‘The High Republic’ Phase II Will Be Set 150 Years In The Past
As the final wave of books and comics start arriving for Phase I of The High Republic, Lucasfilm Publishing celebrated by making a few announcements about Phase II in its Star Wars: The High Republic Show.
The show gathered some of The High Republic‘s most prominent authors and storytellers in Charles Soule, Claudia Gray, Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older, and Cavan Scott to discuss what’s to come. The most surprising revelation from the video has to be that The High Republic Phase II will not take place after the events of Phase I, but 150 years before the events of Light of the Jedi instead (and 350 years before the events of The Phantom Menace).
It was also confirmed that Phase II of The High Republic will be called Quest of the Jedi, and will arrive in October 2022, giving fans plenty of time to absorb and digest all the Phase I stories by then. When it does arrive, new authors will be joining the project: Zoraida Córdova, George Mann, Tessa Gratton, and Lydia Kang. For those unaware, Córdova wrote a story for each of the From a Certain Point of View books plus the Galaxy’s Edge novel A Crash of Fate, while Mann wrote the canon-adjacent novels Myths and Legends and Life Day Treasury, among others, as well as the High Republic story Showdown at the Fair.
Tessa Gratton has not yet published any work in the Star Wars galaxy yet, but will be writing an anthology in the upcoming Stories of Jedi and Sith book. Lydia Kang wrote a short story for From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, which focused on medical droid 2-1B.
There are a few changes in store for the comics, too. Cavan Scott will be writing a series for Marvel Comics, while Daniel José Older will be writing a series for Dark Horse Comics, after the recent announcement that Dark Horse will be publishing Star Wars stories once again. Charles Soule will also be writing an origin story for Jedi Porter Engle, revealing how he became known as the Blade of Bardotta. He teased that it “ties into storytelling I’ve been doing for Star Wars for years”. Given that Soule has written many Darth Vader and mainline Star Wars comics stories over the last few years, it will be particularly interesting to see which story elements get touched on for this one.
Another announcement was that Justina Ireland’s delayed novel Star Wars: The High Republic – Mission to Disaster will include several connections to The High Republic Phase II when it releases on March 1, 2022, but exactly what those connections are is unclear. It was also revealed that Ireland will be co-writing the first YA novel in Phase II with new addition Tessa Gratton.
If anyone was wondering why there’s been no mention of Claudia Gray, well that’s because she’s not telling. Apparently she will continue to contribute to The High Republic, but she isn’t allowed to reveal anything about her upcoming project just yet. She did tease a little of what’s to come in Phase II: Quest of the Jedi though.
Phase II is an era of exploration and invention. One, I think it’s fascinating and two I’m not going anywhere.
Claudia Gray just published her own The High Republic novel for Phase I, The Fallen Star, and apparently not everyone will survive. That sounds particularly ominous, given that the story won’t continue from there in Phase II, and the Wave 3 teaser mentions how “The light of the Jedi goes dark”. We’ll likely have to wait until Phase III for a continuation of that story.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
