Star Wars (2020) #42
THE SITH AND THE SKYWALKER
Before being pulled into the fight against the evil scourge, Luke Skywalker was continuing his Jedi training, seeking out the secrets of the kyber crystals on the planet Christophsis.
There, he met a young Fallanassi named Gretta, who helped him find some of the answers he needed.
But now Luke is ready to continue his journey, and he’ll need his new friend’s help once more….
Writer: Charles Soule
Penciller: Steven Cummings
Inker: Wayne Faucher
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover artist: Stephen Segovia
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: January 10, 2024
We can thank the Force that Kim Simmons is still the only person who shot Luke Skywalker as we open issue 42 in the post-Dark Droids era as Luke, somewhere on the Outer Rim (which is as helpful as describing the location of a single plankton as being ‘somewhere in the Pacific Ocean’) enters a room and uses the Force to stop a blaster bolt that fizzes towards him. He’s dressed in his black Jedi robes, and has journeyed there to find Gretta, and to ask her to help with a red kyber crystal in his possession he took from Doctor Cuata. Knowing so little about how to defeat the Sith, he needs Gretta’s help to look into the crystal and learn more about the Sith, but he’s interrupted by Gretta’s aunt Feez, who tells him in no uncertain terms how unsafe that is to attempt. She speaks wise words; how the Force is for obsessives, and how you don’t need to understand or control the Force in order to love it. She also makes clear that she taught Gretta what she knows, and knows far more besides, so offer her help to Luke.
He wants to know how to heal a crystal, so he can use that skill to heal something else, but Feez explains how the red kyber crystals work, how all the pain and anguish is encoded into the kyber, and once inside it’s not a case of simply pulling the person out of what appears to be an unreality, but that once inside he would forget he’d ever been anywhere else. He takes that info on board, thanks Feez for her time and departs as auntie tells Gretta that she needs to be careful helping Jedi.
We see Luke and Artoo leaving, but as they move away Gretta calls after him, offering to give him help and we see Luke lying down with Gretta and Feez by his side as he once again enters the crystal. In his vision he’s falling through red skies, down into an eerie castle where he is surrounded by Sith who tell him he isn’t welcome. He ignites his yellow-bladed sentinel lightsaber and tells them he’s going nowhere, but in turn they ignite their own red blades. He uses the Force to push them back, but suddenly his saber deactivates and he is lifted into the air and then slammed headfirst into the ground, and unconsciousness. He’s dragged into a cell, where coming around he finds the Sith woman who tells him how surprised she is at his clean clothes and lightsaber. She isn’t used to this, and Luke deduces that this is the past, but despite this she sees fit to teach him a lesson and he is struck by one of her acolytes, and we see Gretta and Feez watching over him. Feez explains how time runs differently within the crystal, and how her own sensitivity means she’d feel his pain. Cut to Luke, being beaten by two guards and being told how he’ll suffer here, forever.
While this has shades of Serphidian Eyes with its almost medieval realm, the threat is very real, and the thought of time passing differently in here is not only reminiscent of a Star Trek classic from TNG season 5 called The Inner Light, where Picard lives an entire life in mere seconds, but may also go some way to explain how Luke turns from the idealistic youth of A New Hope and Empire into the more measured and assured man we see in Return of the Jedi. Long time readers of Marvel Comics will remember Golrath Station, from issues 50, 65 and 66 of the original Marvel run. There, we learned the walls of Golrath were able to ‘record’ and playback natural holograms of whatever was happening within, and these red kyber crystals seem to be able to do something similar. It may be a coincidence or a loving nod to the past, but either way it’s an interesting device and means to life the veil to show us some of the mysticism that runs rife through the Star Wars world.
All Star Wars comic titles offer their own treasures, but the work Charles Soule is doing on the flagship title really does benefit from really chewing it over. There’s a journey to complete here, from Episode V to VI, and while we’re obviously closer to Jedi than ever, that road still has some steps to be taken. It’s quite possible that the quest to heal a red kyber criystal could give Luke the ammunition to heal his own father.
A deeper, more meaningful read than it might appear at first glance, which is something we should relish and appreciate from Soule every time we dive into one of his stories.
