New Legacy comics – curiouser and curiouser

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Lucasfilm right now. I like to think it’s a case of life imitating art. In this instance, The Emperor has fallen, The Death Star has been destroyed, and a group of Moffs, Warlords and Admirals are scrambling to make some sort of claim over armaments, resources and territory. Because one thing’s for sure – that sense of cohesive, singular narrative that was the Star Wars EU has gone out the window.

In the latest baffling announcement, Dark Horse is set to publish a new Star Wars: Legacy comic, focusing on the Great-Granddaughter of Leia Organa-Solo. This, despite the fact the Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill have all-but-confirmed their return for Episode VII.

I can’t quite figure out why Lucasfilm Licensing would do this. Even if the Disney deal took them by surprise (it didn’t) you would think they might want to stop publishing something that’s so clearly going to contradict continuity by 2015. Dark Horse might be ready to just throw caution to the wind, but Lucasfilm Licensing has a duty to at least try and make the timeline work.

Looking at the release list, it’s not surprising that everything but Sword Of The Jedi and Crucible is set in time periods other than post-Return of the Jedi. Licensing has wisely been avoiding the Legacy era of late. So why now?

It makes me think that Marvel continues to be an interesting model for comparison. In the same way that the timelines for Marvel comics and Marvel movies exist simultaneously, share commonalities, but have completely separate universes and timelines, the Star Wars EU and Star Wars movie universe (MU?) could co-exist. They could, er, form a Symbian circle, maybe.

That way, the Expanded Universe can continue, prosper and grow in all its absurd glory, with the movies continuing to cherry-pick it for the big screen.

This, I think, is the best case scenario. The new Legacy looks great. It would be a shame for something so promising to be thrown aside. So let’s keep our Expanded Universe, separate from the movies, but still thriving.

(Source: Comic Book Resources, via Club Jade)

Nomad Jedi

I’ve never really gotten along with the idea of a Jedi Council. Before The Phantom Menace, the only old Jedi were Obi-wan and Yoda. One lived in a hut in the desert, the other on a bog planet. Strange to think on it now, but at the time I thought all Jedi lived more or less the same.

I don’t think I was alone in thinking this. Tom Veitch’s Tales of the Jedi had no formal training centre, just Master Baas on Dantooine. Michael Stackpole played with the concept of Corellian Jedi. And, one of my favourite Jedi moments, in the fanfic script Fall of the Republic a Jedi Knight is killed whilst repairing his starship, as if he were Han Solo.

I liked this fast and loose individualistic concept of the Jedi Order. Like the samurai movies that inspired Lucas, the Jedi appeared to be wandering nomads, walking the galaxy, letting The Force guide them to wherever they were needed. They may have been the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, but they certainly didn’t accept missions from it.

So the arrival of the Jedi Council in Episode I profoundly rewrote perceptions of Jedi Knights, causing quite a problem in the EU. This – in my opinion – has been amplified by questionable handling. Instead of acknowledging that the Jedi Order may have changed over time, its entire history has been reconned to always include the institutional hallmarks of the Prequel Trilogy.

Worse still, instead of letting the New Jedi Order to grow on its own, the books have gradually molded it into a carbon copy of the Prequel-era Order, with the sole exception of allowing marriage.

Personally I’m hoping the Michael Arndt addresses this in the Sequel Trilogy, or at least doesn’t merely just copy the old set-up. I also am holding out for some brave writer to pitch a 500 / 1000 years ABY story, where either a peaceful galaxy is questioning the need for Jedi (after all, they tend to cause trouble) or the Jedi are radically different.

Until then, however, I just hope that as we march into the brave new world of Episode VII, things like Star Wars : Nomad continue to get published. Which is what prompted this little blog post today.

Nomad is a four-part comic series that’s part of Star Wars Tales: Volume 6. It’s set around The Phantom Menace, and follows a Jedi named Darca Nyl as he wanders the galaxy and runs from his past. I’m only up to Part Three, but so far it’s a lot closer to my original imaginings of the Jedi than anything else of late, regardless of the period in EU time.

I don’t think anyone would argue that since the Prequels were announced, the Star Wars galaxy has become a homogeneous galaxy. Cultures separated by millennia barely have changed. Technology has stayed the same. And whilst this is largely a good thing – I’m glad the Roman architectural choices of Tales of the Jedi were dropped – one of the things I like about the Expanded Universe is that it can allow writers the chance to take the basic building blocks of Star Wars and do something radical and different with them.

True, it’s given us some stinkers. But it’s also blessed us with Jaalib Brandl, Inquisitor Tremayne and Jodo Kast. Bit part characters, even more dispensable than Mara or Karrde or Corran were in their debuts, yet they have risen up to carve out interesting slices in Star Wars lore.

It’s been a while since we’ve had anything like this for the Jedi, though. Hence why I’m saving Nomad. I can only hope that with the new movies, some variation is brought back into a universe so rich with possibility.