– Spoiler Review –
With the future of Marvel’s Star Wars comics still unknown, they’re at least treating us to a big event in the mean time, The Battle of Jakku maxiseries! The Battle of Jakku: Insurgency Rising #1 kicks off the whole thing, setting the stage for the galactic conflict to come as well as the hardships our heroes will face before the big showdown. Find out how it all starts in my review!
As a quick reminder/rundown, Insurgency Rising is the first of three miniseries which comprise The Battle of Jakku’s 12-issue run, with a majority of the maxiseries releasing prior to 2025. It’s going to be an explosive several weeks these next few months as The Battle of Jakku looks to take stuff from all over the canon, be it games, novels, and of course the comics, and bring them all together in what already seems to be a likely epic story. There are connections to previous material already present in this opening chapter and the backup story, with a grand majority of it being pulled from the mobile game Star Wars Uprising, which launched in 2015 and was shut down a year later before it completed its story, so in a way we’re going to finally see how it all shakes out. There’s a scene from The Princess and the Scoundrel here as well, which was neat to see visualized but sort of felt out of place/context here, while additional scenes/where the story goes here opens some questions on how the events of the book all fits together with what happens in the issue. And lastly, the Acolytes of the Beyond, and their terrorizing of the galaxy in the early days after Endor, was first featured throughout the Aftermath Trilogy and later revisited in the sequel era book Shadow of the Sith, and it seems like we’re set to see more of their campaign throughout this maxiseries, some of which was hinted at in Shadow. Insurgency Rising #1 isn’t the most even of starts overall, but seeing all these different facets coming together to core out the story here is an exciting prospect, and I look forward to what writer Alex Segura has in store for us as he expands and connects throughout the series.
Without the backup story, “The Rising,” still written by Segura, the main thrust of Insurgency Rising #1 wouldn’t have been as effective. “The Rising” dives into Governor, later Moff, and then seemingly self-titled Grand Moff Ubrik Adelhard’s backstory and builds him up as a viable threat for the fledgling New Republic to deal with, beyond all their other problems picking up the pieces after the Empire’s end. It’s a quick story, but fascinating in a few ways, as he joins up with the oppressive Empire as a lowly stormtrooper and diligently works his way up, working alongside such fierce and shrewd agents of the Empire like Thrawn (having witnessed the battle at Atollon in the Rebels season three finale), Grand Moff Tarkin, and even Darth Vader, learning from each of them on how to be cold and decisive in the efforts to grant the galaxy order, even gassing an entire planet to get at dissidents. Without this story, Adelhard wouldn’t have come off as anything more than any other Imperial warlord out for themselves, as while he preaches misinformation about the Emperor’s demise, clamping down on any suggestion otherwise, he didn’t seem like he had the chops to keep up such a ruse for long. Adelhard’s Iron Blockade of the Anoat Sector eventually falls, even if Uprising never got to show how it happened, the Aftermath Trilogy at least confirmed its end, but the how and why, given his penchant for deadly and precise tactics, should certainly lead this to be a hard fought battle likely worthy the full 12-issues.
If you haven’t read The Princess and the Scoundrel, one of the more intriguing early scenes in the book gets a refresh via this opening issue: Leia Organa visiting Darth Vader’s pyre, confronting his impact. I’d strongly urge reading the book still, as I even felt the Halcyon’s (aka the now closed Galactic Starcruiser hotel) inclusion wasn’t shoehorned in, as while this scene was a delight to see here, there’s much more context to the moment. There are a few scenes which take place before and after this moment from the book which are new, but they leave big questions on how it all works together with the book’s events, to the point it feels random to have included Leia’s scene, though if you haven’t read the book it won’t really be a problem for you. Given we’ve had 10 years of comics where Luke and Leia don’t know they are siblings, it was refreshing to see them interact as such and even call each other as such, and I look forward to more of that in future stories, while having Han back after he’s spent the last nearly five years as the Hansicle was also delightful and promising for what’s ahead. How the overall maxiseries will deal with these characters, as well as the other stories set during this time, will be of great interest, as Luke’s actions during this timeframe are largely still a mystery, while if the inclusion of scenes from one novel seem a little random, hopefully combining other stories into this will feel more cohesive.
The main story begins and ends with Rynn Zenat, a B-wing pilot for the Rebellion, who brings the ominous warning to our heroes about Adelhard’s actions in the Anoat sector. There’s some mystery around her appearance on Endor though, as no matter what galactic map you look at, the forest moon of Endor and the Anoat sector are quite a ways apart, and we see what looks like her B-wing explode just before the credits page, only for her to show up on Endor at the end….so is this really her, as we didn’t see her full face as it was behind a helmet, or is this someone else, maybe an Acolyte of the Beyond posing as her? The heroes brush over the slight impossibility of her arrival once she starts revealing what happened and what Adelhard is up to, so I’ll be curious to see if this will be revisited or it’s just a red herring of my own making. Regardless, I’m glad to see this big maxiseries event from Marvel have LGBTQIA+ rep front and center with Rynn, whose partner Preeti may or may not still be stuck in the Anoat sector thanks to Adelhard’s actions.
I only wondered if the Acolytes of the Beyond could be pretending to be Rynn because we’ve seen them in the Aftermath Trilogy pretend to be normal in aid of their various mischievous missions across the galaxy. When we meet the group here, they’re doing some sort of arcane ritual, chanting away, while their shadowy leader, Yupe Tashu, watches over them. Yupe Tashu was an advisor to Emperor Palpatine, having known him for a long time, and was always a Sith cultist fan, so it’s no surprise he started the dark side cult in hopes of restoring a Sithly darkness on the galaxy. Interestingly enough, he dies in Aftermath: Empire’s End, but it was revealed an ex-Acolyte killed him as well in Shadow of the Sith, and there’s actually supposed to be an explanation for the dueling deaths…maybe we’ll find out here? Tashu summons a mysterious woman, Reyna Oskure, to help him devise ways to smother the nascent New Republic before it grows too strong, and she’s set to go see Adelhard, who asked his underlings to bring her to him. Tashu is excited by the prospect, as he has big plans for the Grand Moff, and I’m betting she won’t be telling Adelhard she’s working with a shadowy figure like Tashu. Reyna’s species is also of great interest, as this is the first non-reference book appearance of an Anzati, which from Legends we knew were long-lived and almost vampiric, as they would drink the life force from others (calling it “soup” of all things) to sustain themselves. I hope this is a sign of a bigger presence of the species in the future and maybe even a hint at future Marvel and/or publishing plans.
On art there are two teams, one for the main story and another for the backup. In the main tale, we have artist Leonard Kirk and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, while the backup has Stefano Raffaele with Alex Sinclair on colors, while Joe Caramagna provides lettering for both. For Kirk and Rosenberg, I have to first focus on Leia talking to Vader’s pyre, picking up his helmet even, doing a very Skywalker thing and tossing it over her shoulder (Luke when Rey shows up on Ahch-To) to say she’s done with her anger, her feelings about him, and instead focusing on her family. When she first shows up to the scene, there’s muted colors for the flames dancing over his suit, smoke billowing out, almost suffocating Leia as she stands next to him, as if she can’t get out of his grasp. The colors are even fierier when she walks away a little to pick up his helmet, making us wonder if she’s coming with anger, where she might take this conversation, but the darkness of the forest moon’s night begins to creep in, dowsing those fiery colors, so as she talks to his helmet face-to-face, the calm, purple hues show us how she’s able to put her anger aside. My favorite panel in the sequence was the one where Vader’s burnt mask is in the forefront and Leia’s in the background, her back facing us, like Caramagna lets her words hang by the mask as she tells him, as much as us, that she’s setting her feelings on him for now. Another moment which stood out is how Rynn telling the story of what happened to her starts, as her face takes up the majority of the left side of the page and the events she’s talking about are little panels coming out of her head, like we’re seeing what she’s remembering. In the backup story, Raffaele and Sinclair really caught my attention with the gassed planet page, where Adelhard’s Star Destroyer hangs over the world and sickly green lightning which ends in gaseous clouds shoots out of it, almost alien/squid-like in their appearance, while the planet itself is brown, suggesting life-less and barren after his actions; it’s such a great marker of the destruction he can bring to the table, with only a single Destroyer to his name. The opening page of the story, using the visual from Battlefront II’s early mission of the Death Star II’s debris hanging in space, while a narration box hangs in its midst, gives readers a sense how much is working against Adelhard in this attempt to rebuild the Empire, its ashes literally out his window to see.
Here are a few other things:
- It’s extremely rare, in fact I’m trying to think of an instance and I’m coming up short, for the narrator in a Star Wars comic not to be one of the characters, as the narration in this first issue so far seems to be a third-person omniscient voice. It has some memorable lines, especially about how wars are won or the feelings Leia has as she approaches Vader’s pyre, and I appreciate the perspective it brings and I hope we get more of it during the series.
- When will we learn what Marvel has next for their Star Wars comics line? Well, there’s a publishing panel at NYCC on 10/18/2025, only a few days after the second issue of Insurgency Rising releases, which is when/where I’m guessing reveals could happen.
- Here’s the current release schedule for the remaining Battle of Jakku story, minus dates for the final two issues: Insurgency Rising #2 10/16; Insurgency Rising #3 10/30; Insurgency Rising #4 11/6; Republic Under Siege #1 11/20; Republic Under Siege #2 11/27; Republic Under Siege #3 12/4; Republic Under Siege #4 12/11; Last Stand #1 12/25; Last Stand #2 1/8/2025.
The Battle of Jakku: Insurgency Rising #1 is a decent start, providing an early glimpse of how it’ll bring various story threads together while telling a new one, all while promising to have a story and epic battle ahead worthy of its big event, 12-issue run.
+ Exciting to be in this era and seeing various stories from other sources combine…
+ Backup story selling us on Adelhard’s threat
+ Both art teams make some memorable moments
– …but leaves us wondering how it will work with other stories
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.