5 Strange Stories From The Early 2010s 'Star Wars' Canon

Image Source: StarWars.com

Star Wars has a lot of strange things in it, from unique aliens with designs that make you wonder “how do they even survive” to stories that make you pause, think, and question everything. It is this second pole of consideration that we'll be tackling today as we explore some of the early stories that formed part of the new canon under Disney and Lucasfilm. Some of these could be particularly weird, and while Star Wars has never shied away from that in the years since, going into the 2020s, it was in those first few years that some truly strange storytelling decisions and narratives played out on the printed page. Here are five of the strangest!

5. Chewie The Uncomprehended

Image Source: Wookieepedia

Wouldn’t it be great to have a Star Wars comic miniseries focusing on an alien character who rarely gets their due or major focus in canon storytelling? Well, we did get it, but its execution leaves it as a curious artifact of the early efforts of Marvel Comics to dive back into the Star Wars galaxy. Chewbacca follows the titular Wookiee when his A-wing crashes onto a backwater world under the thumb of local criminals who seek to work with the Empire. A young woman tries to gain Chewbacca’s help, eventually convincing the reluctant offworlder to help save her father and planet from the criminals.

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The end of the comic eventually sees Chewbacca returning to Kashyyk, presenting a Life Day Orb to his family which he guarded the entire time he was on the previous planet, before presumably celebrating the holiday. The entire time, Chewbacca is not understood by the other protagonist, nor anyone else in the story, and the reveal of Chewbacca’s mission certainly helps make this a strange story.

4. A Clone Awakens

Image Source: Wookieepedia

The “Journey to The Force Awakens” was full of short, strange tales behind a host of background characters on Jakku, Maz Kanata’s castle, and beyond. Among those stories was one of the stranger ones in the galaxy far, far away, and saw a character from the distant past survive some 50-odd years into the future. In it, we see Sidon Ithano, the Crimson Corsair, and his crew, hoping to hunt down the supposed “lost treasure of Count Dooku.” In the process, they learn said treasure was actually a person: the clone trooper medic named Kix, who learned the truth behind the inhibitor chips but was kidnapped for transport back to the Separatists. However, the ship carrying him crashed, and misunderstandings about the nature of the secretive mission led to Sidon’s quest in the sequel trilogy galaxy. Kix ultimately chose to join Sidon’s crew, but the overall story is an intriguing, if bizarre, narrative for Star Wars to adopt so early on into its history.

We’ve since had the likes of Dagan Gera surviving 200 years in bacta stasis, but for such an early story to include an instance of time displacement (and for a notable secondary character from The Clone Wars) is very strange.

3. Salesbeing of the Year

Image Source: Wookieepedia

The Last Jedi had a subdued “Journey To” run in the Sequel Trilogy, but it was also one of the stranger sets of media initiatives for the canon franchise. Among the stories told in connection to the film were a series of short stories in two story collections. One of those, Canto Bight, told some very odd tales of the myriad of strange aliens seen in the background of Canto Bight during the film, including a true oddity: Kedpin Shoklop. A rotund, diminutive, beige-pink alien with a single eye, Kedpin arrives to Canto Bight and proceeds to be swindled, beaten down, and otherwise taken advantage of for hours on end. He crosses paths with a criminal, and the two eventually get into some trouble and come to an understanding. It is a sad story that addresses questions of power imbalances and the nature of a universe full of corruption and menace, but it still has positive messaging.

Aside from the strange alien as its main character, this story in Canto Bight stands out for another reason: most fans likely never saw its main character on screen. The scene featuring Kedpin in a bathhouse was cut and was only later restored in special features and more for the film.

2. Alien Avians and their Eggs

Source: Wookieepedia

Poe Dameron is a unique series, and represents a significant effort by Marvel Comics to integrate with the sequel trilogy during the release of the films. However, its first storyline is also one of the stranger narratives seen in canon storytelling to date. While on the hunt for Lor San Tekka, Poe Dameron and Black Squadron encounter a Force sect seeking to hatch a giant and mysterious egg. The arrival of First Order Agent Terex results in the hatching of the egg, releasing a large winged entity which attacks both the cult guarding it and the First Order.

Out of nowhere, a second extremely similar creature appears, and begins doing battle with the first, the two inexplicably growing larger in size the more they fight until they smash through the roof. The first creature, hailed as the cult’s savior, is then defeated by the second creature. Suddenly passive, the second creature is hailed as the true savior, and the cult flies away on the entity’s back. We never got further information on the fate of this group, but that is certainly a very outlandish way to begin a comic series.

1. Extradimensional Voyager

Image Source: Wookieepedia

Stories with Han Solo as the main character were surprisingly common early into the new canon, probably as a warm-up for the upcoming release of Solo as well as the desire to focus on the original trilogy cast. However, the Han Solo miniseries, which saw him running in an intergalactic race while picking up Rebel spies, was certainly bizarre. A spy thriller wrapped in classic starfighter action, the stranger element of the comic series was the presence of an alien pilot from a long-vanished species. The race traced her people’s ancient voyages across the stars, and as part of his plan to escape his foes, Han Solo had to fly through an ancient gateway in space that would coincidentally take this alien pilot to her people.

However, she spoke of this journey in such a way that it appears her and her people might now live as extradimensional beings outside the physical world of the galaxy far, far away. This race, and this pilot or her species, have seen little mention ever since despite her success in leaving any discernable plane. While it is a deeply strange bit of Star Wars lore, it still represents an intriguing idea that could be visited in the future with stories exploring the galactic past given the vast spans of time mentioned by her, and alluding to her species. But it is also an undeniably strange part of the Star Wars universe.

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Sources: Chewbacca (2015), The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku, Canto Bight, Poe Dameron (2016), Han Solo (2016)

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