Darth Vader is many things to many people. Warrior, conqueror, murderer, monster, apprentice, the Chosen One, the list is endless. And so long as stories are continually made about him, what he means to different people across the galaxy will only continue to grow.
But in one strange instance, Darth Vader, the Emperor's Wrath and Dark Lord of the Sith, became a hero to a young boy after killing a monster that had been terrorizing a ruined planet. And the great irony is, Vader didn't even realize he was doing an entire species a service by slaying the beast.
In Darth Vader Annual #1 by Kieron Gillen and Leinil Yu, Vader makes a crash landing on the planet Cianap. Immediately after exiting his ruined TIE fighter, Vader was attacked by Ender, a massive monster who had ravaged the surface of the planet for untold years, to the point where the survivors of her rampage viewed her as a dark god. But Vader was a lord of the Sith and is never cowed (except by the Emperor), so he fought back against this creature, seeing it for what it truly was: Just another foolish creature who didn't understand the power of the Dark Side.
Unbeknownst to Vader, one of the natives of the planet, a Cianapian child, witnessed his battle. He watched as Vader fell and rose time after time, never giving Ender the victory she craved. Then finally, the battle reached the child himself. He would have been killed by Ender had Vader not ridden in on one of the planet's horse-like creatures and force pushed the boy away from the beast. Then, Vader cemented his legacy on this planet by ripping open Ender's throat.
To Vader, this must have been just a day in the life, another obstacle in his path to be dominated. But his actions unintentionally freed an entire species, a whole planet really, from the tyranny of a mindless beast whose sole purpose was destruction. And as a result, he became a hero in the eyes of this child, the Black Knight of the story of freedom for an entire people. But while the child thanked Vader, the dark lord seemed ready to also kill the boy whose life he had saved not even five minutes prior. It's a good thing then that Vader's star destroyer came and picked him up, otherwise who knows what might have happened to that naive young boy.
But there is a certain irony in the situation. Not only did Darth Vader unwittingly do a good thing, but he also became a hero in the mind of a child. Considering Vader's past record with children this is nothing short of a miracle. As most Star Wars fans know, Vader killed not one, but two groups of children in the course of his lifetime. One group of Tusken children and a group of Jedi younglings. And this was before he became the Darth Vader everyone knows and fears. So for him to win over any child is nothing short of a miracle and simultaneously a sick joke. It probably helps that this boy had no idea who Vader was and for his sake, hopefully never will. It would be a shame for the illusion to be shattered by reality.
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