Comics A/V Star Wars Adventures & SWA: Forces of Destiny comics (IDW)

From SW.com: SDCC 2019: Highlights from the Lucasfilm Publishing Panel

Return to Vader's Castle, another collection of spooky stories coming for Halloween season, will focus on the bad guys. Stories will center around Darth Maul, Asajj Ventress, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin. In the original Tales from Vader's Castle series, writer Cavan Scott turned Christopher Lee's Count Dooku into a vampire; now, he's turning Tarkin — or Peter Cushing, another horror icon alongside Christopher Lee — into a classic archetype. "Long ago, Grand Moff Tarkin created a monster," said Scott, "who's now coming after him." Horror fans, rejoice: black-and-white covers will also be available.

Some cover art:

Spoiler: Return to Vader's Castle

 

I'll be up for this - I liked Tales From Vader's Castle.

 

this image gives me Swamp Thing vibes.

 

More Tarkin, Maul, and Ventress stories - what's not to like? The Tarkin one, I guess it's a Frankenstein knockoff... I wonder how that's going to work.

 

Doctor Aphra showed us that the Tarkin Initiative created various abominations like a Wookiee with a railgun for a head, Hutt clone troopers, and a rathtar merged with an interrogation droid. It could be that one of the Initiative's monsters escapes.

 

Anyone read #23?

We got a Lando/Chewie story that takes place after the Battle of Endor with a special guest appearance from a PT character. They don't reference the events of Shattered Empire but I assume they still apply here since this story is semi similar.

Also, we get a Jabba/Bib story aka "Bib Fortuna Doesn't Get A Day Off".

I'm sure this is old news, but at the end of the comic in the fan letter section, the authors mention stories coming in 27-29 related to the Journey to TROS, so we'll see if they're interesting at all. My guess is probably not.

 

I'd assume it'd take place between issues #1 and #2/3 of Shattered Empire, in the twenty days between the Battle of Endor and Lando's appearance at Operation Cinder over Naboo. Presumably the "after-parties" on Endor (and Han and Leia's wedding) take place in that gap.

 

Yeah, it's been a while since I've read Shattered Empire, so I don't remember Lando's involvement so thanks for the reminder. So this "Adventures" story is implying that once Operation Cinder was taken care of, everyone went back to "partying" on Endor or at the very least, I guess the Rebellion uses Endor as a base of operations for a while since there's that one animated short where Hera is getting supplies from Han and others on Endor sometime after the events Battle of Endor and Operation Cinder, right?

 

No; Operation Cinder occurs 20 days after Endor, so I'm suggesting this Adventures story takes place within those 20 days, before Cinder. The Endor "after-party" would be very soon after ROTJ. I'd assume everything set on Endor would probably be in that period, the Hera story included. The rest of Shattered Empire shows the Alliance gathering at fleet muster points in space, so I think the implication is they've left Endor, or at least aren't primarily based there.

 

yah I totally slotted this as early after Endor, Han and Leia may have had, like, a week of downtime after putting out the immediate brushfire and then the entire galaxy went nuts. But they got a solid week in there at least!

Anyway, I was pretty stoked that Sebulba was the podracer who had fallen on hard times (I was expecting an original character but I am totally okay that Sebulba is still around). That basically made the first story for me (although it seems "Battle Racing" is basically just everyone shoots at each other, doesn't look like much of a race to me) and I enjoyed the 2nd one just cuz I like seeing Jabba's minions put upon by circumstance.

 

I'm crying.

Spoiler

 

Looks like Zombie swampthing Grand Inquisitor with Purge Troopers. Maul looks like's from Rebels timeline with his hoodie from Malachor or could be the art,lol. Ventress looks like she is wearing her late TCW costume. Tarkin looks like Ra's al Ghul from Batman the animated series.

 

Spoiler

Breha is awesome for telling her all about TPM Padme, because TPM Padme was the coolest Padme.

 

I ordered a TPB of Tales from Vader's Castle on Amazon this past week and received what's basically a box set with the five individual issues. Is this the standard for what the TPB is?

 

No. You ended up getting the box set, which isn't the same as the TPB. Did you use this link?

 

Both stories in the 2019 Annual were great.

Spoiler

More Jaxxon is always a treat, and we got the old TIE/d droid starfighters back...and they're useless! Nice to see a little Chandrila too.

And the Leia story was utterly charming and moving. It reminded me of A Star Wars Comic's Leia tribute where Rey learns about her own (spiritual) forebear. Plus, nice to see some Clone Wars moments depicted in comic form.

 

I guess so. I used the Honey app which suggested a cheaper option. Knowing what I know now panics me because I'm not sure if I'll be able to find the same for the upcoming sequel series

 

At this rate canon will do more with Jaxxon than Legends did.

 

Spoiler

Wow, Annual '19 has Dark Empire TIE/D droid starfighters!

 

so jaxxon's species is confirmed to have enhanced jumping capabilities this issue?

 

more fuel to the fire of the Dark Empire Sequel Conspiracy!

 

Preview for #24 is up:
(source: IDW's site)

Spoiler: SWA #24 preview pages

Spoiler: a comment on the above

I believe the Mirrin sector and Rapier Squadron are from Greg Rucka's Before the Awakening, yes?

I've fallen behind on my comics reading and haven't read the 2019 Annual yet! Real life has some real audacity demanding my time and attention away from Jaxxon axxtion...

 

Spoiler

Yup, they are! Rapier Squadron is based out of a New Republic base on Mirrin Prime. That's also the NR pilot's uniform seen in Resistance, and of course the NR sigil first seen in Aftermath.

 

Spoiler

Was that Ronan the Accuser in this issue?