their expressions of horror and pain.
Momin disliked his status as apprentice and killed Shaa
Momin was different from most other Sith in that, rather than pursuing power through destruction, he preferred to create and learn through intellectual and artistic pursuits. He eventually believed that if he served and glorified the dark side, it would give him eternal life. His views of the Force were viewed as so extreme that neither Jedi nor Sith holocrons mentioned him.
Momin, like all Sith, was deceitful and power hungry. He considered himself second to no one but the Force and killed his master, Shaa, during a duel. When Momin first conversed with Vader, he showed himself to be eager to build a design he created. To Vader's disillusionment, Momin's true goal was to resurrect himself by opening the door to the dark side. When the door was able to be opened, Momin took his chance and reunited his helmet with his original body. However, Vader later returned and killed Momin in a duel.
Momin was a male individual with gray skin and hazel eyes. He had long, blond hair which spiked out more as he got older. He disfigured his face during his training with Shaa, hiding this with his mask.
Momin trains under Shaa
Although Momin was a sculptor, his creations were made in ways that others looked at with horror. As a result, he was locked away because of it. Momin created unconventional uses for the Force that were never again replicated. His expertise in creating outweighed that of Alva Brenne's when she attempted to satisfy the needs of Darth Vader for his castle on Mustafar. Momin's skill in combat was learned from Shaa. She trained him in the ways of the dark side and trained him in the art of lightsaber dueling. He eventually killed his master and, after resurrecting himself, dueled with Darth Vader.
After killing Shaa, Momin began learning more for himself and discovered a great deal about the lore of the dark side. Momin planned to pour the Force with his version of Force lightning into his engine at the moment of ignition and use it to slow down time, forever trapping the expressions of horror and pain on the city's inhabitants forever. Following Momin's death, his spirit became trapped inside his mask and could possess other individuals. When forcing a vision upon Darth Vader, he almost caused the Sith Lord to put his mask on.
During his time as a Sith, Momin wielded a pair of red Sith lightsabers resembling rapiers. Using these lightsabers, he sculpted his own helmet, which he wore frequently for as long as he lived and beyond.
Momin was created by writer Charles Soule for the fourth issue of the 2015 Star Wars: Lando comic-book series, in which he was first mentioned. Since then, Soule had a further story in mind for Momin, which he ultimately told in the 2017 Star Wars: Darth Vader series. Momin later appeared through flashbacks in Darth Vader (2017) 22, written by Soule and illustrated by Giuseppe Camuncoli, in 2018. After hearing numerous pronunciations of Momin's name, Soule eventually announced on Twitter that it was pronounced "MOH-min" (pronounced /ˈmoʊˌmɪn/). He was first identified as "Darth" in the index of the 2019 reference book Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition.
When Momin's mask returned under Vader's castle in the fourth issue of the Star Wars: Crimson Reign miniseries, some fans raised questions on how Momin's spirit could still be inhabiting that area if the Lando series established it had been moved to the Imperialis. While Matt Martin of the Lucasfilm Story Group believed it to indeed be a mistake and recalled the script calling for a skeleton to appear, Soule, the writer of the comic, confirmed it was not a mistake by explaining it was merely a ghost appearing before the Knights of Ren, just as Ren implied in the issue. Maintaining the mystery, he refused to explain how the mysterious projection could seem as though it reacted to blaster shots, merely replying with "Yes" to confirm it was a ghost.
- Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition
- Star Wars: The Secrets of the Jedi
- The Star Wars Book
- Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith
- Star Wars The Dark Side Pocket Expert
- Star Wars: Timelines
- Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide