This past weekend, host Krystina Arielle along with the Luminous Five revealed all sorts of dark times ahead at their Star Wars: The High Republic publishing panel at San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2021.
Introduced as “The Light of the Jedi goes Dark…”, this third wave of books and comics will conclude the highly successful “phase one” of Lucasfilm’s plans for The High Republic in January 2022. It will feature books from familiar golden age names such as Justina Ireland, Claudia Gray, Daniel Jose Older, and Charles Soule.
Claudia Gray returns after taking a wave off with Del Rey’s The Fallen Star, this wave’s final adult title. This book picks up after the events in Cavan Scott’s recently released The Rising Storm and although Claudia didn’t reveal any details, I’m sure I can speak for everyone when I say we are VERY excited for this one. Her first wave book, Into the Dark, was a best seller like the rest and introduced us to a bunch of really great characters, most of who make appearances in the wave two series of books.
For their part, Disney/Lucasfilm press is kicking in two novels with Daniel José Older’s YA book Midnight Horizon, a book he described as a “chaotic mess”, and Justina Ireland is headed back to middle grade with the seemingly equally dark Mission to Disaster. She didn’t reveal any details about that book, but Arielle did ask Ireland about returning to Jedi Vernestra Rwoh for her wave two book, Out of the Shadows, the character she first introduced us to in A Test of Courage…
“For me it’s not a revisiting. But I’m hopping that readers will enjoy seeing a little bit more adult version of Vernestra. In Young Adult we can deal with a little more heavier issues than we necessarily can with a middle grade or children’s’ novel.”
They also discussed Justina’s serialized fiction offering (along with Cavan Scott) to Star Wars Insider magazine, and her Star Wars Manga release, Edge of Balance, both due in September.
As for Charles Soule, he gets to return home to Marvel Comics for a two-issue limited series called The Eye of the Storm, which goes into the back story of the popular Nihil leader, Marchion Ro. “He’s not the boss, he’s subservient to the Tempest Runners [of the Nihil], but over the course of Light of the Jedi he shows that he’s the one who’s been in control all the time, he takes control of the Nihil and gives them this higher purpose.”
So, there you have it. With January 2022 still ways away, you can expect many more details, cover reveals, and all sorts of goodness coming before the end of the year. And who knows, maybe even a little Phase Two info dump before 2021 ends as well.
The final book in Wave Two, The High Republic: Out of the Shadows by Justina Ireland, comes out this Tuesday, click HERE to order your copy today!
For more information no all The High Republic action, head to Star Wars dot com.
