While it didn’t unveil what Marvel’s big Star Wars plans are, the NYCC 2024 Lucasfilm Publishing Panel did feature much anticipated covers for The High Republic’s final wave of stories, new armored Jedi concept art for the era, and a tango-y poster for the upcoming audiobook Tempest Breaker, while there was one big Marvel Comics announcement: the Jedi Knights on-going series! Head below for all the great new artwork and details on the new series!
In a panel hosted by The High Republic Show‘s (PLEASE BRING IT BACK) Krystina Arielle, on hand were Lucasfilm Publishing Creative Director Michael Siglain, Steven Barnes, Lydia Kang, Charles Soule, Zoraida Córdova, and Marc Guggenheim. Thanks to live-tweeters (and live-skyers, not sure yet for Blusky) like ArezouAmin and ardokranch for immediate coverage and extra information. And here’s the links to the official site’s coverage and the Marvel’s blog coverage.
MARVEL COMICS
Since there’s so much High Republic stuff, I’ll cover that in the next section, and instead focus on the Marvel Star Wars comics announcements the panel had. Charles Soule not only reminisced about his most recent on-going work, but he took the time to tease what was coming next, beyond the recently revealed A New Legacy one-shot: he revealed a comic he is working on will be a look back on and a look forward on characters he’s “associated” with, and one of them made the room gasp when he mentioned who it was…which could be anything, from High Republic related to characters like Darth Momin or Lando Calrissian, but it sounds fascinating; and secondly, he mentioned he obviously knows what Marvel content is coming, but didn’t share, but hopefully they will soon.
For what was actually revealed, it seems the much teased project from Marc Guggenheim (Yoda, Han Solo & Chewbacca) is Jedi Knights, an on-going comic with art by Madibek Musabekov (Star Wars {Vol. 2}), which will focus on Jedi duos in a connecting story set before The Phantom Menace,
“Taking place before The Phantom Menace, STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS stars the Jedi Order as fans came to know it during the Prequel Trilogy including legendary characters like Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, and many more. In addition to featuring iconic and fan-favorite Jedi duo, the series will introduce all new Jedi characters that served the Republic during this pivotal era.
Each issue will spotlight a different Jedi duo on a different mission throughout the galaxy, but an overarching threat binds them together. Who is the mysterious new villain targeting Qui-Gon Jinn for death and how will it force the Jedi Order to evolve for a new age?”
This is such a fun concept and, while we’ve had plenty of lightsaber action in the comics to date, with Jedi being the focus many times, never has it quite been like this! John Jackson Miller’s The Living Force did a really great job of including tons of Jedi, pairing them in duos, and taking place before TPM, so I look forward to what Guggenheim has worked up for Jedi duos and how the story of Jedi Knights all fits together about someone wanting to kill Qui-Gon (who doesn’t, honestly). As for who it will all feature, there’s of course the usual suspects like Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace Windu, but I love we’ll get to see even more, like the cover teases: Dooku, Yaddle, Plo Koon, Ki-Adi Mundi, Depa Billaba, Adi Gallia, Aayla Secura, Luminara Unduli, Shaak Ti, and Kit Fisto. Even better yet, it feature two firsts: a disabled Jedi, named Venta Mooncrest (spelling unknown), a big step for an area of representation Star Wars doesn’t cover very often; and the first canon appearance of Atha Prime, which I had to look up on Wookieepedia, but basically it was a character the toy company Kenner created for a speculative line of Star Wars toys that was ultimately rejected, then decades later there were many attempts by Abel G. Pena, a Star Wars Insider writer, to get the character into canon…and now they are, in this comic, which I’ll be interested to see how Prime is implemented! Maybe one day Hasbro can make a toy, bringing the whole thing full circle. We’ll have more as they reveal it, but expect the first issue of Jedi Knights to start in March 2025, which you can see the opening splash page below, inspired by D-Day!
opening spread! pic.twitter.com/qN0EDq62eg
— mac 🫐 @ nycc (@ardokranch) October 18, 2024
THE HIGH REPUBLIC
As for The High Republic section of the panel, there was plenty to glean from, while the covers were a delight to finally behold, but expect some more news at Saturday’s Dark Horse Star Wars comics panel as well, which we’ll cover on the Manor, too. In the meantime, there was no cover for Trials of the Jedi, the final novel from Charles Soule out in June 2025, but we did get some concept art of familiar characters like Burryaga, Bell Zettifar, Avar Kriss, Elzar Mann, and Azlin Rell (is that an Echo Stone in his cane?!) in unique new armor looks, armor they have to don when going to a place they’ve never gone before….which leaves me to guess: Planet X. There’s no way the home of the Nameless won’t factor into the finale in a big way, so I’ll be interested to see and learn why such armor is necessary…is it to help them conquer the effect of the creatures, relying solely on the Force for sight? Time will tell, but it’s almost better than a cover reveal to tease the book this way, while Soule’s own words promised how nail-biting an experience it will be, “Every character you know from all the books will have their lives come down to four or five pages.” At least we know to be prepared to be more stressed out than usual for a High Republic book.
As for actual covers, oh boy, Reath Silas, are you stepping in the blight, the deadly plaque which kills everything it touches?! And doing it on Kashyyyk?! What are you up to and why are you here?! Claudia Gray’s young adult novel Into the Light is out April 1, 2025 and we don’t have many more details on it at the moment besides this beautiful and frightening cover to worry over.
Up next is A Valiant Vow, Justina Ireland’s middle-grade novel, out May 6, 2025. On the cover is Imri Cantaros, who’s former Master Vernestra Rwoh left behind the Stormwall to help others, Tep Tep, one of the Valo younglings whose gone through some terrifying experiences in her young age, and J-6 name, Avon Starros’ droid who certainly has a mind of her own now. I have no doubt Avon will star heavily in the novel as well, given the word “vow” in the title and we’ve yet to see when she’s asked Deva Lompop to look after her family for generations to come.
The next cover is for the upcoming The Acolyte: The Crystal Crown, by Tessa Gratton and out July 29, 2025, which just got its full official title as well. It’ll star The Acolyte‘s Yord Fandar and Jecki Lon in a story set before the show, so make sure to support its release to maybe help push the bar on a season two renewal. Here’s the blurb:
“While their Jedi Masters clean up a political mess left by one of their own, Jedi Padawan Jecki and her least favorite Padawan Yord are drawn into a planet-wide coming-of-age ritual as featured guests. The first ritual goes well, but when the event is interrupted, Jecki and Yord will have to use all of their abilities and work together to keep each other — and their new friends — safe from danger.”
While this next one is no cover, it’s a stunning piece of artwork, showing Lourna Dee and Marchion Ro in the tango to end all tangos…and maybe one of both of their lives! This is a fun and enticing poster for Cavan Scott’s upcoming December 3 Tempest Breaker, which will feature a full cast. I don’t need to know much more now that we have this!!
One of the last new covers is The High Republic: Fear of the Jedi #2, which gives us more Lourna Dee, though she seems to be up to her old ways, as characters like Kelnacca and Tey Sirrek seemed beaten and bruised…is it all part of a game? We’ll find out when the series begins in February 2025!
The last cover is for the first new short story in Lydia Kang’s return to Star Wars Insider stories, once again focusing on Jess and Pikka Arden, this time during the events of the Battle of Eriadu, an upcoming storyline set to be featured in The High Republic Adventures – Phase III soon! Kang was replaced briefly with “Chronicles of Corellia” by Alyssa Wong. Check these out if you can, they’ve been a blast, and I high suggest seeing if your library is teamed with Libby to bring you a digital edition of the Insider magazine, that’s how I read ’em!
While it’s not a cover, these above pieces of art are a great look into the future with the upcoming The High Republic Adventures Annual 2025 from Dark Horse, tentatively out January 22, 2025! We learned about this a little while ago, including most of the stories and who is writing who, and the artwork above reveals a little more: on the left are the characters from Charles and his daughter Rosemary Soule’s Jedi Brave in Every Way story out to go see a movie, when of course everything goes awry, with art from Andy Duggan; and then on the right, Churo the Hutt is back and looking adorable as ever, with Córdova revealed he’s looking for a mythical planet to heal Nal Hutta…did it get hit by the blight too? The art is by Juan Samu. Looking forward to this one!
That wraps it up for this year’s Lucasfilm Publishing Panel! I was hoping for a little more non-High Republic teases, especially from Marvel, but all in all, not quite the bad list of reveals and first looks. And don’t forget, Dark Horse has their own, so we’ll have coverage of that on Manor once it’s done!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Bluesky, Twitter @MynockManor, and Instagram @mynockmanor.