Warning: SPOILERS for Star Wars: Hidden Empire #5 are ahead!
When the Star Wars franchise decided to explore Han Solo’s origins in Solo: A Star Wars Story, among the characters the 2018 movie introduced was Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra, the love interest to Alden Ehrenreich’s younger Han. Unfortunately, given how Solo underperformed at the box office, there’s been no movement on making Solo 2 happen. Fortunately, this hasn’t stopped Qi’ra from being explored in a different corner of the Star Wars franchise, and now we know how her story ends, at least where the Original Trilogy is concerned.
Back in summer 2021, Qi’ra entered the Star Wars comics scene when she was revealed to be a major player in the “War of the Bounty Hunters” crossover event. With Solo having ended with Qi’ra heading to meet Darth Maul, who was leading the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate at the time, “War of the Bounty Hunters" caught up with her in the year between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, with her now leading Crimson Dawn. Qi’ra returned in the follow-up events “Crimson Reign” and “Hidden Empire,” the latter of which ended today with the fifth issue of the main miniseries. Unfortunately, the issue (via Comicbook.com) ends with Qi’ra’s mission to overthrow the Empire failing.
Since assuming control of Crimson Dawn, Qi’ra took steps to turn the organization into a force for the greater goods, namely by having her agents infiltrate all walks of life across a galaxy far, far away, including within the Empire. Qi’ra’s endgame was to defeat Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine so that the galaxy would never need to fear the Empire and the Sith ever again, and in “Hidden Empire,” she attempted to accomplish this with an artifact called the Fermata Cage. While Vader and Palpatine initially thought the Cage had the ability to bring two Sith from years past to the present era, its true purpose was to simply freeze two Sith targets in time, which ideally would have made them easy to pick off.
Sadly, Vader and Palpatine were eventually able to overpower the Fermata Cage, and while Qi’ra was able to escape, the failure of her master plan led to her leaving Crimson Dawn and encouraging its agents to go build new lives for themselves. Readers of Hidden Empire #5 learn all this information through a mysterious character called The Archivist telling it as a story to Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, but this moment takes place post-Return of the Jedi, i.e. after the Rebels destroyed the second Death Star. Speaking of which, it’s also revealed that it was Crimson Dawn agents who tipped off the Rebellion that this version of the planet-destroying machine was being built, as well as mentioned that because the Empire was so focused on wiping out the remnants of Crimson Dawn, that allowed the Rebellion replenish its ranks.
But wait, there’s one final twist to mention! While it was speculated that the Empire would eventually capture Qi’ra ands execute her for her actions, the finale pages of Hidden Empire #5 show that she lived to see the Empire toppled, though she’d been in isolation after failing to kill Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. So now we know how things end for Qi’ra by the time the Original Trilogy is over, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve seen the last of her. In addition to it still being possible that we might get a story following Qi’ra in the time between Solo and the Original Trilogy, even if that’s not Solo 2, we also now know it’s possible she can pop up in stories set after Return of the Jedi. And with Emilia Clarke starring in Secret Invasion later this year, Disney+ may want to keep the actress around, which would make Qi’ra a prime pick to lead a Star Wars TV show.
You can read all that unfolds in Star Wars: Hidden Empire #5 by buying digitally or at your local comic book store. If it’s announced that Qi’ra will appear in more Star Wars stories, we’ll let you know. Until then, break out your Disney+ subscription to watch the Star Wars movies in order or the platform’s original shows for the franchise.
