Profiles Of Villainy: Dr. Cylo

Star Wars

Jan 11

One of the earliest antagonists in the new era of Star Wars comics that began a decade ago, Dr. Cylo has since faded into the background though he has never been forgotten. A genius who created a technological form of immortality, he abhorred the Force and ultimately ended up in opposition to Vader and Sidious. This conflict proved to be his downfall, but he is still a villain worth analyzing. He was a brilliant mind who nonetheless remained separate from the wider structure of the Imperial government even if he did contribute to it in significant and unseen ways.

Background

We know very little about Cylo’s background, or even his full name if he had one. However, we know he was a genius, incredibly skilled in both cybernetics and genetics, who came to believe that the mystical forces of the galaxy were weak and to be conquered by technology. To that end, he worked to perfect a system for his immortality, mastering cloning, using advanced science to map his personality, and enhancing his body with alien physiology. As a result, whenever one of his bodies died in the wider world, he was able to return, the activation of another copy of himself with memory backup to allow for continuity.

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The timeline for this work is unclear, but we know most of it happened before the Clone Wars. Much of his funding came from the Astarte family, who chose loyalty to the Separatists and later gave the twins Morit and Aiolin to Cylo for protection after the war’s end out of fear for what the Empire might do. Despite his patron’s loyalty to the Separatists, Cylo was probably distant from them, enough that when he came to the attention of Darth Sidious, his talents were put to use in service of the brand new Galactic Empire without issue. It was Cylo with several other scientists who created and then installed Darth Vader into his suit of armor that fateful night on Coruscant after Anakin Skywalker lost in his duel on Mustafar.

The success seen by Cylo and the others who worked on Vader impressed Sidious, and he chose to invest in the talents and skills offered by the group. For Cylo, that meant resources and the ability to work within the Empire on projects of his own interest or importance to the Tarkin Initiative. He also assembled a growing cadre of combatants and allies enhanced by his knowledge and skills, including an advanced artificial intelligence system capable of being installed into a person or animal to guide their base instincts. This was called a cyberanimate. This, with a private army and a fleet of space-born whale-like creatures he cybernetically augmented that served as his home base, turned him into a formidable presence within the halls of science of the Empire.

But that was a problem. Cylo’s aversion to mysticism meant that Sidious had little sway with him as a Sith, and Cylo had amassed such resources and connections within the Empire that Sidious could not easily curb his power without disrupting the ongoing development of key projects, namely, the Death Star. Cylo also began to rally against the system of the Sith, believing that his enforcers could replace Vader and serve the Emperor more effectively, while Vader became a ceremonial figure. This growing tension was ultimately brought to a head after the destruction of the first Death Star, and much of the resulting narrative is told in 2015’s Darth Vader comic series.

Abilities/Skills

Dr. Cylo has many notable skills and abilities, but also assets he has accumulated through a uniquely prolonged life. First and foremost, he has an incredible intellect which he has used throughout his life to enhance and improve himself. His body had, by its fourth and fifth iterations, a Rodian eye and skin, alongside other less visually obvious enhancements from alien species, alongside cybernetics connected with his system of immortality. Next, while he was not adept at combat himself, he knew how to find and create the perfect weapons, his enforcers, who were a unique assortment of beings.

There were the twins Morit and Aiolin, who were enhanced with implants and other mechanisms to mimic abilities in the Force, alongside being trained in how to use a lightsaber. Next was Commander Karbin, a Mon Calamari commander grievously injured during the Clone Wars who Cylo installed in a cybernetic body modeled after General Grievous, but improved with jets in the back, alongside being able to wield four lightsabers at a time. There was the aforementioned cyberanimate, first fitted onto a nameless Trandoshan who Darth Vader killed, but was later fitted onto a Rancor, producing a more formidable fight for Vader. Lastly, there was Tulon Voidgazer. This female Imperial scientist was augmented with cybernetic enhancements that increased her already considerable intelligence and allowed her control over a series of probes and drones that circled her at all times which were capable of various functions.

Cylo had the near-total loyalty of every member of this team, but he also had assets in the form of a private army, assorted experiments, and his fleet of cybernetically augmented space whales. This highly mobile fleet of non-Imperial vessels, able to be visited by Imperials, was nevertheless largely kept secret with hyperdrive capabilities that let it jump from system to system. It was overall a formidable force he had at his command, and all of it together made Cylo a dangerous figure.

Acts Of Villainy

Cylo hologram — Image Source: Wookieepedia

Cylo is a difficult villain to judge given he is so mysterious. Unlike those in this series so far, he only commits acts of evil, against evil. He feuds with Vader and he plots against Palpatine. But he is still evil, and we can see that in some of the finer details of his character. For one, he is completely amoral. We don’t know the horrors of the depths his research took, but Sidious explicitly mentions he was curious to see what Cylo would do free from any restrictions placed on him by the likes of the Republic and the Jedi Order.

He is also clearly cruel, as can be seen with what happened to several of his projects. The space whales he has converted into starships are living beings, chained together, enslaved to his will, and their brains dissected open to his gaze from the command deck of his whale-ship, making up a macabre floor beneath his feet. Also, consider the Astarte twins. Despite being given to Cylo out of fear of the Empire, the family went on to faithfully serve, and Cylo should have given them their children back given they were not wiped out or otherwise harmed by the Empire’s rise. Instead, he kept them, experimented on them, and indoctrinated them into his way of thinking. He took children and made them weapons.

His cruelty also exists in a strange detail in his relationship with Vader. Cylo IV, his body version when the two briefly cross paths for the first time, is captured and tortured to death by 0-0-0 (Triple Zero) on orders from Vader to learn information about who Cylo is. When Cylo V, the next iteration of the doctor, meets Vader, he assesses he would have done the same in Vader’s position, a horrific thought, and chilling to consider if Cylo has done so in the past with others who had information he needed.

Then there’s his involvement in the Tarkin Initiative. In the original Doctor Aphra comic series that began in 2017, she visits a storage facility of past Tarkin Initiative experiments, and it is FULL of deadly machines, creatures, and other projects. A man like Cylo, so heavily involved in science, was undoubtedly also involved in countless other diabolical, destructive, and disastrous projects for Sidious that we may never know the full extent of.

Final Act

Palpatine and Vader — Image Source: Wookieepedia

Cylo’s end was a slow decline due to the rivalry between himself and Darth Vader, with his agents as proxies the scientist used against Vader. Following Vader’s failure regarding the first Death Star, Cylo again proposed that his agents could outmatch Vader, so Sidious declared a contest. Working to complete the first Super Star Destroyer, the Executor, Grand General Cassio Tagge sent Vader and Cylo’s operatives on missions across the galaxy to deal with the Rebellion and criminal factions. Vader, meanwhile, built up his resources in the background and soon began to eliminate Cylo’s agents.

The first was Karbin, who ended up dead and deposited onto the floor of the Emperor’s throne room after a failed trap on Vrogas Vas. On Vader’s next mission, to Shu-Toran to aid Queen Trios, Cylo covertly turned against the Empire, feeding key information to the rebel ore-barons, and sabotaging Vader’s transportation to a key battlefield to kill the Sith Lord. Attacked by the twins, Merit betrayed his sister and retreated, the failure to kill Vader leading Cylo to go rogue and turn against the Empire.

His final move came at the construction site of the Executor, where he attacked, looking to take control of the Super Star Destroyer for himself and eliminate the visiting Emperor. He lost the cyberanimate, and then Voidgazer before Merit was also killed. Cylo himself remained barely one step ahead of Vader, but when Vader faced the scientist directly, he activated an off switch within the cyborg’s armor. Immediately ceasing all movement, Vader was forced to stand still, unmoving as Cylo gloated. But, using his sheer determination, Vader pushed through the failsafe in his armor system to slay Cylo V.

Shortly after, on his nearby whale ship, Cylo VI awoke. Realizing that his plan had failed, he ordered a desperate retreat. But Vader would not allow Cylo to survive, and tracked him down, killing countless blank clones awakened on the whale-ship who stood in his way. Confronted by Cylo VI, Vader paused, and then strode away, while using the Force to command the great celestial beast Cylo was convinced he had under his control, to fly into the nearby star. Cylo, realizing what was happening, desperately tried to break Vader’s control but was ultimately bested by the same “mysticism” he had scorned so much of his life and was incinerated. All copies of his body were destroyed, and Vader resumed full primacy at his master’s side.

Notable Appearances

Vader, phra and Cylo — Image Source: Wookieepedia

Below is a list of some of the notable stories in which the diabolical Dr. Cylo has appeared. We encourage people to check them out if they have any interest in this ruthless monarch!

Darth Vader (2015) Volume 1: Vader
Darth Vader (2015) Volume 2: Shadows and Secrets
Darth Vader (2015) Volume 3: The Shu-Toran War
Darth Vader (2015) Volume 4: End of Games

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