As we inch closer and closer to the release of The High Republic on January 5, the team behind the initiative have been busy with interviews and teases about what’s to come for readers, no matter their level of engagement. Beyond the exciting reveal of a show set at the era’s end, The Acolyte, more surprises and announcements are set to be revealed in an upcoming livestream hyping up the launch. Get all the new details below! (Update: THR has begun and our reviews are rolling in!)
The interviews have dropped in, swift and furious, with little details strewn about each and every one. The official site has been interviewing the writers on a weekly basis, leading up to the release of the initiative, and so they’ve focused more on the process behind making the series work. We already discussed Charles Soule’s interview in the previous coverage drop, so the next in the line is Justina Ireland, author of A Test of Courage, the middle-grade novel out January 5! She offers up a lot of humor answering questions, so it’s worth reading alone for her funny responses, but the part I liked the most was her tease about the Starros clan’s part to play in the era. We know Sana Starros, a bounty hunter with a serious ability to hold a grudge, from comics like Star Wars and Doctor Aphra, where she’s set to appear again with her ex, and AToC will star Avon Starros, a young inventor, sent away by her mother, a Senator! To go from a family of Senators to bounty hunters, well, Ireland says, ““For those wondering how the Starros go from this fairly affluent clan of politicians and scientists to scum and villainy, there is a story arc for that!” so we’ll see it happen throughout the era! Having already read Courage a bit, I see the inklings of maybe how it happens, and I really love Avon so far, so it’s a thread I look forward to see develop throughout the stories!
The next interview is a joint one with the two comic writers, Daniel José Older and Cavan Scott, but it also includes some comments from Lucasfilm’s Publishing Creative Director, Michael Siglain, the man behind the scenes who put this whole thing together! In fact, one of his comment is a wonderful little tease, as he says Older’s The High Republic Adventures for IDW won’t immediately have any clear connections to the larger story, but later on it will make sense. Older mentions his series introduces two character who are part of a group that believe no one should use the Force, an interesting take considering the Jedi are at their height and they’ll be stuck traveling with Lula Talisola and even Yoda, and those are the type of interactions I can’t wait to see unfold; we got a hint of this already from the preview last month. Scott discusses how working with artist Ario Anindito turned their Marvel on-going comic, The High Republic, into a horror-heavy tale, especially with the growing threat of the Drengir, a spooky sentient tree species that sounds even more terrifying than the Nihil! He also mentions that Sskeer, a Transdoshan Master to his series’ eventual Jedi Knight, Keeve Trennis, is acting off by the time the comic starts, and since it’s set after Light of the Jedi, I have a good idea why, so you’ll have to read it to get a glimpse at what might be going on!
And with Claudia Gray’s interview, we know the least about her YA novel, Into the Dark, so it was intriguing to have the curtain pushed back a bit ahead of its February 2 release. She opens by discussing the enjoyment of interacting with the other authors, while also happy and nervous not to have the guardrails of known stuff to center her work. Into the Dark will center on Padawan Reath Silas, the apprentice to Jora Malli, the eventual head of the Jedi contingent on Starlight Beacon. Previously, Gray said Silas considers taking out his blade the absolute last resort, so it’s no surprise she also describes him as the male Jedi equivalent to Hermione from Harry Potter, as he knows his limitations but knows how to compensate for them. Otherwise, she mentions two other Jedi with interesting stories: Dez Rydan, another confident member of this era’s Order who runs into something none of them are prepared for (what a tease!); Orla Jareni is a Wayseeker, which is an interesting path for a Jedi as they essentially leave the Order but are still part of it, as they go about and listen to the Force’s guidance on what is often a solitary quest. I’ll be curious to learn why a Jedi becomes a Wayseeker, but it sounds like less of a punishment as the Barash vow (seen in Soule’s Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith series), and more like an opportunity.
Elsewhere, the interviews stack up:
- At Polygon, they provided some fully drawn and colored pages from The High Republic comic, introducing us to one of the two (new to us) Jedi Grandmasters, while revealing Yoda (the one Grandmaster we already know) isn’t much for formality quite yet.
- For CNET, they go over each of the opening works, with the writers and artists discussing what’s to come in their stories.
- And io9’s virtual roundtable included another tease on how much bigger this story really is than we all expect, and reading LotJ is a good place to start to maybe see how much bigger the story could be!
Ahead of reading any of the books, especially if you won’t be enjoying any of the comics, the official site revealed some of the designs for ships in the era, like the Jedi’s nimble Vector ships, Republic Longbeams, and the Nihil’s nasty looking ships, all taken from concept art already made for the Saga!
And this won’t be the last of our news roundups, as a livestream has been announced for January 4 (at 11am CST) with all the authors, Siglain, and Kristin Baver! It’s supposed to include some surprises and announcements, so tuning in, or checking back here for our coverage of it afterwards, means you won’t miss what they have in store!
And lastly, the TV series from Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), The Acolyte, was announced! It takes place at the end of The High Republic era and “will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers.” As for what the “end of the era” means, well, it seems the announcement of a THR novel made specifically for the Chinese market, The Vow of Silver Dawn, made it all clear: it’s about 50 years before The Phantom Menace, which is when The Vow of Silver Dawn will take place as well. As for when/if the rest of the fanbase will get a chance to read the book…it remains to be seen. While Acolyte will be female-centric with its cast, the hint it’ll feature “emerging dark side powers,” it’s not impossible we might see some familiar names or faces of the…Sith-ly persuasion.
Check back here on the January 4 for our coverage of the livestream and then January 5 for reviews of the first two books!
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.
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