The latest story arc from Marvel’s Star Wars comics will detail just how the events of Rogue One had a significant impact on Luke Skywalker. As fans will know, the recent Anthology movie saw a team of ragtag Rebels infiltrate the Empire and retrieve the plans to the Death Star, which allowed the Rebel Alliance to eventually destroy it in A New Hope. Tragically, they all lost their lives in the process.
Beginning with Star Wars #38, in a new story arc that will act as a prequel to The Empire Strikes Back, things will take a more dramatic turn as our heroes become further embroiled in the war against the Empire. Writer Kieron Gillen told CBR that he deliberately wanted to ape the tone of Rogue One. In particular, the Rebels will visit what’s left of the Jedi’s homeworld Jedha in the arc.
“I thought the best way to start that was by coming off the back of Rogue One which was more of a war movie take on the Star Wars universe. We’re kind of starting with a smaller story explicitly integrating with and exposing the New Hope characters to everything that happened in Rogue One. We’re going to the post apocalyptic wasteland that was left after the Empire blew a hole in Jedha and removed one of the holiest sites there. That’s great for all of our characters.”
While the final moments of Rogue One connected Princess Leia with these events, we hadn’t previously found out how or if this affected Luke. In the new story arc, though, Gillen was keen to explore what the young Jedi thought of their enormous sacrifice. Intriguingly, it looks like it will be a major moment for him, pushing the hero to step up and assume more responsibility.
“Through that, we get people like Luke discovering everything that allowed him to get into a position to destroy the Death Star, He finds out about Jyn Erso and all the people who sacrificed their lives to give him the chance to be a hero. As you can imagine, that’s going to hit Luke hard. When I saw Rogue One I immediately thought, ‘I wonder what Luke makes of all this? I wonder what Leia makes of it?’ Now I’m in a position where I get to write that.”
Star Wars #38 reunites the Darth Vader dream team of writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca for their first issue on the mainline comic together. It arrives on November 8th.