Comics Star Wars (2020 Post-TESB Series)

Spoiler

They’re handcuffed by canon. Luke can’t go see Yoda again until after Jabba’s death. I never understood why that was, though. Given that Yoda was, as you say, alive and well. Perhaps Luke just feels so betrayed by Yoda and Obi-Wan that he refuses to go back until he’s freed Han.

 

Spoiler

Alternately, perhaps he's ashamed. Yoda and Obi-Wan told him not to go, he went, and it didn't go well. And now he's putting off returning to Yoda for as long as he can, because he knows he's going to get an earful from his master, and rightfully so.

 

Spoiler

Then his arrival on Dagobah was perfectly timed. Yoda barely had enough life in his body to croak out a few last sentences before he vanished. Still, I wonder why Obi-Wan never appeared to Luke again and encouraged him to return. Yoda could have taught Luke much more. Enough, perhaps, that he could have withstood Sidious on the Death Star

 

In the newcanon RoTJ novelization: Beware the Power of the Dark Side, a point had been made of how Yoda'd been prolonging his life with the Force. That's why he dies immediately after his conversation - because the prolonging has stopped.

In Which Luke Returns To Master Yoda

Far away, on the swamp planet of Dagobah, Yoda waits.
For hundreds of years, he taught Jedi younglings the value of patience.
But it has not been easy for him to practice it these last few years.
It is hard to be weak when you were once strong. Hard to move slowly when all around you is moving too fast.
The Force is out of balance. As the Emperor spreads fear across the galaxy, the dark side grows more and more powerful.
Yoda knows that it is Luke's destiny, not his, to fight back. Yoda - once a warrior, once the leader of all those who stood against the dark side - can do nothing but wait.
And it has been a long, helpless wait. First he waited while Luke went to Bespin, then while Luke returned to the rebels, then while Luke went on that insanely risky mission to Tatooine.
Using the Force, he has tried to keep watch over Luke, but he has only a sense of what his runaway pupil has been through.
Yet now he senses that Luke is finally returning. And he is relieved. Because he could not have waited much longer.
Already he has used the Force to prolong his life beyond what is natural. Beyond what is comfortable and almost beyond what is endurable.
But he refuses to pass on.
Not until he can play his last part in this great galactic struggle.
All he has left are a few pieces of wisdom that might help Luke.
And now, the sound of an engine roars through the swamp, and Yoda knows the time has finally come. The wait is over.

 

...wait, would it be necessary for him to be alive to pass on that information though? I mean, Luke gets information and advice from a dead guy all the time, and Yoda learned the same trick seeing as he disappeared and showed up as a force ghost by the end.

As much as it would have killed the mood of the scene, there is no in-universe reason he couldn't have just picked up the conversion without missing a beat after dying.

 

There's all kinds of reasons one can come up with. Maybe Yoda dying in front of Luke was part of the "wisdom" or at least the presentation. Sets the tone. I also like the idea that being a Force Ghost doesn't mean you can just pop in all the time for a casual chat or whatever. Its a higher state of being and so maybe there are rules as to when and how and why someone can show up.

Yoda, being not dead, maybe knows he'll be one with the Force and able to Obi-Wan himself, but he may not be able to comprehend the mindset he'll have after. Something like that.

Basically, I think the Force Ghost thing is left kind of mysterious so we don't have any hardset explanations set in place as to the why and I kind of like it like that.

 

I truly believe Force ghosts are pure vessels for the will of the Force, they don't do what they do of their own egoistic volition. In fact, the very how-to of Force ghosting is all about surrendering self. Force ghost Obi-Wan is not precisely the same as Old Ben Kenobi, and Old Ben Kenobi is actually quite different from Obi-Wan in the immediate aftermath of ROTS. His state of being is quite different.

The same is surely true of Yoda, arguably much more so as he has "died before death" and his physical presence is simply prolonged to work the Force's will and his spiritual immortality is even more so at the will of the Force.

I really can't see it as anything else.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

 

War of the Bounty Hunters issue #4 kinda felt like an extended teaser to go read the Star Wars tie-in issue cuz I wanna see a Vader vs. Luke dogfight but it was like 3 pages in WotBH. The actual showdown you want is in Star Wars this month, honest!

Anyway last few issues have been very X-Wing centric which I am okay with. Luke doing X-Wing stuff seems to get overlooked in a lot of post ANH stuff. Dude's a pilot too, y'know. Best in the galaxy.

 

An interesting take, given that ghost obi-wan despaired of Luke's chances of winning because of his inability to kill his own father - would this imply the force itself is wrong about what is going to happen?

Plus, everyone becomes one with the force when they die. That is not the trick - preserving one's personality and independent mind is the trick. If the ghosts are just the force talking, then anyone could be one, master or not, force sensitive or not.

True. I do miss Luke Skywalker, Rogue Leader sometimes - particularly in the stories when he is more actively part of the rebel alliance in between ANH and ESB.

Though I suppose I understand authors wanting to keep everyone together - if they had Luke as a pilot, Leia as an officer, and Han as...wait, what was his job again? Supply core? - anyway, they would probably being doing missions separately.

 

The whole point of becoming a Force Ghost is to maintain your consciousness after becoming one with the force, that should mean retaining all agency. Thoughts, ego, yada yada. You only surrender your physical being. The crude matter which is temporary. And all the baggage that came along with it. Obi Wan and Yoda choose not to interfere because they trust in Luke. If he chooses to leave on his own in ESB then he is either meant to succeed or fail. If he chooses not to fight Vader in ROTJ, then he will fail or he could somehow succeed.

Yoda's last words to Luke before he departed for Bespin: "Mind what you learned, save you it can!"

 

It's mysticism.

Similar concepts are in Buddhism or Sufism and most other mystical traditions.

In Sufism this is called fana wa baqa, or annihilation and subsistence. Annihilation of the individual self/ego in God, and then subsistence by God.

This passage from the Revenge of the Sith novelization has Spirit Qui-Gon telling Yoda it is done through the surrender of self. Likewise, we see the beginning of the process in the Yoda arc of TCW in which he literally destroys a shadowy manifestation of his ego.



Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

 

Spoiler

Shara: (still stuck on that star destroyer) I'm sure they'll come rescue me any minute now. Aaaaany minute now.

 

https://www.starwars.com/news/marvel-january-2022-star-wars-comics-exclusive

Spoiler: Issue #21 solicit

STAR WARS #21

CHARLES SOULE (W) • RAMON ROSANAS & MARCO CASTIELLO (A) • Cover by RAMON ROSANAS

VARIANT COVER BY CARLO PAGULAYAN
ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
LUCASFILM 50TH ANNIVERSARY VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SPROUSE

STRANDED ON A STAR DESTROYER!

• After a mission gone wrong, ace Rebel pilot SHARA BEY (POE DAMERON’S mother) was left for dead aboard the TARKIN’S WILL, a huge Star Destroyer.
• Shara survived and has been hiding deep inside the massive ship ever since, evading COMMANDER ZAHRA’S notice.
• But her time is up. Can she live long enough to escape?

 

So has Shara Bay been in hiding for a month, he.

 

Oh my God, I was wondering when we'd see her again! Finally, finally, fin-a-lee!

 

Spoiler

The same here. I guess it's less of a rehash this way, but Lando's character arc at that point generally feels like something that's essentially locked in and doesn't need to be experimented with too much without changing something fundamental. This casts Lando in a very different sort of light.

 

Spoiler: Issue #18

"From what I've seen, your whole life is a temporary setback". That was rough.

IMO, the most interesting part of the conversation was Qi'ra's proposal for cooperation with Rebel Alliance. It can be a start of intriguing storyline, especially if Crimson Dawn will survive confrontation with Palpatine and then help the New Republic defeat the Empire (in order to have an impact on the new government).

 

Spoiler

Do not believe a word that Qi'ra told... as sweet as it may sound! I loved when Leia shot the bottle.

I mean, loved the flashback to young Han and Qi'ra, and that story could even have happened, but I doubt Qi'ra is honest with Leia.

Her wanting to not only create a new Shadow Collective under Crimson Dawn and doing what Maul did before, take out competition and the old system to advance former underlings to top positions with gifts to assure loyalty may be nice but is too repetitive and will fail again as it failed before for Maul I bet. Though, she sounds like she has one ace up her sleeve and is holding it back on purpose. Makes one wonder how much she knows about galactic politics really, given she has some important folks and assassins in her pocket. Does she know about Exegol? Does she account for it?
And after what happened to Valance... I wonder if Qi'ra will loose more than she wants to Vader soon enough. She could survive though and become the new Lumiya analogue with cyborg parts herself maybe. Or if looking HRD human enough despite replacements, like Valance did, she could be the new Guri! After all she is the Guri to Maul's Xizor... the Shira to Han instead of Luke... and Shadows of the Empire is coming up!

 

Spoiler

Like most of the event issues this one wasn't that great in my opinion. It does raise some intriguung possibilities for the future and the Qi'ra/Leia talk was kind of intresting. But it felt like this neither significantly furthered the plot nor did much for the characterization of the characters involved. Felt more liking ticking obligatory boxes. Have Hans two lovers meet, check, solve the question how the Rebels found out Han was on Tattoine, check.

 

I really liked issue #18, it wasn't the fleshing out of events from the finale of WotBH, but it was a great epilogue. Because it finally, freakin' finally, added some context as to why the hell Qi'Ra was doing what she did (although with some added fun that she is totally an unreliable narrator). Because this gal really did love Han and she put him up on auction! So she actually was trying to actively funnel him back to Leia but also increase her own standings in the criminal underworld as she straight up says "What would I get out of it?" So it tracks with the character we last saw her, does love Han, will manipulate him to increase her own power base. It's cold, maybe a wee bit colder than she was in Solo, but I buy it.

also a bit of a good canon logic that they know where Han is and event though they wait almost a year he's technically probably safer hanging on Jabba's wall which is why they don't go and get him right now. And they don't lug Qi'Ra off in chains because she can help get him in there.

Also the issue had a great flashback to Han and Qi'Ra on Correlia where Han was self-sacrificing for the greater good which had some very big Solo vibes which I really appreciated.

 

https://www.starwars.com/news/marvel-star-wars-19-exclusive-preview

Spoiler

 

Lothal! Ezra and Luke connection!

 

Personally I am interested in the new planets mentioned here.

Al'doleem seems like it will be the focus, and it has a cool look to it. Makes me think of Dark Force 2: Jedi Knight for some reason.

But I am especially intrigued by Arasahar. It has a strong enough jedi connection for Luke to feel, and the Empire is apparently willing to put a lot of resources into protecting it, and as far as I can tell it isn't a reference to any existing world, legends or canon, which makes me wonder if it might be an early peak to a world that will be important in a future story...I mean, it might just be a randomly named thing thrown out into the wild,,,but still I can't help but wonder what is there.

 

Isn't that the moon where Vader fought and killed Jedi Master Kirak In'fila and took his lightsaber?

 

Ah, so it is. I did not catch that all.

That explains the flooded town then.