Is Dark Disciple Still Canon?
Yes! Dark Disciple was released after Star Wars continuity was reshuffled post-Lucasfilm-acquisition, as part of the attempt to both clean up the vast Expanded Universe material at the time, as well establish a new “everything matters” approach to continuity where all officially released material is considered canonical unless otherwise specifically stated.
The team behind Bad Batch have also said that Ventress’ return in the third season will build off the events of the novel, rather than contradict them. “We don’t want to spoil anything, but want fans to know that any new storytelling with Ventress will align with the events of Star Wars: Dark Disciple,” supervising director Brad Rau told StarWars.com in a comment released alongside the new trailer.
This wouldn’t be the first time that recent animated Star Wars has played with novel continuity either—perhaps more controversially compared to Bad Batch’s seemingly co-operative relationship with Dark Disciple, the first season of Tales of the Jedi included an episode that utilized elements of the canon novel Ahsoka, albeit tweaking them enough to establish its own version of those events. That was seemingly more of a “from a certain point of view” situation though, compared to what we seem to expect from Bad Batch.
