#doom inspired

Jake And Rachel: Hellish Havoc

Been having an idea for a Doom-Inspired Comic involving my characters for a while and decided "What better time to start than during the ten-year-anniversary of drawing them?"

(This has been floating around my head since the weekend)

"How did my father die?"

It wS such a simple question, and yet Obi-wan could feel his muscles tense. His jaw locked up, his pulse thundered in his ears. The words he had thought he might say retreated down his throat and he was left with the bare and ugly truth.

"I...don't think he did, Luke."

The boy jolted, and the look that flashed through his eyes, a combination of hope and attempted rationalization, struck Obi-wan to the heart.

"But...Uncle Owen said-"

Obi-wan sighed softly. "Said he was dead, I know. He told you that because that's what I told him when I brought you to your aunt and uncle, nineteen years ago. And at the time, I believed it was true, Luke, I really did."

Luke sat quietly for a long time; he leaned against the wall, trying to digest this piece of information. Turmoil radiated from his Force signature clouding the room, and just when Obi-wan was about to ask, he spoke again.

"If...if my father is alive, then why...why didn't he come back?"

It was so hard to know how to put it into words. How to tell the boy that his father probably believeed he died at birth -- if he rremembered his past at all. Obi-wan wasn't sure he did.

"Have..." he trailed off, bolstered himself and began again. "Have you heard the legends of Darth Vader?"

Luke frowned. "The Nemesis?" he asked, "Yeah, I hear the old spacers at Tosche Station talk about him."

He knew the stories, wildly varied as they were. The species of the Nemesis was rarely agreed upon, but there were a few details that stayed the same in every version. There was always a warrior, unmatched in combat, one of the Jedi in the Clone Wars -- which one was uncertain. The Jedi was tricked by one he trusted into becoming a vessel for a dark power, and it cost him the lives of every Jedi in a terrible betrayal. Not until the Nemesis woke from his terrible battle, barely alive, did he realize what had happened. He grievously wounded the Emperor -- his once trusted friend -- and began a quest to avenge his family and atone for his betrayal.

In some versions the Nemesis also lost a spouse and one or two children. Those are usually the versions where the Nemesis isn't a Jedi.

Regardless of who Darth Vader really was under that armor, the fact of the matter is that he had been cutting a bloody swathe through the forces of the Empire for as long as Luke had been alive. He wasn't associated with the Rebel Alliance: Vader was more of a concept than a person. Sheer retribution in a humanoid form. A force of nature.

Luke couldn't understand why Obi-wan had started talking about the Nemesis. Weren't they talking about Anakin Skywalker just now?

When Obi-wan turned to look him in the eye at last, there were so many emotions in his face that Luke wondered how he could be holding onto any shred of composure at this point.

"I can't be sure," Obi-wan croaked, "I can't be sure until I've seen him. Until I've sensed his presence in the Force. But I think...I...think Darth Vader knows where your father is."

Not the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie, either. It was just that Obi-wan couldn't quite bring himself to get his hopes up. Not yet.

He knew he couldn't call out to his old friend to find out.

Sinful Symbolism

Based on doom eternal and the icon of sin