The 'Star Wars' Adventures Between 'The Empire Strikes Back' And 'Return Of The Jedi'
Image Source: Wookieepedia
2020 saw the launch of four main Star Wars comic series from Marvel. With additional miniseries, crossover events, and one-shots, the following four years of releases resulted in an exceptionally busy calendar for Star Wars fans. Given it is now late 2025, and all of these series are wrapped up, CultureSlate thought it would be a good idea to take a look back at these four major series and explore one key question on fans’ minds: how did all of it happen within a year?
'Star Wars' (2020)
Image Source: Wookieepedia
The main Star Wars run immediately dealt with various problems facing the Rebel Alliance. Shortly after the Battle of Hoth, the Empire cracked the Rebellion’s communication codes, and as the Rebel Fleet scattered across the galaxy, these battle groups became vulnerable to attack. Darth Vader himself brought in a former protege of Grand Moff Tarkin to pursue the Rebels and she proved highly effective at destroying their scattered forces. But just as Commander Zahra was about to complete another operation of annihilation, the Millennium Falcon arrived from Cloud City, and helped her latest targets escape the net of turbolaser fire she had woven for them.
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Over the coming months, the Rebel heroes successfully created new codes for the Rebel Alliance, made a play to rescue Han Solo which unfortunately failed, gathered the remnants of the Rebel Alliance while thwarting the Empire, and located a convoy of supplies key to the ongoing survival of the Alliance. Many smaller adventures occurred across this span of time, such as when Luke saved Crimson Dawn agents who revealed the existence of the second Death Star to the Rebels, or when he went on various quests to help improve his knowledge of the Jedi. Zahra was ultimately defeated, and Leia alongside many others helped the Rebel Alliance recover and rebuild to the point seen in Return of the Jedi. This era of the comics also saw many nods to The High Republic, of which comic author Charles Soule was a leading voice, allowing him to make these various links.
Image Source: Wookieepedia
The series ultimately ended with the trial of Lando Calrissian for crimes against the Rebel Alliance, when he almost allowed Jabba the Hutt to have critical information on the Rebels which he would have surely passed on to the Empire, as well as an adventure with Leia, Luke, and Evaan Verlaine checking in on the Alderaanian refugee convoy. At the end of this adventure, Leia began to help plan the mission to save Han Solo, leading into the events of Return of the Jedi.
'Darth Vader' (2020)
Image Source: Wookieepedia
Darth Vader’s new comics began with Vader on the hunt for anyone to blame but himself. Luke rejecting him had caused a crisis within the Sith Lord, and he decided to seek out those who had made his son “weak.” He began to delve down lines of inquiry that brought him to the final resting place of Padmé as well as the now-abandoned medical facility where his son and daughter were born. In this quest, he encountered Sabé and the other former handmaidens to his wife, each a near identical copy of the woman he had once loved. Vader was unable to kill any of them, especially Sabé, as she relentlessly pursued Vader, initially thinking he had killed her queen and former friend before eventually realizing that he was Anakin Skywalker.
However, Sidious learned of Vader’s weakness and defrocked his apprentice, dumping his damaged body on Mustafar and sending Ochi of Bestoon to hunt the fallen Sith Lord. However, Vader was formidable, bending Ochi to his service while also encountering the Eye of the Webbish Bog. A prophet aligned to the Dark Side, the Eye gave enough direction to Vader that he was able to travel to the planet Exegol with Ochi and discover several of his master’s plans. His resourcefulness and tenacity was rewarded by Sidious taking him back. Over the coming months, Vader worked against Crimson Dawn, trying to turn Sabé to the Dark Side to serve the Empire alongside him, but also encountered others from Anakin Skywalker’s past, like Kitster and Wald. Over time, as the wheels of the galaxy turned, Vader came to plan an audacious move against his master, the razing of Exegol, but this only partly succeeded.
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Aided by the Schism Imperial, Imperials who wanted the chaos in the galaxy to stop, he assaulted the Sith world and did significant damage to Sidious’ operations there. But Vader was soon lured off-world, and directly confronted by Sidious on another planet. In the mental battle that ensued, Sidious finally, fully, broke Vader’s resistance to his master’s plans and vision for the future of the galaxy. After all of his experiences, Vader believed that his master was unstoppable, something supported when it was revealed the entire Schism Imperial was manipulated by Sidious with the aid of Sly Moore (who had her own ups and downs during this year). The comic series ended with a subdued, silent Vader, forlorn and resigned, closely matching his role and mindset in the final Original Trilogy film.
'Bounty Hunters'
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The first of two series to heavily focus on non-film characters, Bounty Hunters explored the adventures of Beilert Valance, whose presence in canon Star Wars had slowly been built up through previous stories initially connected to Solo: A Star Wars Story and later, other adventures just focused on Valance. The 2020 comic series began with Valance pursuing the long-hidden bounty hunter Nakano Lash, but this information also spread to others who all converge to seek answers or the reward for taking down this formidable old hunter. In the aftermath of his encounter with Lash, the cyborg was entrusted with her ward, a young orphan named Cadeliah, who was the heir to two great criminal syndicates of Corellia though neither knew about her existence. Valance later had Cadeliah live with trusted Rebel operatives, including a former romantic partner, while he went on to have a very tumultuous year.
Learning of the auction for Han Solo, Valance teamed up with Dengar and later Boba Fett in efforts to acquire the slab, though he wanted to free Han for saving him back during their Imperial Academy days years ago rather than claim any monetary reward for its recovery. Dengar was betrayed by the cyborg bounty hunter, before Boba Fett severely wounded Valance, and left the metallic man’s form at the mercy of Darth Vader. The two had a history, and for a while, Valance was drawn into the service of Vader as he hunted Crimson Dawn. The comic then took an interesting turn as it heavily included a separate, secondary unit of bounty hunters including new, old, and surprising faces. After a series of adventures, they resolved to save Valance when the Scourge took over his body, while Valance’s recent time with the Empire had seen a new romantic connection kindled with a female Imperial officer who fled the organization to be with the fellow cyborg. While some of the bounty hunters ultimately abandoned the quest, Valance was still saved from the insidious droid intelligence’s mind control.
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At the end of the series, Valance went to Jabba’s Palace, and defeated a huge battle droid that would have posed a considerable threat to the Rebel heroes when they went to rescue Han. After informing them of his success, he then retreated with his new lady love, and the two are presumably still together in the more recent post-Return of the Jedi and post-Battle of Jakku stories we’ve been seeing in Star Wars recently.
'Doctor Aphra' (2020)
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The second of the four comic series that began in 2020 to not focus on a film character, Doctor Aphra (2020) picks up very shortly after the Battle of Hoth as Aphra steals from the Imperials cleaning up the battlesite. Aided by a new teammate later revealed to be an old acquaintance, Just Lucky, Aphra soon embarked on a mission to locate a relic of the High Republic. Unfortunately, Lucky betrayed Aphra’s team, and brought her before his employer, Ronen Tagge. Equally unfortunately, Aphra blew Ronen up and escaped his clutches, though not those of his aunt, Domina Tagge. The head of TaggeCo, the coming issues saw Aphra off on a mission with Sana Starros to confirm and then steal a possible Nihil Path Engine which has been reverse-engineered by a supposed tech genius. As it turned out, he was a fraud, but Aphra avoided failing Domina by locating genuine Path Engine data to trade for her life.
The following adventures took Aphra to the auction for Han Solo, and then on a quest to locate artifacts of the ancient Ascendant, yet again running afoul of an old acquaintance. However, things got trippy when the Ascendant’s ultimate creation, the Spark Eternal, possessed Aphra’s mortally wounded body. Taken through a series of memories of her past actions, Aphra also learned about the Spark Eternal’s past, all while wholly removed from the events playing out involving her body. Meanwhile, Sana teamed up with a host of characters from Aphra’s past and the 2016 series to save the possessed Doc, while the Spark Eternal found itself an opponent in the form of Darth Vader when serving as an agent for Lady Qi’ra of Crimson Dawn.
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The Spark was, however, rapidly defeated, and an exhausted Aphra eventually found herself in a messy but loving throuple with Sana Starros and Magna Tolvan after the Dark Droids storyline concluded. She also gained possession of a rare book full of Jedi knowledge and sites that likely weren’t looted. While it seems her recent 2025 comic series isn’t picking up on either plot thread, it is probably only a matter of time. The 2020 series started far removed from the characters and events of 2016’s run, and later included them in a meaningful way.
A Very Busy Year
On top of everything already mentioned, this era of Marvel storytelling had major crossover events in the form of the return and machinations of Crimson Dawn and the event called Dark Droids, when an ancient machine intelligence was released into the galaxy where it caused havoc before being made dormant once again. With all of this material, and upwards of 200 comic issues, some fans have questioned the logistics of all of these storylines happening within the course of around a year, which is the timescale stated to be between Empire and Jedi.
However, it is important to remember that many events in these comics happen incredibly quickly. As an example, in Star Wars (2020), the first twelve or so issues take place over the span of days, not weeks or months. We know this because elsewhere, Boba Fett is acting ruthlessly to track down Nakano Lash while still in possession of a carbonite-frozen Han Solo. He could not have taken weeks to settle his old score, especially when his biggest client, Jabba the Hutt, is waiting on this key delivery. When Han was stolen from Boba, and put up for auction, we again know that these events happened in a very short span of time. The auction itself covers multiple issues of various different comic series, but cannot be days of time, instead lasting at most, hours. After all of that, the main Star Wars run is almost at 20 issues of a 50 comic run, and it has been barely a few weeks since The Empire Strikes Back. It does all fit!
But why would fans FEEL that it doesn’t? For one, the sheer volume of material. Back in 2015, there were only two main comic runs, Star Wars and Darth Vader. Doctor Aphra was added in 2016, but Darth Vader had ended by that time. While various miniseries, and one or two crossover events, supplemented the next three years of storytelling, it was ultimately small in scope. Compare that against 2020’s four main comic runs launching one month after another at the start of the year, and each of them weaving in and out of each other as characters jumped from crossover events, to miniseries, and then back to main comic runs alongside various key events. It was, and even today is, a lot to keep track of.
Another reason why fans feel that it is improbable is because no characters ever allude or discuss anything like this happening between the two films. The biggest area of focus there is Dark Droids, with questions about why people in the Star Wars galaxy don’t discuss the fact that a hostile droid intelligence began to take over droids across the entire galaxy. But this is ignoring how often major events in our world are forgotten or quickly dismissed in a matter of days. Some get entirely forgotten or only remembered much later when points like anniversaries are hit. The Scourge’s droid infection also was not universal, not all droids fell to its power, and something being wrong with the droids was all that most of the galaxy thought of the event. The Scourge’s defeat was also rather quick in the grand scheme of a full year of time, and executed by a handful of backroom actors while many main characters barely had any idea of what was going on.
The final issue of Star Wars (2020) ultimately poked fun at this complaint. Ben Solo, while speaking to Luke, comments that he can’t believe all of it happened in just one year (after being told stories by Lando and others). Luke insists it did, and begins to tell his nephew a new story involving himself, Lando, Leia, Chewbacca and their droid companions, adding to the corpus of material in this period of the galaxy. But such a rich tapestry so full of information and activity can only add to Star Wars at the end of the day, and certainly helps one appreciate Star Wars Outlaws a great deal. In the end, it was simply one VERY busy year for many factions as the galaxy hurtled toward a point of change that would devastate over two decades of fascist rule that had shrouded the galaxy far, far away.
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Sources: Star Wars (2020), Darth Vader (2020), Bounty Hunters, Doctor Aphra (2020)
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