Comics High Republic: Shadows of Starlight comic miniseries

On the Star Wars Youtube channel they've announced a four issue High Republic: Shadows of Starlight miniseries from Marvel, written by Charles Soule. It covers the year between the end of Phase I and the start of Phase III and Avar Kriss, Elzar Mann, Bell Zettifar, and Marchion Ro are all mentioned as characters who will appear.

 

Not surprising that they plan on filling in the year gap between the end of Phase 1 and the beginning of Phase 3.

Avar and Elzar need to help each other get through their pain!!!!!!

 

Only problem is I'd like this to be more than four issues.

Oh well, will nab what I can.

 

This is actually set to release prior to the initial novel of the Phase. So this will give us our first glimpse at it.

Of course likely only the first issue will be out by the time the book is released.

 

I'm trades only so this'll be a fragmented phase due to that.

 

Well, a year-long time gap is enough for Marchion to transform the Nihil into a powerful military force, using the occupied territories' resources.

 

Only thing with that is: For what?

At the end of Phase I, Ro has practically severed Nihil space from the Republic. He has no living leadership rivals. The new enemy he has is boredom.

 

Year is enough for the Republic to find an at least some way to infiltrate the blockade. Also Ro can use the Nihil space to spread chaos even further (making it the "eye of the storm").

 

I'm not convinced Ro ever really looked that far ahead and breaching the blockade isn't going to happen off screen. Ro is the kind of character happier chasing victory than when he actually gets it.

 

Well, all the governments and militaries trapped in his territory for starters, or even civilian resistance, and that is assuming he is completely satisfied with what he has without any plans to expand or raid outwards.

I do wonder if the Nihil might get more militarized by phase 3 - General Vess is supposed to be in phase 3 and I could see her bringing her war-kin to the Nihil cause just for revenge on the jedi. Plus, the nihil we see in the latest edge of balance were dressed in a more uniform manner than the Nihil have traditionally been.

 

Marchion in general can try to unite various anti-Jedi and anti-Republic forces (Iaco Stark-style, but on bigger scale) or at least gain some support from them in terms of money and weapons.

 

For anyone who doesn't have the timeline of the High Republic engrained into their mind this comic will be taking place from 230 to 229 BBY. Start of Phase III will happen about three years after Light of the Jedi.

 

It still can be presented in the Republic's
historiography as anti-terrorist operation, not outright war.

 

It's not a war, it's very aggressive peace making on terrorist anarchist scum.

 

Yeah, something like that.
My guess is that at the end Republic will try to sweep the information about the conflict under the rug, but Marchion will still be remembered by people of the Outer Rim, either as the biggest boogie man, charismatic maniac or brave freedom fighter. Maybe even t-shirts with his image painted will be rather popular.

 

Now I'm picturing someone showing up in a Marvel comic with a "Marchion was right" shirt, like they did in X-Men

 

Problem with transferring 'Magneto was right' to Marchion, what was he right about?

What makes Magneto a compelling villain is he does have some very justified greivances with how mutants have been treated. Ro doesn't have any equivalent to that.

 

Here's hoping this series is where Yoda explains what the Nameless are to Avar Kriss, Elzar Mann, Bell Zettifar!

 

That is an excellent comparison. Marchion does remind me a fair bit of Iaco Stark, just into a punk aesthetic instead of 80s business guy

Scale does seem an important factor. After all, the Trade Federation outright invaded a planet and that didn't count.

While the Nihil taking over three whole sectors and striking many other places is a bit bigger than the usual planetary or system scale conflicts, it still pales in comparison to the clone wars where the galaxy was torn in two and there was fighting nearly everywhere and whole civilizations were destroyed.

Honestly, there is a case to be made for that. There has only been one straight up battle so far, Kur, in which the Nihil are crushed utterly, even if they take more RDC troops with them than anyone expected. Other than that, it has mostly been Nihil pirate raids and terrorist attacks, largely on civilian targets, and the Republic hunter down Nihil bases to do their own raids to arrest key leaders.

It might be more a straight up war in phase 3 now that the Nihil have territory of their own, but probably still not an especially large one.

I do like the headcanon that the Cloud Riders are inspired by romanticized tales of the Nihil, with Enfys Nest nest possibly descended from a member given her ancestral helmet.

Marchion makes the same "the Republic is corrupt and hypocritical and doesn't actually value the freedom of average people" argument as Count Dooku, who gets plenty of "x was right" treatment in and out of universe.

Yeah, one could argue that the republic wasn't actually corrupt yet like it would be in Dooku's time, but it is easy to imagine someone living in a time of Republic corruption might decide it was always corrupt, and that Marchion was a heroic freedom fighter and all the terrible stuff you hear against him is propaganda.

Pirates are an example of a group (or, lots of different groups really) that sometimes gets romanticized as freedom fighters despite most not having any ideology and happily preying on the poor and weak as much if not more than the rich and powerful.

 

True, there doesn't need to be an actual case for someone to conjure up a claim of oppression.

I mean the Republic wants to bring in law, law that stops Marchion microwaving your hamster! Don't you want the honour of allowing Marchion to kill your beloved rodent? Shouldn't you be free to let him?

Yadda yadda yadda, stream of total bollocks etc.... but enough will buy it.

 

RIDE THE STORM BRO MARCHION WAS RIGHT

 

The Nihil’s claim of oppression doesn’t have to make sense from a liberal democratic perspective. What matters is whether it’s believable they’d find the Republic oppressive. Considering their way of life is based around space piracy, a society that actually protects people from arbitrary predation may well seem oppressive to them.