Star Wars 21: Shadow of a Dark Lord represents the twenty-first installment within the Marvel Star Wars comic book saga.
Having been held prisoner, Princess Leia manages to break free from Simon Greyshade's quarters and locates Luke Skywalker, who has shaken off the effects of his trance. Luke explains that this altered state happened when he briefly touched another mind using the Force; he believes this mind belongs to someone powerful in the Force, possibly Darth Vader. Concurrently, Greyshade is in a meeting with his new ally, Commander Strom, the administrator of The Wheel. Unbeknownst to Strom, the administrator has dispatched his Wheel Security Force to overpower Strom's forces and reclaim the funds they pilfered from The Wheel. Elsewhere, as Han Solo prepares to participate in the main event of The Big Game, he discovers that Chewbacca is also a contestant, but the rules dictate that only a single contestant can survive. On the planet Ultaar, Darth Vader stumbles upon the remains of a Rebel intelligence gathering team, eliminated by the bounty hunter Beilert Valance. Vader deduces that Valance is also seeking the same individual: the young man responsible for destroying the Death Star I. A competition ensues to determine who will locate him first.