From his 1977 debut as a Tatooine farmboy whose biggest concern was power converters at the Tosche Station to his demise on Ahch-To helping his sister, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and the Resistance, in their fight to defeat the First Order over forty years later in the sequel trilogy, Skywalker is, for many fans, the heart and soul of the Star Wars franchise.
Recently, the official Star Wars website shared a preview of the upcoming Marvel’s “Star Wars #19″ — written by Charles Soule and illustrated by Maco Castiello — which is set to feature young Skywalker as he, along with R2-D2:
…continues his journey to learn the ways of the Force. He travels the galaxy, seeking any lost knowledge he can find. But it all seems like a wild bantha chase until one promising stop…
Per the preview panels [above], one of Luke and the droid’s stops in the Star Wars galaxy will be Lothal, a planet that is sure to sound familiar to fans of Filoni’s animated series, Star Wars Rebels.
In the comic issue, the powerful Force user says:
“I don’t get it, Artoo. I can sense this place needs to be opened by the Force just like the outpost on Tempes, but it’s not responding to me. It feels…buried somehow. Long gone. Or maybe it’s just locked, and I don’t have the key. I feel I’ve learned so much but I still don’t know anything at all.”
By now, Rebels viewers have probably been instantly transported back the ongoing story arc that saw Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) and his unlikely Jedi Master Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) attempt to open the very same Jedi Temple on Bridger’s homeworld of Lothal numerous times.
Then, in Rebels Season 4, following Jarrus’s death, a Lothwolf guides Bridger to the site of the Temple, at which time the young Jedi — who is mere days older than Skywalker per the Star Wars timeline — enters the elusive World Between Worlds.
…he saves Ahsoka Tano [in the World Between Worlds] but learns that he must let go of his master. The temple begins to collapse when the young Jedi exits the World, and everything is completely gone when he awakens and bids a final farewell to Kanan.
Luke is standing right where Ezra and the Imperial excavation team were, but the temple has sealed itself and returned to the safety of Lothal’s surface. While Luke at this time knows nothing about the World Between Worlds, the comic presents intriguing possibilities for what he might learn should he someday gain access to the mystical space existing within the Force.
Now, with Skywalker already back in the Star Wars universe thanks to The Mandalorian and Bridger expected to make his live-action debut — thanks to Aladdin (2019) leading man Mena Massoud — alongside Rosario Dawson and fellow Rebels character Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in spinoff series, Ahsoka, it will be interesting to see how the dots connect between this Marvel Comics issue and the upcoming slate of Star Wars shows on Disney+.
There is, for example, a good chance that the paths taken by Skywalker, Bridger, and Grogu (AKA “Baby Yoda”) will all intersect at some point very soon.
Do you think Skywalker’s visit to Lothal portends anything in upcoming Star Wars series?
Next up, Star Wars fans can look forward to The Book of Boba Fett starring Temuera Morrison (Boba Fett) and Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand) on December 29, 2021.
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Credit: Lucasfilm
