'Star Wars' Free Comic Book Day 2025 Comic Review

Star Wars

May 6

This past Saturday, May 3rd of 2025, fans of many franchises were treated to the annual Free Comic Book Day! This year, Star Wars fans saw the release of two comics. One was an all-ages offering from Dark Horse featuring the main characters of Young Jedi Adventures, which was the same direction taken in 2024. The other release was a one-shot comic featuring a trio of stories that highlight the three comic runs Marvel has ongoing for 2025. We’re here to give our review of these stories and provide a bit more context!

WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS for all four FCBD stories.

The Marvel one-shot was the most varied of the two releases, as Marvel has launched a comic series apiece for the Prequel, Original, and Sequel Trilogy eras. Up first was the story connected with Alex Segura’s run of Star Wars, which begins this week. The short story was a prequel to Issue #1 of that new comic run, and showed us a vengeful Luke who is very done with pirates and brigands harassing the New Republic’s efforts to help the galaxy.

RELATED:

Featured

How 'The Phantom Menace' Destroyed A School Library Book Company

His aggression and open use of the Force also suggest a Luke who is once again struggling with his emotions, a bit of a repeated story beat after Charles Soule’s 2020 comic run also saw Luke grappling with the same concerns in the first few arcs. This is hopefully a temporary state of affairs brought on by the unique stressors of the current pressure being applied to the New Republic, and will not be a major part of Segura’s run as it would be covering ground this reviewer thinks is well worn at this point.

Star Wars comic cover — Image Source: Bluesky

The other two stories tackled Charles Soule’s Legacy of Vader through an exploration of the character Vaneé and events for him following Return of the Jedi, and then Marc Guggenheim’s Jedi Knights series through Padawan Tensu Run with Qui-Gon Jinn seeking information about the assassin Corlis Rath. Tensu Run was the protagonist of the recent Inquisitors miniseries in 2024 about the then-Jedi Knight combatting the Empire and Inquisitors, so Knights is helping to fill in his backstory.

Guggenheim and Soule’s stories were particularly interesting for hinting at information that will matter later in their respective comic runs, with Jedi Knights in particular getting a solid focus. Despite Qui-Gon claiming ignorance about who Rath is, Rath certainly seems to remember a run-in with Jinn back when the Jedi was younger and still Dooku’s Padawan. It has been a treat to see Qui-Gon and Dooku’s time together steadily expanded on so consistently over recent years, and with Dooku appearing in a soon-to-release issue of Jedi Knights, we might get more information on Rath imminently.

Lastly, we had the Young Jedi Adventures-connected story that was a fine adventure for younger readers. It featured some expansion to Tenoo’s diverse collection of animals and plants, and had Kai, Lys, and Nubs performing some problem-solving to figure out the answer to a riddle given to them by Master Yoda.

Overall, there was something for everyone this year, and some stories included fascinating teases at the near future of their respective comic runs. We hope fans picked up these issues alongside other purchases to help support their local source of Star Wars comics!

Rating: 8/10

READ NEXT:

Featured