Skip to main content

Marvel will explore the origins of Kylo Ren in a new comic series

Marvel will explore the origins of Kylo Ren in a new comic series

/

Coming in December

Share this story

Photo: Lucasfilm / Disney

When Disney released Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, its 30-year jump from Return of the Jedi introduced plenty of new characters and mysteries to the franchise. One of those was how Han Solo and Leia Organa’s son Ben turned to the dark side to become Kylo Ren. Later this year, Marvel Comics will explore some of that story with new comic miniseries: The Rise of Kylo Ren.

Lucasfilm announced the four-issue comic series at the Lucasfilm publishing panel yesterday at San Diego Comic-Con. Charles Soule, the writer behind Marvel’s Darth Vader and Poe Dameron comics, will write the series.

The comic series will hit stores in December, just in time for the forthcoming Rise of Skywalker, which has teased some revelations into Kylo Ren’s backstory. According to Vanity Fair, the film will bring back the Knights of Ren — companions of Kylo Ren who made the briefest of cameos in The Force Awakens, but didn’t show up in The Last Jedi. Vanity Fair says that they’ll bring an “element of chaos to the war between the Resistance and the First Order,” but we don’t know much about their role in the larger story.

In The Force Awakens, we learned that Kylo Ren was Han and Leia’s son, and that he destroyed Luke Skywalker’s fledgling Jedi Academy after falling to the dark side. We learned a bit more in The Last Jedi — that Luke, in a moment of weakness, contemplated killing his nephew when he sensed the darkness growing in him, sending him into his new persona. Hopefully, the series will add on to what little we know about Ben Solo’s transformation into Kylo Ren.

The Lucasfilm publishing panel unveiled some additional titles and provided a look at some previously-announced books as well: Dooku: Jedi Lost, an audio-first title written by Cavan Scott, will get a print edition this fall, while George Mann will pen a Grimms Fairy Tales-style book set in the Star Wars universe.