Star Wars: The High Republic Was Spoiled By Kylo Ren Comic

Lucasfilm finally revealed its ambitious new Star Wars project, Star Wars: The High Republic, a series of novels and comics that will establish a whole new era of Star Wars mythos. High Republic will be a prequel to the Skywalker Saga, set 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. For a lot of fans, this premise was a big surprise - but hardcore Star Wars fans saw it coming. In fact, we here at Comicbook.com were some the first to point out that The High Republic was actually first revealed in Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren comic book!

The High Republic had been secretly cooking under the working title of "Project Luminous", since it was first announced at New York Comic-Con 2019. Fans had no idea what Luminous would turn out to be, beyond the ominous tagline that, "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things…. Until…Project Luminous, 2020." However, the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker changed that.

One of the big (unexplained) mysteries of The Rise Skywalker was the mysterious Sith Temple that Emperor Palpatine hid out in for years on Exegol was actually a temple from the era of the early Republic - a totally unexplored era of the franchise. However, the release of the Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren comic book following The Rise of Skywalker made loose trivia into something much more official!

Issue #2 of The Rise of Kylo Ren took us back to the younger years of Ben Solo, during his time training alongside Luke Skywalker. Luke's mission to rebuild the Jedi Order once took him, Ben, and Lor San Tekka (old guy from the opening sequence of The Force Awakens) to a remote Jedi outpost in the Outer Rim territories. Along the way to the outpost, Lor San Tekka revealed the following bit of Star Wars history:

"I think after all my wanderings, I can recognize the description of a Jedi outpost when I hear it, Luke... It's probably High Republic era. It was a time of greatly expanded Jedi activity throughout the galaxy."

This was the first mention of The High Republic in Star Wars canon, and as we said at the time, that name-drop was not without purpose. It's now clear that Star Wars' creative team was already tying together some important narrative threads, in order to set up the full High Republic franchise that's coming.

Makes you wonder: are there other clues already out there in canon?

Star Wars: The High Republic books will start getting released in August.