By: Christopher Dunn
The Star Wars universe arguably has infinite of possible storylines as the Marvel universe. This is certainly visible through the hundreds of books and comics that have been created alongside the main movies. There are so many areas of the Star Wars universe that I believe need to be covered by comics. As of now, the comics have touched mostly on the time between A New Hope And Empire Strikes Back with their flag ship series; the ongoing Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith touches on the adventures Vader has between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. We also have the Poe Dameron comic series that takes place between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens.
There are a few other era’s I would love the Star Wars comics dive into. While the Poe Dameron series does take place in that 30 year gap between the death of Vader and the rise of Supreme Leader Snoke, it does not tell the story that many fans want to hear. Now that Snoke is dead (sorry for the spoiler, but you should have already seen Episode 8 by now) it does not seem that the movies will reveal any type of backstory for this emperor like villain. Apparently the novel adaptation of Last Jedi does reveal a snippet of Snoke’s rise to power. However, we as fans need to know more. This opens the door for comic writers and artists to swoop in and tell that story. How did Snoke come to power? How did he turn Kylo? Where did he develop his force powers?
All of these are great questions for a comic series to explore. I would love to walk into my local comic shop and see Star Wars: The Rise of Snoke on the shelves. This would be more exciting for me to see than another comic based on some minor character like Doctor Aphra. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the extra backstories for characters like Mace Windu and Poe Dameron. But I want something more. Questions about Snoke are too important to leave untold and I believe a comic series is the best way to tell the story.
The other important era of Star Wars history that should be explored through comics is the time before Phantom Menace. Really any time before then. There is so much lore related to the Star Wars history that took place before the movies, and it needs to be further explored. The Old Republic era is one of my favorites from Star Wars Legends (pre-Disney canon). I read the whole Darth Bane novel series in a week. I would love to see a comic adaptation about him. The Star Wars Legends have a lot of Old Republic material to wet my appetite, including some amazing comics. But these are no longer canon and that makes them less interesting to me. Not because they are bad stories, but because they essentially don’t count.
I would love to see a comic series that depicts the first time the Jedi and Sith encountered each other, or a series that follows the first ever Jedi and how he/she began the order. There are so many story threads that series writers could follow. I basically would love to see some of the more obscure stories related to Star Wars lore explored. I understand that it has only been three years since Marvel started producing Star Wars comics again, but hopefully, in the future, we will start seeing more stories about untraditional eras.