Force Matters: The Beginning Of The End Of A Different ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy

The big comic book related Star Wars news last week was the announcement of a full-fledged crossover between the Marvel Universe and A Galaxy Far, Far Away. While only a five issue miniseries, this sure seems like the next big comic book thing the entire line has been more or less treading water, waiting for these past few months (since more or less the end of the last volume of the main Star Wars title). But this week also features the launch of another book, with writer Charles Soule returning, to both the line and his signature character (at this point), Kylo Ren.

Star Wars: The Fall of Kylo Ren #1

By Charles Soule, Will Sliney, Guru-eFX & Jo Caramagna

Kylo Ren returns to the First Order and sets about settling a dispute between General Hux and Admiral Pryde.

• This is the third and final miniseries in Soule’s “Kylo Ren Trilogy,” following on from 2020’s The Rise of Kylo Ren and last year’s Legacy of Vader.
• He is joined by Will Sliney, returning from the Rise miniseries, in place of Luke Ross.
• I do miss Ross — his widescreen layouts and clever use of the De Luca Effect really made Legacy of Vader sing — but Sliney does turn in a couple fun double page spreads (both of which are running at an angle across both pages) that reminded me of Ross’ layouts (one even has the De Luca Effect).
• Hetzal Prime is the setting of the Great Hyperspace Disaster, the event which kicked off The High Republic publishing initiative in the novel Light of the Jedi (also written by Soule).
• Admiral Enric Pryde is the character played by Richard E. Grant in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. As alluded to here, he’s been around since the days of the Empire (and appeared in Greg Pak‘s Darth Vader series, set decades before this).
• It’s implied here that the different factions of the First Order loyal to Hux and Pryde, respectively, are designated by color (Grey and Red), House of the Dragon-style. Given that once Pryde is given military command of the First Order and the Sith Fleet by the resurrected Palpatine, every is styled in red, we can probably assume the Reds are loyal to him.
• Speaking of, you don’t need to have seen Rise of Skywalker to know that Kylo Ren’s plan here to heal the division in the First Order by making Pryde in charge of everyone but Ren is doomed to fail, and stupid.
• On the one hand, Kylo Ren learning he can’t kill the past but has to accept it and then grow beyond it is a logical outcome of his experiences in Legacy of Vader. On the other hand, I instinctively rankle at anything that seems to be dismissive of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, no matter how well intentioned or logical.
• The voice Kylo Ren hears as he talks to Vader’s helmet is presumably Palpatine, as established in Rise of Skywalker.

As alluded to in the bullet point second from the bottom, this series has to thread a particularly complex needle: it’s meant to bring Kylo Ren to the point he’s at in The Rise of Skywalker, but the point he’s at when that movie opens is also when he’s the least interesting (The Rise of Skywalker is bad, but Kylo Ren has a decent arc in it). And so, the end goal of this series is to, theoretically, establish the worst version of the character, which seems … not good.

Hopefully Soule has a trick or two up his sleeve to make the details of that journey compelling even if the end point isn’t; this first issue is mostly setup, so it’s hard to tell just from that.