Dropping jaws to the floor with her artwork time and time again, recently giving Star Wars comics fans beautiful Women’s History Month variant covers and a haunting tale in Darth Vader: Black, White & Red #1, Peach Momoko will kick off a series of Star Wars: Visions one-shot comics launching in November from Marvel! The potential is limitless with the series, as we could get original tales like Momoko’s or maybe even return to familiar ones from episodes past, and only time will tell where the series could go. Head below for more about Momoko’s dark side cult focused tale, including incredible glimpses of her designs for it!
The last Star Wars: Visions comic served as a prequel to Volume 1’s “The Duel,” which already had an amazing sequel in the novel Ronin, proving the series of animated shorts was fertile ground for all types of storytelling. Momoko’s often otherworldly work seems like the most fitting voice in comics to launch a series of one-shots under the Visions label, with her issue tentatively titled Star Wars: Visions – Peach Momoko #1, which is out November 15.
Here’s the description from the announcement, saying it,
“…picks up centuries after the death of a major Sith Lord, with a cult called Ankok having grown around the notorious dark side servant. Tata, leader of the cult, believes she is the rightful successor to this Sith Lord. Meanwhile, a girl named Kako and her loyal droid Gel are fated to confront this new evil.”
While this sounds fascinating on its own, especially since it’s rare we get such a focus on the Sith or the dark side, it’s a combination of her artwork glimpsed below for the characters and Momoko’s thoughts on why she wanted to tell this story which leaves me absolutely eager to devour this in November. As for the artwork, is Popo the same species as Maz Kanata? And how does the cult leader, Tata, look both benevolent and frighteningly powerful at the same time? And the design for Gel looks old, tired, yet determined for a droid, leaving me fascinated to learn more.
Beyond the great description and designs, Momoko’s own words leave me eager for this release as well, as it’s a fascinating point to make about the dark side:
“I wanted to tell a story about a cult. And I felt within the Star Wars universe, the dark side was something that ties to when a human, or something living, loses itself and then wants to rely on believing something in order to have hope to live. I believe falling to the dark side is nothing to be ashamed of. It could save you. Sometimes the dark side can help defeat your trauma and fear. In the story, Ankok’s belief is that the time when light defeats darkness has ended. It is the time to accept the darkness. And Tata is only using the dark side to help those who need a ‘dark light.’”
The official announcement says these one-shots will be ‘untethered’ from current Star Wars storytelling, yet I hope it doesn’t rule out picking up stories from Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 shorts! Regardless, this series looks to have a really unique start with Peach Momoko’s work in November!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.