Adam Bankhurst over at IGN dropped the exclusive first look today at Star Wars: Crimson Reign, a new Marvel limited comic series that will follow the exploits of Solo’s Qi’ra!
Consisting of five issues, this limited series will debut in November 2021, all of which will be written by Charles Soule, a name most any Star Wars publishing fan will recognize. Soule has written multiple Star Wars comics book series’ for Marvel including Lando, Obi-Wan & Anakin, Poe Dameron, Rise of Kylo Ren, and his groundbreaking Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith series. He is currently writing Marvel’s mainline Star Wars run set after Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
Along with Justina Ireland, Claudia Gray, Daniel José Older, and Cavan Scott, he’s also one of the architects of the Star Wars: The High Republic publishing initiative, kicking off the whole thing with his epic novel, The High Republic: Light of the Jedi. In other words, the man is busy, but not too busy to return to his favorite part of the timeline.
He revealed to IGN that the focus of Crimson Reign will be on the criminal syndicate Crimson Dawn and Qi’ra, who fans may recognize as Emilia Clarke’s character from Solo: A Star Wars Story. If you recall in that film, when we last saw her she was on her way to meet with Crimson Dawn’s frightening boss, Darth Maul.
Speaking to IGN’s Adam Bankhurst, Soule had this to say…
“I planned to tell the story we’re seeing in War of the Bounty Hunters from the very first pitches I wrote when I knew I’d be taking over the Star Wars title for Marvel. But it was really when I knew I had a secret weapon to deploy storywise that the seeds of Crimson Reign began to take root in my mind: Qi’ra, former paramour of Han Solo and current leader of the infamous Crimson Dawn crime syndicate, as portrayed by Emilia Clarke in Solo: A Star Wars Story film.
“Crimson Reign, which continues what I plan as a trilogy that began with War of the Bounty Hunters, is a great example of how I like to write Star Wars stories. Everything and everyone is fair game, and I think people are really going to enjoy it. Await the Reign.”
Star Wars: Crimson Reign’s art is done by Steve Cummings, who will also be doing a variant cover for the first issue. The main cover is from Leinil Francis Yu, and a connecting variant cover comes from Ario Anindito.
