Star Wars Just Established A Major Connection To The Old Republic

01/18/2022 07:06 pm EST

Star Wars fans have waited years for the acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic series to officially be launched within Star Wars canon – and the franchise just took a significant step in that direction! If you are not keeping up with the current line of Star Wars comics from Marvel, the latest chapter of one of those books just made the milestone step of name-dropping Sith Lord Darth Bane in franchise canon for the first time. If you know your Star Wars lore (specifically Disney's new canon timeline) then you know that Darth Bane's name is a major signal flare for the Old Republic. 

(WARNING: Star Wars Comics SPOILERS Follow!) 

In Star Wars #20, Luke Skywalker takes a quest to the Living Sea of Gazian, a living planet that serves as a Vergence in the Force. Through a Force vision, Luke makes contact with Elzar Mann, one of the main Jedi heroes(?) of Star Wars' current High Republic series. Mann takes Luke to a vision of the High Republic era in its glory days, while finally explaining the official history of how the Jedi Order defeated Darth Bane's Sith Empire "eight centuries" before The High Republic (or about a Millennium before the Skywalker Saga). That tracks with Bane's original character concept. 

The new Star Wars canon has been extremely vague when it comes to acknowledging both Darth Bane and the Old Republic era as a whole within canon. At the same time, Bane (an original creation of George Lucas) and Knights of the Old Republic (a hit game series now making a comeback) are both beloved (and iconic) pieces of Star Wars' non-official "Legends" canon, and their respective arrivals in the "official" storyline have seemed all but inevitable. 

When Star Wars: The High Republic launched, its official arrival was heralded by Star Wars comics, which started peppering in High Republic references nearly a year before that line started. There's some ironic symmetry, then, to having the Original Trilogy (Luke Skywalker) and High Republic (Elzar Mann) come together to make a big (if not indirect) baton-pass to the Old Republic. 

Way back in 2019, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy gave fans hope that the Old Republic was on the way, revealing that "You Know, we talk about that all the time. Yes, we are developing something to look at." At the same time, Kennedy admitted that "Right now I have no idea where things might fall..."

That same year, rumors started circulating that Shutter Island writer Laeta Kalogridis was working on a Knights of the Old Republic movie script. Obviously, nothing concrete has been announced since then. 

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