A new era of STAR WARS storytelling at Marvel Comics begins, now delving into the post-RETURN OF THE JEDI ERA and the birth of the New Republic!
While the New Republic begins to build alliances, pirates have been hitting supply routes, creating fresh turmoil in the galaxy. Now Luke Skywalker must go to the depths of the underworld to find out who is behind the deadly raids! Debuting the Nagai pirates plus a whole host of villains that threaten Luke, Leia, Han Solo and the rest of the greatest heroes of STAR WARS!
Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which The New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. NPR described the novel as “masterful” and The L.A. Times called it “a magnetic read.”
Secret Identity received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, was listed as one of the Best Mysteries of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, Booklist, LitReactor, Gizmodo, BOLO Books, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover, the Lefty and Barry Awards for Best Novel, the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, and won the LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category.
His upcoming work includes the YA superhero adventure Araña/Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow, the follow-up to Secret Identity, Alter Ego, and the sci-fi/espionage thriller, Dark Space (with Rob Hart). Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Anthony Award-nominated Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, Mara Llave – Keeper of Time, Blood Oath, stories featuring Marvel heroes the Avengers, Sunspot, White Tiger, Spider-Man and DC’s Superman, Sinestro, and The Question, to name a few.
His short story, “90 Miles” was included in The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories for 2021 and won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story. Another short story,“Red Zone,” won the 2020 Anthony Award for Best Short Story.
Alex is also the co-creator of the Lethal Lit podcast, named one of the best fiction podcasts of 2018 by The New York Times.
A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.
As 'Star Wars: New Republic' (currently sold as 'Star Wars (2025)' in single issue form) is an ongoing comic series, this review is currently for issues 1-6. I will update it when later issues come out. Also because this is ongoing I had to read it outside of my current chronological order which is slightly annoying but oh well. You can see its place in the timeline here.
Issues 1-6 have a lot going on in for every character, but each problem that the characters are facing come back to the same source which is nice. I've enjoyed meeting the Nagai people including their leader Garlev, that has been really interesting. Leia having her own political battles that then turned into another adventure for her was exciting, especially as I just read 'Bloodline' - it is what her character seems to do best. Having some surprises like old Battle Droids from the Clone Wars popping up was also fun. Also, the art is pretty consistently great throughout each issue which makes for pleasant reading. Overall, great start to the series.
4 It's good to see new Big 3 post-ROTJ stories. And the art is excellent. The writing and story itself is decent. They feel a bit provincial. I'm not feeling the weight of it, and I'm not seeing much in terms of character arcs. This is an ongoing Star Wars problem with these characters in particular. But I think it is possible to do. But I am not seeing or feeling that. But I want to be proved wrong. I'm not optimistic. But I'll take decent Star Wars stories.
I'll also add, reading about these characters that I love in younger days... it's all a bit of a bummer for how things turn out. For all of them. None of this feels like it matters. Hard to put that aside.
This is truly one of the worst comics I’ve ever read - not just Star Wars, but all comics. They have a wide open space to play in between RotJ and tFA but this is the best we can do?