We got our first glimpse at Star Wars after Rise of Skywalker at NYCC

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away. Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

LUCASFILM PUBLISHING AT NYCC!

The biggest Star Wars news out of New York Comic Con 2019 so far has got to be everything that came out of the publishing panel yesterday. The news books and comics of Star Wars are taking the jump into an era beyond the completion of the Skywalker Saga. Really!

That’s where we get to Project Luminous. This has been a top-secret project that we know next to nothing about, but this latest tease offers some clues. This hints that we might be experiencing a change in the nature of the Force in the very near future of Star Wars.

Del Rey publishing has promised more information about new books in January 2020, which means that there is likely a secret they’re hiding to avoid spoiling the ending of The Rise of Skywalker. That makes this project all the more exciting to think about, doesn’t it?

Then, we have the announcement that Timothy Zahn is doing another trilogy of books featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn. With the subtitle of Ascendency, it is a safe bet that this will tie up all the threads that Zahn has been hinting at over the last thirty years about the Chiss Ascendency and how they might affect a galaxy far, far away.

We also learned who will be at the helm for the novelization of The Rise of Skywalker. None other than Rae Carson:

We’ve known for a while now that the flagship Star Wars title for Marvel Comics would be coming to an end. Why, though? What would it make way for? Well, now we have our answer. 

Charles Soule has been doing great work in the Star Wars space already with other comics (including the excellent Poe Dameron and the impossibly great Lando Calrissian comic), but he is restarting the series to skip ahead and fill in the time between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The flagship story in Legends that bridges these eras is Shadows of the Empire, and if anyone has read it recently, let’s hope it remains forgotten.

Fans of The Clone Wars have much to rejoice about as well; we’re getting an entire anthology of stories from Disney, set in that era. 

With this being all the biggest news from NYCC so far, it is easy to think that they're holding out on news. In years past, the Skywalker Saga movies have had big premieres of trailers and news with other partners. NYCC was never going to be the place where the biggest news came out. It's always been NFL games on ABC (owned by Disney), or Good Morning America (also owned by Disney), or D23 (organized by Disney). I'd expect the next really big Star Wars news or trailer reveal will come from one of these places rather than an outlet like NYCC. 

STAR WARS: RESISTANCE REBORN

In the short term, the book we have most to look forward to is Star Wars: Resistance Reborn. It’s going to help us bridge the gap between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker and there is a new excerpt out there.

NYCC also saw the release of a different excerpt and there's been a lot of excitement about a number of fan-favorite characters from ancillary material finding their way into the book. Zay Versio and Shriv from Battlefront II are making an appearance, as is Black Squadron from Charles Soule’s Poe Dameron comics.

Another character that might make an appearance?

Wedge Antilles.

This is not confirmed. This cover art appeared on a Spanish language site and had art different from what we’ve seen in the United States. This could have been an innocent mistake and a good photoshop job for all we know, but that definitely looks like Wedge on the cover.

The original tweet where it appeared was deleted, which means Planeta Cómic realized their mistake. But what was the mistake? Posting fan art? Or breaking embargo on a big reveal?

Only time will tell.

Resistance Reborn hits bookshelves on November 5, 2019.

MARA JADE? HARDLY

Fans got all in a tizzy because it seemed like there was an Easter egg devoted to Mara Jade at Galaxy’s Edge.

 And a lot of news sites ran with this as confirmation that the former Emperor’s Hand-turned-Luke Skywalker’s wife was canon once more.

But it was all an elaborate fake, as confirmed by Matt Martin from the Lucasfilm Story Group:

 Even so, the hunt for Mara Jade in real canon continues.

STAR WARS RESISTANCE

For those of you who slept on Star Wars Resistance, the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel has a treat for you. Season two kicks off tomorrow and they’ve assembled a five-minute recap of season one. It’s a seriously great show and you’re going to want to catch up before The Rise of Skywalker because the minds behind the series promise that this final season of Resistance rolls right into Episode IX.  

Until next week, May the Force Be With You!