Always full of some neat surprises, NYCC’s 2025 Lucasfilm Publishing Panel didn’t disappoint (well, in one way it did, but see the comic section below), as we got a good glimpse at some exciting new releases, like a novel about Leia and Rey as Master and Apprentice, the promised ‘Phase More’ for the High Republic first shows up with a comic, Jar Jar stars in a special one-shot comic co-written by Ahmed Best, and more! Head below for all the details!
Big thanks to live-posters on Bluesky like Bryan Reheil via The Star Wars Splash Page, Admiral Jello, and Bria LaVorgna! And we would’ve had this posted sooner, but I was unable to upload media and had to go through a whole process with the support team, so thanks for you patience!
NOVELS
Let’s start with the big novel announcement: Madeleine Roux’s Legacy, out July 28, 2026, with a cover by Sophia Cowdrey! Set between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, it’ll be all about Rey and Leia learning to work together as Master and Apprentice, and will see the two traveling to Tython (which is name many fans should recognize, from The Mandalorian, Doctor Aphra, The Old Republic, and more!). In an exclusive interview with the official site, Roux dove into what she’s hoping to bring to the story, from exploring Rey on a deeper level and what it means for the young Jedi to potentially be the face of the new Order plus dealing with the mother of the guy she just got out of a messy situation with, while Kylo Ren will have sections in the book too, and Rose’s homeworld of Hays Minor will somehow be important to the story, as she’s expanding on a First Order character in the Age of Resistance: Rose Tico, which I hope also means we’ll get more Rose?! There’s a lot to unpack here and this is teeing up to be a big novel with big implications for the future of the Saga, while I feel like it’ll do a lot of hard work to help flesh out the Sequel Trilogy era like Shadow of the Sith did! And as for Roux, I still can’t get over how many tissues I needed after her short in From a Certain Point of View: Star Wars, “Eclipse,” so I think this story will be in very good hands!
Before you check out the blurb about Legacy, it’s not the only Rey story on the way, as Kristin Baver makes her Star Wars Insider debut next year with a story featuring Rey! It’s all coming up Rey, as it should! Alright, without further ado, here’s Legacy‘s blurb:
Set between Episodes VIII and IX, Rey and Leia embark on a quest to repair Rey’s lightsaber and rekindle the legacy of the Jedi.
After barely escaping the First Order on Crait, Rey and the Resistance are struggling to rebuild. Her friends need the last Jedi more than ever, but Rey feels alone and overwhelmed. Jedi tradition is built on masters and apprentices, and Rey’s teacher is gone. Leia Organa tries her best to train Rey in the ways of the Force as Luke did for her so many years ago, but Leia’s knowledge is limited, Rey’s lightsaber is broken, and the specter of Kylo Ren and regrets from the past haunt them both. How can Leia pass the torch when she herself is unsure of the way?
But then, the ancient Jedi texts offer a glimmer of hope: a long-forgotten Jedi temple on Tython that might hold the key to repairing Rey’s saber. Rey leaps at the chance to journey there – and to her surprise, so does Leia.
Rey and Leia’s nascent mentorship is put to the test when they discover the temple on Tython is filled with obscure clues to decipher and arcane trials to complete. As they work to unravel the temple’s mysteries, they encounter a group of refugees living in its shadow, hiding from a First Order officer hot on the trail of two freedom fighters in their midst. With the threat of the First Order looming and the secrets of the temple yet to be unlocked, the newly forged master and apprentice must confront their pasts, reach each other in the present, and decide what it means to carry the legacy of the Jedi into the future.
Elsewhere in novel news, a whole new genre initiative is set to come from publishing, with the first announcement being Ahsley Poston’s Eyes Like Stars, a YA romance novel out Summer of 2026. A slew of different small books focusing on different genres could be full of intriguing new ideas, as I suspect we’ll get a horror-focused one in there, maybe a noir/detective one, or even a medical drama?! Hoping to hear more about this initiative soon! As for Eyes Like Stars, this is what the official site had to say about it here’s the blurb, containing new details:
A charming young adult romance featuring all-new characters (plus cameos!), a magnetic attraction, a mysterious artifact, and the fearsome First Order from New York Times bestseller, Ashley Poston.
When eighteen-year-old Ardent Quay saves the life of a snarky Wild Spacer on Coruscant, she doesn’t expect a thank you—and she certainly doesn’t expect him to stowaway on her father’s star tour ship. Yet here he is, taking up residence in the ship’s pantry and eating all of her favorite snacks. He’s mysterious and coy and strange, with silver hair and eyes speckled with stars, and no matter how much she tries to pull away, she can’t. She should report him to her father, but he soon convinces her that there’s a nefarious plot at play on this ship, one that has the lives of everyone onboard at stake. With the galaxy on the brink of war and the First Order breathing down their necks, Ardent and her stowaway must ferry a precious artifact to its home world without getting caught—or worse, killed.
This is, actually, a terrible time to take a tour of the galaxy. And an even worst time to fall in love.
But the views are always exquisite onboard the Starfarer.
Visiting Coruscant in the sequel trilogy era, even for a little bit, could be intriguing, especially if we get a hint at how everyone’s feeling about Hosnian Prime’s destruction and the whole First Order takeover! Also, the Starfarer…sounds like we’re getting another member of the starcruisers like the Halcyon now that there’s no hotel that specifically needs marketing, maybe?
Elsewhere in book coverage, The Art of Andor: The Complete Series by Phil Szostak was set for a June 2026 release, and will hopefully go well next to a physical release of Season Two! They also featured more interiors for The Art of Doug Chiang and the 50 Years of Industrial Light & Magic books, while a slew of The Mandalorian and Grogu tie-in stuff was mentioned, from the “Art of” book to a whole bunch of kids stuff, but alas, no new fiction.
COMICS
Before dive into the great comic news, my hopes were dashed as there are no updates on the fate of the Jedi Knights comic past its tenth issue nor any news on what’s up with Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent, which hasn’t had an issue past its fifth solicited despite its trade paperback claiming it’s at least 10 issues long. No news on either front, especially Aphra (which I finally got my first tattoo and you could probably never guess who it was of), was almost a big enough bummer for me to take away from the exciting news from the panel, but these announcements were cool enough to win in the end!
Where to start?! How about the first glimpse at what “Phase More” means for new High Republic-set stories? Hitting March 11, 2026, Dark Horse and George Mann, return to Phase II of the era with The High Republic Adventures: Pathfinders! With art by Partha Pratim, Jagdish Kumar, and Michael Atieyh, plus covers by Jake Bartok, this new series will pick up around 20 years after the end of Phase II and while it features new Jedi characters Tamesh (not clear on the spelling) and Anula, we should see familiar faces too, which I’m hoping means Rooper Nitani (and a visit with Silandra Sho?!), given it looks like the Jedi Shield is being weilded by someone in the cover for the second issue! Given it “…follows a brand-new team of Republic Pathfinders as they are dispatched to a distant corner of the galaxy to investigate the strange death of a Jedi Master,” and has Pathfinders in the title, I feel like we’ll get a better feel for what being a Pathfinder team was like than the main story was allowed to focus on.
And then in a whole other direction, we’re getting a Jar Jar one-shot comic, co-written by Marc Guggenheim and the man, the myth, the legend Ahmed Best as well?!!? If it couldn’t get any more meta, it somehow does, as it’ll feature Jar Jar teaming up with Kelleran Beq, with a story covering everything from Jar Jar giving emergency powers to the Chancellor and how he’s somehow part of the formation of the Rebellion, too?! With art by Kieran McKeown, who just delivered some great looking work for Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent #4, and factor in how Guggenheim gave us the amazing moment of Jar Jar using a lightsaber to save Captain Rex, how can you not immediately need the hell out of this?! It’s out February 11, 2026.
A new manga from Viz Media, from writers Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi, expands the Visions publishing with July 14, 2026’s Star Wars: Visions: Tsukomo! The cover alone is already making this a must-read, but the premise is as unique as one would expect from a Visions-related story: “In the wake of Order 66, a lone Jedi Knight accompanies a pair of droids to a rumored “Droids’ Paradise” while being pursued by the Empire.” Droid paradise?? Sign me up.
As for the current comics, Charles Soule was on hand with some Legacy of Vader previews and teases, including how issue #10 will pay off Luke Skywalker’s “See you around, kid,” line to Kylo Ren!!! Guggenheim hyped up the remaining Jedi Knights issues we know about, from the standalone one with a unique POV and the two-parter of issues #9 and #10 paying off the big story of the assassin after Qui-Gon Jinn. And Ethan Sacks got to show off some art from his upcoming third entry in Boba Fett: Black, White & Red, revealing the story features a younger Boba and an older Boba. Other than that, unfortunately like I said earlier, crickets for the fates of the other series.
What did you think of NYCC 2025? Anything you’d rather see or did you like what they revealed? Let us know in the comments or on social media! Otherwise, head back to the Manor for more news and eventually reviews of these items as they release!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky and Instagram @mynockmanor.
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