A New Star Wars Comic Finally Redeems The Franchise's Most Hated Character

Like many a "Dungeons & Dragons" dungeon master, George Lucas got lost in his own private worldbuilding when he was making his "Star Wars" prequels. He also spent too much time introducing weird little creatures to the franchise and plotting how the Republic would become the Empire, losing sight of the more personal story he was telling.

The prequels have terrible dialogue and less-than-stellar scripts, that much is hard to deny. They also feature bizarre characters like diner owner Dexter Jettster and podracing legend Ben Quadinaros. Yet, it's simultaneously the worldbuilding and big picture plotting that Lucas obsessed over that really stands out in these films. Even if Lucas didn't think his "Star Wars" prequels would be so politically prescient, there's no denying that those movies doubled down on the politics of his original trilogy. They're massive blockbusters that reveal how a fictional democracy fell while commenting directly on the politics and paranoia of George W. Bush's presidency.

Even now, one of the weirdest things about the already very weird prequels is Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best). After all, he's a comical sidekick who ends up being partly responsible for the rise of the Empire after he's manipulated by Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) into gaining the "emergency" powers that allow him to become Emperor. He may not be a Sith Lord in disguise himself, but the hapless Gungan is, in fact, pivotal to Lucas' trilogy.

In the canon, Jar Jar suffers a terrible humiliation for his mistake, eventually becoming a homeless street performer. But even if the larger galaxy doesn't know it, a new "Jar Jar Binks" one-shot Marvel comic book written by Best and Marc Guggenheim (with artwork by Kieran McKeown and Laura Braga) makes him essential to the creation of the Rebel Alliance.

Kicking off in the early days of the Clone Wars, the Jar Jar comic book follows Jedi Master Kelleran Beq (who's portrayed by Ahmed Best in live-action) as he reveals the dark secrets of the planet Urubai to Jar Jar (who's now the Galactic Senator for Naboo's Chommell sector). As it turns out, this apparent paradise is actually built on illegal labor, with workers being forced to mine the world's coaxium until they drop dead. Not only that, the operation is also becoming unstable and could lead to mass deaths on the level with the Ghorman massacre.

Sure enough, it turns out this is connected to those emergency powers that Jar Jar helped Palpatine to gain. But when Jar Jar learns this and asks Palpatine to do something for the people of Urubai, the Supreme Chancellor simply shrugs the whole thing off and tells Jar Jar to think of the bigger picture (shaking the Gungan Senator to his core).

However, Beq also shows Jar Jar that the operation on Urubai has led to another discovery. It seems the miners have found a crystalline mineral that could serve as the basis for an almost unbreakable fractal communication network ... one that could either give the Republic the edge it needs to defeat the Separatists and end the war or be used by another group to communicate in secret.

Disillusioned with Palpatine, Jar Jar makes the second-most impactful decision of his life: He tasks Beq with beginning to develop the fractal network in secret to counter whatever the Emperor has planned. He doesn't just want the network to be about crystals and radios, though. Instead, he hopes that others will use it to rebel against the system.

That's right: Jar Jar Binks helped jumpstart the Rebellion.

George Lucas once said Jar Jar is "the key" to his prequels, and he was right. Indeed, the fractal network Jar Jar and Beq help build should ring a bell for "Andor" fans especially. In that show, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) use a fractal radio network in the backroom of their antiques shop to communicate with other members of their rebel network, Axis. Of course, this doesn't mean they're using the exact same fractal network Jar Jar had Beq build. It just means that Jar Jar laid the foundation that led to Axis, which in turn gave rise to the Alliance to Restore the Republic and, ultimately, the fall of the Empire.

But Jar Jar and Beq weren't alone. The only reason they even learned about the mineral at the core of the network is because they rescued a laborer from Urubai who set up a preliminary version of the network on the doomed planet. And that individual was none other than Mira Bridger, the mother of "Star Wars Rebels" lead Ezra Bridger (who's voiced by Taylor Gray on the animated series). And while we never meet Mira Bridger on that show, it gradually reveals that she and Ezra's father operated an anti-Imperial radio network on Lothal until they were caught by the Empire.

So, yeah, Jar Jar Binks was instrumental to the rise of the Empire and the death of liberty, but he also laid the groundwork for the communications network that gave birth to the Rebellion. By teaming up with Beq, Jar Jar was even partially responsible for establishing the Hidden Path that saved various Jedi and other dissidents — meaning, he saved Grogu on "The Mandalorian" in more ways than one.