Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars series has been great at shining a light into the mostly unexplored areas of Disney’s new canon. It’s already given us insight into Obi-Wan Kenobi’s time on Tatooine, but now it’s going to put the spotlight on one of the galaxy far, far away’s most mysterious inhabitants.
The next “interlude” issue of Star Wars will hit shelves in December, and like previous interludes in-between the comic’s past arcs, will be framed as Luke Skywalker flicking back through the dusty old journal he found in Obi-Wan’s home on Tatooine way back in Star Wars #6. Except, this time, Luke won’t be recalling a story from Obi-Wan’s past, but one from Jedi master Yoda’s.
Written by Jason Aaron and with art from Darth Vader’s Salvador Larocca, the issue will not just be Luke’s first true encounter with Yoda (even though he won’t really know who the diminutive Jedi master is just yet), but will explore a period of Yoda’s backstory rarely been explored: a tale set before the events of The Phantom Menace. According to Aaron, it’s a chance to explore Yoda not as a warrior or teacher, but simply a Jedi amongst many:
I don’t know if we’ve put a pin in exactly when it takes place. It does take place before Phantom Menace. We do get a brief appearance by Qui-Gon and young Obi-Wan, so that’ll probably help date it.
... This story takes place before the Clone Wars and it’s set in a world we’ve never seen before. I was always just intrigued by that idea. You know, we’ve seen Yoda as the teacher, as the wise Jedi Master, but I wanted to see Yoda just as the Jedi. So this puts him on a very unusual adventure. The other big challenge with Yoda, of course, is finding something that’s a challenge for him, right? Who can pose a threat to Yoda? I think we came up with an interesting answer to that question. That’s part of the mystery of this story. There’s a very specific reason that this is going to be quite the challenge for Yoda. It’s not a matter of just him being the more powerful Jedi. It’s a bit trickier than that.
Considering how great these little breaks from the ongoing Leia/Luke/Han stories that are the bread and butter of the main Star Wars comics have been, we can’t wait to see what we learn about Yoda in this issue.
[StarWars.com via /Film]