Jar Jar (2026) #1
THE UNSEEN
Once seen as an outcast from his underwater home amongst the Gungans, Jar Jar Binks redeemed himself by showing his bravery during the Battle of Naboo.
Since then, he has become a representative of Naboo in the Galactic Senate. Recently, he proposed the idea of giving expanded emergency powers to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.
But he’s about to discover that actions have consequences….
Writers: Ahmed Best and Marc Guggenheim
Artists: Laura Braga and Kieran McKeown
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Michael Atiyeh
Cover artist: Taurin Clarke
Editor: Mark Pannicia
Publication date: February 11 2026
An exciting Jar Jar Binks tale that doesn’t treat our central character like a clown might not have been on your bingo card when you heard that Marvel were doing a one-shot dedicated to one of the most (in equal parts) celebrated and despised characters in the saga (largely depending on your age when The Phantom Menace arrived), but that’s what you get when you open this very pleasant one-shot by writers Marc Guggenheim and Ahmed Best (yes, that Ahmed Best) who manage to keep the Senator Binks that we know from Attack of the Clones very much at the forefront of the story while allowing his iinate goodness and streetsmarts to shine through.
We open aboard the Heyblibber Duck, the senators personal vessel as he speeds through hyperspace alongside Ric Olie. They’re headed for Quarrant City on the world of Urubai, and once there Binks decides he can find his own way to meet his secret contact, only to get lost in typical Binks fashion, be steered down a side alley and held up, only for the mugger to flee when he sees a cloaked figure; Kelleran Beq, Jar Jar’s contact, who brought Binks to Urubai in secrecy to show him something worrying.
They head out on a swoop to a mining site, where coaxium is being mined and the diggers worked until they drop. Beq explains that this is allowed under galactic law due to the mandate inks helped push through the senate, sallowing Palpatine to swell the Grand Army and secure the Republic. Jar Jar is shocked at the misuse of his intentions, and determined to do something about it, and we meet Coralisa Senig, Beq’s contact on Urubai who explains that not only is coaxium being mined but also a rare crystal called cyphristal, which can form the basis of a fractal – and therefore secret – communication network, which as Beq explains could help the galaxy communucate and free themselves from the threat of the Separatists.
They’re introduced to an unnamed woman who is building the network, and who not only knows that palpatine is aware onf the network, but also that two bounty hunters are on her tail. Beq tells her and Coralisa that they need to leave, but as they make their way back to the ship they’re ambushed by the bounty hunters Aurra Sing and Rum Sleg, and in the firefight Coralisa is shot through the leg. Unable to move she refuses to leave the planet and demands to stay behind to help her people, and Beq blasts off with Jar Jar, the unamed woman and Ric Olie at the controls.
However, as the ramp closes Aurra Sing leaps and makes it aboard the Duck, and as they leap to the skies she attacks Beq, the unnamed woman already downed and incapacitated. As they fight, Rum Sleg attacks in his own vessel, and with the cockpit erupting in sparks and Olie knocked out by the blast, Jar Jar is forced to take the controls. Under attack from Sleg and with Sing holding her own, Jar Jar lurches the ship about, giving Beq ta moment to use the Force to knock Sing out, and Jar Jar grabs the hyperspace lever and leaps to hyperspace.
Safely landed on a platform on Coruscant we learn the name of the unnamed woman – Mira Bridger, future mother of Ezra – and watch as Jar Jar heads to the office of the Supreme Chancellor and asks for assistance for Urubai, for its workers, the world (at risk from permanent damage due to overmining) and gets an agreement from Palpatine, who praises Jar Jar for his skilled request and notes how similar Binks is to Master Beq.
We wrap up the issue with the most surprising (and pleasing) scene as Jar Jar insists that not only should be and Beq keep an eye on Urubai, but they should also start the fractal radio network to start connecting the galaxy. Palpatine may have believed he had Binks in his pocket, but the wily Gungan general had also seen through his faux sincerity, and we end with Beq agreeing to head out into the galaxy to find more worlds like Urubai.
Great fun, with engaging artwork by Laura Braga and Kieran McKeown that captures the madcap energy of Episode 1 Binks while maintaining his more elevated and important role in Episode 2 and beyond, and a great job by Best and Guggenheim in finding the voice of Jar Jar, his familiar patois present and correct as he bounds his way through the galaxy.
In past adventures there’s been a touch of Chance (Peter Sellers character from 1979 film Being There) about Jar Jar, a simple-minded man who’s innocence was misinterpreted as wisdom, but here that doesn’t apply. Senator Binks has watched and learned, and learned well, instigating something that plays forward throughout the years and – whether by convenience of plot or by design – makes that chance meeting between Jar Jar, Qui-Gon and Kenobi even more important.
