I might be last to the race on this one, but I think I know how this all ends.
For the past month or so, I have been deep into the world of STAR WARS. I’ve read or listened to four and a half novels (just in the past month; a bunch more if you go back to the announcement of The Force Awakens). I’ve also perused a ton of Wookiepedia, which is a version of Wikipedia dedicated to every known detail of the now-seemingly parallel universe of STAR WARS. Finally, I’ve watched two of the prequels (with my seven-year-old daughter), one of the originals (with my twelve-year old student), part of Solo (fittingly, alone), a bunch of fan-created YouTube videos (for fun, I guess), and almost the entire first season of Rebels.
And yesterday, I purchased my first STAR WARS comic book.
I think I know where this ends.
The last episode of the 22-movie arc of The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which was released just this Spring, is titled Endgame. The episode was attached to the announcement of two of its biggest stars that with this film, they would be retiring from the MCU.
Captain America and Ironman still live, however. If you miss them, all you need to do is pick up a comic.
The same goes for STAR WARS. After Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, regardless of what happens to Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo, the First Order, the Knights of Ren, the Resistance, the Empire, the New Republic, Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Ben Kenobi, and all the others, if you miss them, all you need to do is pick up a comic.
And that is how this ends: with The Rise of Comics.
**
Saturday night, my wife and I hosted a holiday party for some of our friends. During the party, one of them brought up his distaste for Episode XIII: The Last Jedi, the much beleaguered entry of the Skywalker saga written and directed by Rian Johnson. My friend (like many others) didn’t like the movie; I (like many others) did.
Sunday afternoon, he continued our conversation with a series of text messages based around the clarification of my opinion. His questions, my answers, and his rebuttals were well informed and well intentioned, and our ongoing conversation led me to seek various links in support of my argument, during which time I discovered the Kindle edition of the first issue of a Marvel comic titled, Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith. It was available for free to Amazon Prime members, so I downloaded the issue to read later.
Part of the conversation with my friend centered on whether we prefer storytellers to meet or subvert our expectations. He (like many) prefers the former; I (like many) prefer the latter. For example, he did not want to know how Luke Skywalker maintained his monastic existence while living for years on a lost island in the middle of nowhere; instead, he wanted to see Luke Skywalker fight an epic lightsaber duel. The movie did not live up to his expectation.
I had a similar expectation, but I enjoyed learning that, since the last time I saw him, Luke Skywalker had not been dwelling on the heroics of his past, but rather, hiding from the Force and from his loved ones in shame.
I also liked that instead of demonstrating his increased knowledge and power with the Force through an epic lightsaber duel, he faces his greatest failure through what might have been the greatest Force projection in the history of the universe. Any particularly dextrous Jedi can be dramatic with a lightsaber, but it takes a Jedi of Skywalker’s unique strengths to use the Force to communicate his love and his sadness to his sister while also facing off against the emotional pain that comes from dueling with a disgraced (and disgraceful) student…oh, and doing both of those things from the other side of the galaxy.
But I get it. Some people need their stories to fit an already-expected mold.
And that’s where the comics come in.
The first issue of Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith begins its chronicle of Vader’s story at the exact second it ends in Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. Suffering from the incredible physical pain caused by the loss of his devastating duel with his master, Obi Wan Kenobi, and from the installation of the life-supporting suit that his new Master, Darth Sidious, fashioned for him, and from the emotional pain that came with learning of the death of his secret wife, Senator Padme Amidala, who had died of a broken heart following Anakin’s turn to the dark side, Vader clenches his fists and screams out the word, “NO!!!!!!” The movie ended, and the comic begins, there.
Before anything else, Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, needs to come to grips with his pain and use it to find a new lightsaber. As his new master Sith Master tells him, “A Sith cannot be given a lightsaber; he must take it.”
Thus begins some of the most bad-ass encounters I’ve come across in the STARS WARS universe. Nothing — nothing — will stand between this legendary Sith Lord and his ultimate goal.
The story my friend wants to see, the one where the incredible Jedis and terrible Sith battle for the balance of the universe, can be found in Marvel comics.
That is the benefit of the behemouth that is Disney.
In the 2010s and 2020s, all the characters of our 20th century mythos are (mostly) free from the licensing issues that hampered their development in the 1990s and early 2000s. By purchasing political power (e.g., the late Senator Sonny Bono, who workshopped Congress into passing a Disney-friendly deal on the nation’s intellectual copyright law) and avoiding anti-trust investigations thanks to the rise of major competitors such as Netflix, HBO, and Amazon, Disney is now able to explore these mythos in a way that will satisfy virtually any audience member’s tastes.
Want to understand the political games Princess Leia played following the rise of the New Republic? There’s a whole book dedicated to it.
Want to see STAR WARS’ female heroes without having to deal with the various masculinities of Annakin, Han, Luke, Finn, or Poe? There’s a whole series of short TV episodes about that, centered around the conceit of a fireside story told by the old and wise female humanoid, Maz Kanata.
Want to hear how the Jedi lost Count Dooku to the Sith? There’s a whole radio show, available as both a script or an audio book, that you can check out.
Want lightsaber duels? Philosophical investigations? Noire crime stories? Spaghetti Westerns? Space battles? Deep lore? A Romeo & Juliet romance? You can have it. Whatever kind of story you want, Disney/Marvel/STAR WARS has something for it.
**
Is there a dark side to all of this? Of course. There’s a dark side to everything. And in this story, it’s the ever-increasing economic and political benefit to the men and women who profit from the goings on at Disney.
No one would complain if Disney’s storytelling and media production prowess didn’t rejigger the economics of creative storyelling, reducing the power of independent film makers at the same time as it increases the audience’s appetite for sensous delights. In society’s demand for bread and circus, Disney runs the big top.
At the same time, Disney employs talented individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and has seemingly committed itself to promoting relatively liberal values through progressive representation and thematic intent.
Furthermore, the employees of Disney have donated $901,029 to Democratic politicians and only $47,298 to Republican ones, thereby (at least tacitly) promoting a (at least tacitly) liberal political agenda.
Does Disney have a dark side? Of course. First and foremost, as a capitalist entity, its very existence is predicated on the cruelty that is American capitalism, but given that environment (which if the older and more economically powerful members of the Democratic party continue to have their way, will continue for quite some time), isn’t Disney’s handling of our mythos kind of a good thing?
I’m teaching a class right now about the Historicity of Christianity. Working with one of my oldest (and longest tenured) students, I’m exploring how the books of the New Testament came to be considered canon. For example, in the earliest days of the cult, dozens (if not hundreds) of stories of Christ and Christian martyrs made the rounds, much of them contradictory and almost all of them pseudononymously. Why, then, did the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John come to be considered holy when others were considered heretical?
The answer is relatively well known, but my student had never considered the question; hence, the class.
There’s a comparison to be made here between Disney’s monopolization of the 20th Century American mythos and Rome’s monopolization of the early Chrisian mythos, but that’s not the comparison I’m aiming for.
Instead, I’m thinking about those early days in the Christian community, when various scrolls and books were read and traded by believers and nonbelievers, collected by monks and churches, and retold around countless fires.
It feels like we’re entering that phase of the STAR WARS universe.
The Resistance is in tatters, much like American democracy; heroes like Luke Skywalker and Martin Luther King, Jr. are gone. Stories of their deeds are now like wisps on the wind, making their way from lighted screen to lighted screen, manufacturing hope and promising that, like Jesus, it’ll come.
But in the meantime, here’s some folded-up book with colorful pictures that tells you even more of the story.
Don’t worry: it’s canon.
