Kieron Gillen returns to Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra in his first new Star Wars comic in 5 years

Krrsantan roars on a variant cover of Star Wars: A New Legacy. — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

2025 marks the 10 year anniversary of Star Wars returning to both the big screen, with The Force Awakens, and to Marvel Comics. To celebrate, the publisher is releasing a one-shot featuring new stories from several big name creators including Jason Aaron and Kieron Gillen – the latter returning to the galaxy far, far away for the first time in five years.

Star Wars: A New Legacy #1 contains three stories and numerous fan favorite characters. Doctor Aphra features in a tale from Charles Soule and Ramon Rosanas that sees the great and the good (or, well, bad) of the Empire convene on the not-yet-obliterated Alderaan to honor Emperor Palpatine. But while they're doing their evil thing, Aphra and Sana Starros are staging a heist. The story also promises to revisit a whole host of comics characters including Darth Momin, Chanath Cha, Rik Duel, Commander Zahra, and more.

The next tale revisits Task Force 99 – AKA Scar Squadron, Darth Vader's elite stormtrooper unit led by Sergeant Kreel. The strip, by Aaron and Leonard Kirk, reveals what became of one of the deadliest threats to the Rebellion.

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Covers for Star Wars: A New Legacy #1. — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Above you can see the issue's three covers: Steve McNiven's main, plus variants by Leinil Francis Yu and Kyle Hotz.

The third and final story in the issue marks the return of Kieron Gillen to Star Wars after five years, working here with artist Salva Espin. Their story is set within Gillen's acclaimed run on the Darth Vader solo comic, and delves deeper into Aphra's relationship with the Dark Lord of the Sith, as well as featuring her old crew: the murderous droids 0-0-0, BT-1, and the wookiee known as Black Krrsantan.

"This is the monumental moment we've been waiting for: celebrating a decade of the re-union of Marvel Comics and Star Wars!" said Marvel editor Mark Paniccia in a statement. "We've got a great package here with some of the most influential Star Wars comic writers in recent history along with amazing art. It is so cool to spotlight as many of the Marvel-created characters as we could. Longtime and new fans alike will get a kick in the thrusters with this!"

Star Wars: A New Legacy is published by Marvel Comics on January 29, 2025.

Doctor Aphra is one of many great characters who originated in Star Wars comics.

Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he launched the scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places too.