Star Wars: Tales from the Nightlands #1 is written by Cavan Scott (Star Wars the High Republic: Fear of the Jedi, Gwenpool, Iron Frost), drawn by Soo Lee (Thundercats: Cheetara, Maleficent), and published by Dark Horse Comics on September 10, 2025.
Star Wars: Tales from the Nightlands #1 introduces us to a spooky Star Wars story as a young Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi encounter an evil spirit conjured from the mysterious land of the dead, the Nightlands. The first issue acts as a kind of introductory prequel with the rest of the series set thirty years later presumably in the time of Jedi Grandmaster Luke Skywalker.
My favorite Star Wars stories revolve around the kind of mysticism that Tales from the Nightlands seems to promise. I’m a big fan of a lot of the Star Wars novels set earlier in the galaxy’s timeline, when the Force and its users take on a more mythical, fantastical glow. I was excited to read Tales from the Nightlands for that reason, but I found myself a bit disappointed.
The Skywalker family and its many friends and enemies have been told and retold so many times I’ve begun to be exhausted by them, so I seek out the weirder stories, old pulpy Tor paperbacks and the more off-the-wall comics. There may still be fascinating stories to tell about the Skywalkers (Charles Soule’s Darth Vader comics from 2017 are an excellent example of this.), but the well has largely run dry.
I think Star Wars fans and the artists and writers who create them deserve some new and exciting narratives. There’s a moment in issue one that teases Luke’s appearance in next month’s issue in which Anakin says, “[When the time comes] we’ll be ready for her.…It’s not like the Jedi are going anywhere…right?” In an older story like Clone Wars, the line might have felt emotionally affecting, but it comes off as more tongue-in-cheek and meta than anything else.
Scott and Lee are both talented artists, and Scott’s writing is at its best when not nodding to what’s going to happen in the movies. Soo’s artwork and coloring are also beautiful throughout the book, matching the general atmosphere of the story. A lot of what’s frustrating about Tales from the Nightlands is that it doesn’t feel necessary for the story’s protagonists to be Anakin, Obi-Wan, and later Luke.
The turn to Luke is likely a good thing for the series, since Luke’s life is a much more open canvas, and writers have a lot more freedom to get weird and creative with the universe outside of the imperial years, so more of Luke’s storylines are typically more fantastical and less grounded in the lore and political allegory of the preceding period. In the future, I hope Disney and Dark Horse will recognize how much of a sandbox they have to play in with the Star Wars galaxy, and encourage their artists to explore it.
Creative Team: Cavan Scott (writer), Soo Lee (artist/colorist)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
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