Marvel Announces 'Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge' Comic Miniseries Set On Batuu

Theme park visitors will be able to step into the fictional world of Batuu when Disney's new Star Wars land opens later this year, but before the doors open, comic readers can get a better glimpse of that setting in a newly-announced Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge comic book miniseries.

Marvel Comics has announced a five-issue miniseries that takes place at the Black Spire Outpost, the shady trading port on the fictional Outer Rim planet. Learn more details about the miniseries below, and read on to find out what the Millennium Falcon is doing on Batuu in the first place.

StarWars.com has an interview with writer Ethan Sacks, who recently wrote Star Wars: Age of Republic and who is collaborating on the new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge comic with illustrator Will Sliney, who pencilled the Solo: A Star Wars Story comic adaptation. Sacks explained that the comic will feature "intertwined stories over several eras — including a Han Solo and Chewbacca adventure, a very specific dream come true", and the character of Dok-Ondar will factor into the story as well.

Dok-Ondar is a VIP collector first mentioned in Solo: A Star Wars Story, when Emilia Clarke's Qi'ra alluded to making sure he was being taken care of on Dryden Vos's yacht. Here's what Sacks had to say about that character's inclusion in the comic:

"There's a reason Dok-Ondar's name ripples far and wide in the Star Wars universe. He's a mysterious Ithorian who is the proprietor of the most notorious antiquities shop in the galaxy. And every item has a story behind it. Some more dangerous to listen to than others."

Sounds a little like he's a mixture of The Collector and The Broker from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Sacks also says he was privy to "top-secret sketches and information from Walt Disney Imagineering and Lucasfilm" when he was writing this series, so I expect this will be required reading for the hardcore fans who want to pick up on every Easter egg when they're walking through the park when it opens later this year. We've previously wrote about rumors that Jon Favreau is going to shoot an episode of The Mandalorian in the land before it opens to the public; we still don't know if that's true, but between that, this comic miniseries, and its appearance in several novels, Batuu is starting to become a major focus of the Star Wars galaxy.

Meanwhile, Star Wars Explained has a nice breakdown of why the Millennium Falcon is temporarily on Batuu. We know it's going to be the setting for one of the park's key attractions, but what's the in-universe reason for it hanging out in this specific outpost full of pirates and smugglers? The answer lies with Hondo Ohnaka, a character who appeared in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Resistance:

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge #1 hits shelves sometime in spring 2019, and the Galaxy's Edge park opens at Disneyland this June and over at Walt Disney World in late fall 2019.