SDCC hosted The High Republic Panel, finally offering details on the final Wave of Phase I: Light of the Jedi, with a series of ominous titles with an even more portentous tagline: “The Light of the Jedi goes dark…” If you wanted uplifting, you’ve come to read the wrong post! Check out the video above and head below to see all the news together.
Hosted by The High Republic Show‘s Krystina Arielle, the SDCC The High Republic panel spent a little time with each of the five authors, allowing them to talk about the project so far and then revealing and discussing upcoming projects! Cavan Scott was the only author not to announce anything new, though I do believe he deserves a nice little break after The Rising Storm, the current The High Republic comic at Marvel, and the two upcoming projects: Tempest Runner, the audiobook about Lourna Dee that he succinctly described as “Lourna Dee behind bars,” and The High Republic Adventures – The Monster of Temple Peak with IDW focusing on TRS‘ Ty Yorrick before the events of said novel. I really loved how he wrote TRS, with a giant map of the characters on his wall as if he was catching a serial killer…his words, not mine! Daniel José Older discussed Race to Crashpoint Tower and his The High Republic Adventures series at IDW, where the Free Comic Book Day issue in August will feature the mechanic Jedi Padawan Ram Jomaram, one of Crashpoint‘s protagonists, and more of his adventures on Valo during the attack on the Republic Fair, and thankfully it won’t be the last we see of him! Older also hyped up his upcoming Marvel miniseries, Trail of Shadows, using words like dark, moody, complex, full of twists and turns, and old school detective stories; after the recent October solicit revealing more details, my hype level has gone through the atmosphere. Justina Ireland’s next novel, Out of the Shadows, releases July 27 (so next Tuesday, which is when our reviews will be live!), talking about how the San Tekka and Graf family’s factor into its events and hauler Sylvestri Yarrow’s life (sneak peek of my review: it’s a damn good book!), and sharing her excitement for Vernestra Rwoh’s many appearances across many different titles; several interior pages of her September The Edge of Balance manga, written alongside Shima Shinya, were shown off in the video as well, and part of the book involves Lily Tora-Asi helping place refugees from the Great Disaster that kicked off the era in Light of the Jedi. Speaking of the opening novel, Charles Soule reiterated some great stuff he’s said regarding how timely the first novel felt in the middle of the pandemic, while he dove into his thoughts on Nihil leader Marchion Ro, like how he’d probably buy you a space beer…then his friendly mask would come off and his true self would hide behind another one. And lastly, Claudia Gray spoke about how much fun it was to write Geode, which I can only imagine was a blast from how she played with the reality of the character during Into the Dark and has now been carried on in the latest The High Republic Adventures issue, while she dives into Jedi Master Cohmac Vitus’ feelings about the Jedi Order as a whole, like his concern about them considering the light and dark side as separate, and her excitement about Reath Silas’ journey in Ireland’s Out of the Shadows.
At the end of each of their sections, they also revealed their projects for Phase I, Wave III, coming January 2022, which ends the “Light of the Jedi.” So without further ado, let’s jump into all the spooky, ominous, and totally not happy titles:
As for why these titles and the final wave’s tagline are so dark, just read to the end of The Rising Storm, and then these new entries might make a bit more sense.
Out January 18, 2022, Claudia Gray returns to the era finally with the next Del Rey novel, The Fallen Star, which closes out the first Phase. She said no more than that, so let your imagination run wild, but I have a few theories…
Charles Soule will write an epic-sized two issue miniseries Eye of the Storm, 30 pages each, which will finally explore Marchion Ro’s background!! I love that Ro’s past will come alive this way, as I feel like it makes a little more sense than Kylo Ren’s being in a comic (though still good comic), as I am so damn eager to learn more about him and I don’t know if making us wait any longer would’ve been a good idea.
Justina Ireland returns with another middle-grade novel with Mission to Disaster, likely launching alongside Gray’s The Fallen Star as these have in the past, though that’s all the detail we have on it.
And lastly, Daniel José Older will write the next young-adult novel, Midnight Horizon, which easily wins the best titled of the era so far! As for what it’s about, he only said it’s a “…chaotic mess.”
As for when we might get more detail, there’s a fourth The High Republic Show next week Wednesday, July 28, that promises even more!! After the second wave of titles, I was all in for the era and the wait for next January will be quite a lot, but thankfully there’s still so much content coming before then. Return back to the Manor the latest and greatest about the era next week!
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.