Whether you remember it from the Dark Empire comics over thirty ago or the first time you ever saw it was in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, you are no doubt familiar by now with the idea that a Sith lord can displace another person’s spirit and reside within their body. In the old Star Wars Legends comics, the spirits of long-dead Sith lords still live in their mummified remains on the ancient planet Korriban.
But were you aware that a Sith can transfer his spirit into an artifact? One Sith by the name of Darth Momin did, about a thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, according to the 2017 Marvel Darth Vader comic by Charles Soule. Darth Momin was a Sith sculptor infamous for his grotesque sculpting materials, who transferred his consciousness upon his death into a mask he had made.
A century later, Darth Sidious gives the mask to Darth Vader. Vader discovers that the mask can transfer Momin’s spirit into whoever wears it, thus finding a way to bring Momin back to life. All sorts of mayhem ensues, but this appears to be the first instance of a Sith lord resurrecting via an artifact.
Another strange ability Sith have is the power to start a mysterious blue fire with Sith plasma lightning. Lord Sidious does this in episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and later Star Wars Rebels, using incantations that remind me of witches standing over a cauldron, chanting, “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.”
He then does even stranger things with the fire. He uses it as a lasso, throwing it through the portal into the World Between Worlds in an attempt to drag the Jedi Ezra Bridger through. Oddly, Ahsoka Tano could cut it with her lightsaber, and when she did so, it snapped back to burn Sidious’s hand.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing Lord Sidious does with blue plasma fire is his infamous Sith ritual attack on Master Yoda. Using a drop of Count Dooku’s blood, Sidious creates a bowl of plasma fire that, as he and Dooku add Force lightning to it and breathe the fumes, allows them to transmit dark side visions to Yoda on Moraband (known in Legends as Korriban). They construct an elaborate vision in which Sidious attacks Yoda and Anakin, forcing Yoda to choose between letting Anakin die in order to kill Sidious or saving Anakin and letting Sidious escape.
Despite the obvious problem with letting a Sith lord escape to save a fellow Jedi, as Yoda has already experienced after the climactic duel with Dooku in Attack of the Clones, Yoda allows Sidious to escape in order to save Anakin in the vision. A frustrated Sidious proclaims that Master Yoda is too strong, and their dramatic Sith ritual has failed to turn him to the dark side.
As more is added to the Star Wars saga over the years, we wonder what other unprecedented powers future Sith will be revealed to have.
Only time will tell.