10 Star Wars Mysteries Explained Outside Of The Films

7. What Happened To Luke's Missing Hand?

Star Wars Mysteries
Marvel Comics

The Mystery:

To add injury to insult, Darth Vader not only informs Luke of his true parentage but also lops his hand off with his lightsaber. As a macabre mystery that's haunted Star Wars fans for literally decades, where exactly did Luke's severed hand end up?

The Answer:

An early version of The Force Awakens was actually going to show Luke's lightsaber-gripping hand soaring through space, but a concrete, canonical answer was given in the recent eleventh issue of the "Star Wars: Darth Vader" comic.

In this story, set after The Empire Strikes Back, Vader heads to Exegol to confront Palpatine, who ends up showing him the collection of horrors housed within his laboratory - as we see in The Rise of Skywalker.

But here's the kicker - Luke's hand is seen in one of the cloning vats in Palpatine's lab, prompting many fans to consider whether the Emperor could've used the hand to bring about his own resurrection, or have even created a Luke Skywalker clone at some point.

We still don't know exactly how Palpatine retrieved the hand from Bespin, but it's at least finally been accounted for.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.