A Preview Of Marvel 'Star Wars' 2025: Charles Soule And 'Legacy Of Vader'
Image Source: Wookieepedia
YouTuber and Star Wars creator Star Wars Explained recently scored an exclusive interview with the three architects of the three big comic runs Marvel is launching over the coming year. Posted to YouTube on January 23rd, Star Wars Explained interviewed each author in turn, though there were points where all three or one of the others spoke up to add additional commentary on the topic. Today on CultureSlate, we look at the parts of the interview with Charles Soule and look at understanding his process and approach for Legacy of Vader (with a few fun surprises in there too!).
How It Started Development
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During a question regarding the process and timeline of writing comics, Charles Soule took the lead. He revealed that they had begun discussions about this era of comics long before any of the previous Star Wars runs ended in 2024, in particular, his Star Wars (2020) run. The planned division of the comics in 2025, with a comic series per notable Trilogy era of Star Wars, was also always part of the plan from the very start.
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The Deepening Of Kylo Ren
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A large part of the interview goes into Soule’s exploration of who Kylo Ren is to Ben Solo and in comparison to Darth Vader. Soule says he sees Kylo and Ben as separate people, inhabiting the same body. At the time of his series, Ben has been pushed to the back of Kylo’s mind as the series is about Kylo becoming even more Kylo. They just went through a lot, given the short period between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Killing his father, nearly killing his mother, killing Snoke, facing Luke, and meeting Rey, have all left Kylo Ren desperate for a new path, a lodestar, and so he leans into the legacy of his grandfather, Darth Vader.
While Kylo thinks he and Vader are similar, Soule outlines the many ways they are not. While both individuals appear withdrawn and emotionless, Kylo is driven by his emotions. Any perceived insults or slights incur his wrath, and he is not unaffected by any criticism he suffers. He is also in turmoil due to the aforementioned struggles he has faced in such quick succession. He is not truly implacable, whereas Vader largely was. For many years, he was emotionless and cold, deadening his emotions and not reacting based on in-the-moment events.
One final note on how Soule approached Kylo is that he wanted to give us insights into what the character is thinking, even if they say or do something different. This clash between the interiority and the external will play a role in the turmoil of Kylo Ren. Soule also noted that he wants the audience to understand Kylo’s way of thinking, and maybe even sympathize with him a bit, at least until Kylo starts to do some terrible things.
The Comic’s Plot and A Surprise Reveal
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As was alluded to above, this comic series will deal with Kylo Ren seeking a connection with Darth Vader, and to do that, he will be tracing his footsteps back across history. We know Kylo’s first stop is Mustafar and Vader’s Castle, where we know thanks to comic previews that he will encounter a still-living Vaneé. Now a head in a jar (yes really) connected to a machine body, Vaneé seems like he will serve as a guide to Kylo Ren, first leading him to Tatooine and possibly other worlds beyond that. From Soule, we know that we are also going to Naboo in the series, but there may be a few more surprises left in store.
Soule took some time to discuss this era in the Star Wars timeline as well, as this point had not been explored much. It allows him to do a lot of new work, inventing fun or interesting information, and the First Order is in a particularly unique state at present. Following the first two Sequel Trilogy films, with Snoke dead and a big chunk of their fleet lost, the First Order politics mentioned in past interviews as playing a role in this series will certainly be intriguing to see. But the most surprising information dropped in the interview was the following: Kylo Ren will be hunting a Jedi survivor of Order 66 to prove himself against a Jedi.
The Jedi
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Before we go any further, we’d like to remind readers that Order 66 was 99% effective. Of around 10,000 Jedi in the galaxy at the start of the Clone Wars, we’ve gotten under 100 survivors detailed in various resources. This number also noticeably drops during the Reign of the Empire, where we see many of these survivors killed, or vanish, and there are even a few survivors who left the Jedi Order well before Order 66 and had nothing to do with the Clone Wars. A Jedi surviving into the Sequel Trilogy is not the craziest thing in the world.
But what is surprising is that Charles Soule seems to have very recently teased who this survivor would be. When answering a question about who would be alive in this era, he said the following:
There is one very likely candidate he is referring to: Oppo Rancisis. Fans of the Legends continuity, or the High Republic in canon, may immediately recognize this Thisspiasian Jedi Master. For the uninitiated, Oppo was a background Jedi Council member in Episodes I and II and made a silent, late appearance in The Clone Wars animated series. Notable for possessing a large white beard and a long serpentine body, Oppo was later revealed to have been part of the Jedi Order as far back as Phases 1 and 3 of The High Republic, where he also sat on the Jedi Council. Oppo’s name was seen on a list of surviving Jedi in Charles Soule’s Darth Vader (2017), and his extremely long body would seem to match the clear tease in Soule’s message.
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Of course, it may just be a tease. Other questions recently asked of Charles Soule on social media saw him eliminate other possibilities, so he may just be playing to the growing crowd of fans drawn in by the news regarding his series. We’ll have to wait and see after Legacy of Vader launches in February 2025.
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