Star Wars Reveals a Major Flaw With the Force

The latest Star Wars comic foreshadows Luke Skywalker's struggle with the Force in High Republic No-Space territory, though he doesn't understand why.

Luke Skywalker's Jedi training hits a new obstacle in the latest Star Wars comic: No-Space's peculiar environment.

A preview of Marvel's Star Wars #32 teased issues with Luke's Force connection as he, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando, Lobot and Amilyn Holdo attempt to reclaim their High Republic-era ship's Path Engine from droid forces. As Luke tells Holdo, the Force is "hard to find" in No-Space -- a location previously frequented by Star Wars: The High Republic antagonists the Nihil -- and his attempts to use it feel "strange" and "wobbly." Though he describes the feeling as, "Like something weird is happening with it," the preview doesn't elaborate on any source of this Force-disturbance.

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This isn't the first time Star Wars comics have included a crossover with the ongoing High Republic multimedia franchise. Issue 20 saw Luke visit the Living Sea of Gazian, a Force-sensitive planet that collects mental imprints of those who visit its surface. There, he encounters an imprint of Elzar Mann, a High Republic Jedi Master who offers Luke some advice regarding his mission to learn more about the Force.

No-Space first appeared in The High Republic Phase 1 books as the site of the Nihil's base of operations, the Great Hall. The books and subsequent comic tie-ins revealed that No-Space is inaccessible without certain hyperspace routes known as Paths, which the Nihil access via Path Engines in their ships. This allowed the marauder organization to move in and out of Hyperspace at will as they launched guerilla campaigns against the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order for their Outer Rim expansions. In addition to the Paths, The High Republic also introduced a new weapon in Nihil leader Marchion Ro's Great Levelers: mysterious beasts who consume the Force from Jedi, causing them to hallucinate and calcify into stone.

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New details about the Levelers and Nihil's origins recently appeared in The High Republic's Phase 2 book run. Set 150 years before the events of Phase 1, Phase 2 introduced a religious cult known as the Path of the Open Hand, who believe that anyone who uses the Force disrupts balance in the galaxy. This causes the Path's members -- including a potential ancestor of Marchion named Marda Ro -- and its enigmatic leader The Mother to blame Force-users like the Jedi for this imbalance, helped by the Mother's access to a Leveler. The High Republic's latest story, The Battle of Jedha, featured more encounters between the Path and Jedi while a treaty between the planets Eiram and E'ronoh on planet Jedha collapsed, thanks in part to the Mother and her allies.

Star Wars #32 releases in stores on March 1.

Source: Marvel

Ben Wasserman is a graduate of NYU's M.A. Cinema Studies Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. He's previously written for the pop culture websites ComicsVerse and mxdwn Movies and currently writes movie reviews for Film-Forward alongside CBR. Ben loves all things film, television, gaming and comic-related, especially when it comes to Marvel. You can reach out to Ben on his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/WassermanReview