Momin

"Empires have risen and fallen since my birth, great ages of the galaxy have passed&hellip;but here I stand."

- Momin

Momin was a male Sith Lord and sculptor. At a young age, his ideas and aspirations got him imprisoned by those who despised his work. A Sith lady named Shaa freed him, claiming Momin as her Sith apprentice and trained him in the dark side of the Force. Momin, though, killed Shaa, feeling he was second to none and began exploring the lore of the dark side. He eventually built a superweapon which had the power to destroy a city, Momin, however wanted to freeze the 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 vault. After learning of Momin's story from the mask, Sidious gave it to Darth Vader as a gift for his journey to Mustafar, which Vader sought to make his personal stronghold. There, the mask killed Vader's Chief Imperial Architect, Colonel Alva Brenne, and possessed her aide, Lieutenant Roggo. As Vader examined the mask, it told him of Momin's past. Vader then allowed it to possess a Mustafarian and grant Momin's consciousness a body. Vader discussed a creation Momin had designed, and agreed to let him build it for him.

Momin, with the help of Imperial resources supplied by Vader, 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 incredibly harsh natural conditions on the planet, the ninth design was successful. Shortly after the fortress was finally 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 rock. Momin was crushed against the wall and died.

Years later, Momin's mask was on the Imperial yacht Imperialis. During the ships infiltration, the mask corrupted two infiltrators and the others were forced to abandon and destroy the Imperialis.

Quest for power
"I, Momin, was a sculptor of the mind. They locked me away so they would not have to see it."

- Momin, to Darth Vader

Early into his life, Momin experimented with the Force to create. One day, he mutilated his pet Rada-cat Flitta and made a sculpture out of it's flesh, bones and organs. When Momin's mother searched around for it, thinking Flitta had ran 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 understand 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, taking his tools and locking him away.

Although he was imprisoned, Momin's name spread throughout the galaxy, and eventually, a Sith Lady named 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. During his training, many things that Momin knew about himself but 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. Now without a Master, Momin aspired to learn about the dark side and visited many great sites. He never took an apprentice of his own 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. 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. With 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 forever. Thus he chose a city to attempt this on, and brought his weapon before it. 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 by vaporizing into nothing, leaving only his mask which contained his spirit.

Meeting Darth Vader
"You created this design, in your last body. Tell me what it is.''" "''The door to the dark side is locked. This is the key. Your beloved waits for you there, Vader. My fortress will tune the energies of the locus. It is your first step towards using the power of the dark side to pierce the veil of time, between life and death."

- Darth Vader and Momin

Momin was considered a heretic by the Sith and his teachings were covered up, with his unique uses in 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 secret vault in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. 19 years before the Battle of Yavin the Sith Lord Darth Vader fought the former Chief Librarian Jocasta Nu in the Temple, she fled into the vault which led to Vader learning of its existence. After killing the former 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 him. 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 facility 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.

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 him. 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 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.

Resurrecting himself
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 ensue chaos on the Mustafarians. Lava fleas also began attacking the construction site regularly due to what a magma trooper said. 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 a punishment for his failures, having his mask possess a stormtrooper in it's 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 wipe out the site, and his vision. Thus Momin designed a sixth fortress, which, despite his assurance in it's success, also failed, and was wrecked like the others. Vader killed his newer host and had his helmet possess an Imperial officer. Momin had confidence in the seventh design, but it too failed, and Vader replaced his host with a lava flea. When Momin's eighth design failed, Vader killed the lava flea and had the mask possess an imperial construction worker.

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 that. Vader Force pushed him aside and concluded that that it was the moment. As he began opening the door to the dark side, Captain Junus, the commander of the fortress' garrison, then contacted Vader about another attack, one the Imperial forces could not thwart on their own. Vader was forced to leave the Sith Cave to see this for himself. That was when Momin 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 orchestrated by him. Momin then opened the door to the dark side himself, where his original body was awaiting entered. Momin's host gave handed his mask to his real body and was killed.

Vader's consequences
"It saddens me to see that the Sith have become such Jedi-obsessed weaklings. It saddens me, and I know it disgusts the dark side."

- Momin insults Vader

Vader fought the attacking army of Mustafarians, but their chieftains were able manipulate the lava to wash away the Imperial army to wipe out his Imperial army. Vader survived and returned to the chamber where Momin was waiting. Momin stayed out of sight as he controlled the fortress with the Force to obliterate the invading army. Momin then stepped out and accused Vader of attempting to control the dark side, whereas he should have been seeking to serve it. Momin then 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, Vader was dealt several devastating wounds. Reaching out with the Force, he rammed a massive stone into Momin. The stone crushed him against the wall and Momin died.

Legacy
"Lando, unless I miss my guess, these are the pieces by Lord Momin--an ancient Sith sculptor. All of his works were thought lost."

- Korin Pers, to Lando Calrissian

Immediately after, Vader entered through the portal Momin 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 him, saying she didn't know him and that "Anakin Skywalker" was dead, jumping away from the Sith Lord's reach. Having failed, Vader left the portal and destroyed Momin's final work.

Though Momin was killed in his confrontation with Vader, his dark essence remained on in his helmet. 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 guard of the two of the Emperor's Royal Guard. The guards came to be corrupted during their time guarding it, but were relieved of this when Lando Calrissian and his team&mdash;consisting of Lobot, Korin Pers, Aleksin, and Pavol&mdash;stole the 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.

Personality and traits
"The dark side does not serve us. We serve the dark side. If we glorify it through our acts and our work and our art, it gives us power. It gives us life. Even life eternal."

- Momin, to Darth Vader

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.

Despite being a Sith, Momin was different than most of the Sith Lords. Rather than gain power and influence by destroying, he preferred to create. 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 and killed his Sith 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 disillusion, he really wanted 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.

Momin was a male individual with gray skin and hazel eyes. He had long, blonde hair which spiked out more as he got older. He disfigured his face during his training with Shaa, hiding this with his mask.

Power and abilities
"I learned much from her, about the Force, and its dark side."

- Momin, on his training with Shaa

Although Momin was a sculptor, his creations were made in ways that others look 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. After killing Shaa, Momin began learning more for himself and discovered a great deal about the lore of the dark side. Following Momin's death, his spirit became trapped inside his mask and could possess other individuals.

Equipment
"The Mask of Lord Momin. A powerful artifact of the dark side."

- Darth Sidious, to Darth Vader

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.

Behind the scenes
"Wrote Darth Vader #22 today - FORTRESS VADER Part 4, or "The Tale of Lord Momin." I really like it. I've had this story in mind since my Lando book (with @alexmaleev & @paulmounts) in 2015. Wasn't sure I'd ever get a chance to tell it."

- Charles Soule

Momin was created by writer Charles Soule for the fourth issue of the 2015 Star Wars: Lando comic book series. Since then, Soule had a further story in mind for Momin, which he was ultimately able to tell in the 2017 Star Wars: Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith series. Momin later appeared through flashbacks in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 22: Fortress Vader, Part IV, written by Soule and illustrated by Giuseppe Camuncoli, in 2018.

Appearances

 * Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 21: Fortress Vader, Part III
 * Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 22: Fortress Vader, Part IV
 * Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 23: Fortress Vader, Part V
 * Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 24: Fortress Vader, Part VI
 * Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith 25: Fortress Vader, Part VII
 * Lando, Part IV