For five years, the word “somehow” has been a big deal for Star Wars fans. Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac) delivered the phrase “somehow Palpatine returned” in The Rise of Skywalker, and since then, the specifics of that return have slowly but surely been revealed. In fact, clues were being dropped before that infamous moment. Because the first sequel movie, 2014’s The Force Awakens, took place three decades after Return of the Jedi, post-2014 comics and novels started to explain how the defeated Empire rebuilt into the First Order. Now, an ongoing comic series is pulling all those strands together in a way that makes “somehow” much more explicable.
Star Wars: The Battle Of Jakku — Insurgency Rising #2, from Marvel Comics and writer Alex Segura, is continuing its post-Jedi storyline, and in doing so, it’s pinpointed the earliest movements of Palpatine’s Sith Eternal, the sinister cult integral to his return. Mild spoilers ahead.
Because Insurgency Rising occurs just after Return of the Jedi, the story focuses on several ideas, from what Luke Skywalker is doing to the fledgling formation of the New Republic. But in issue #2, the series dovetails with the orders the Imperial Remnants receive following Palpatine’s demise. Messenger droids issue orders to Imperial officials, who then carry out devastating orbital bombardments on various planets.
While this moment first featured in the 2017 game Star Wars Battlefront II, was referenced by Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr) in The Mandalorian Season 2, and exists in other comics and novels, Insurgency Rising #2 ties all these scenes together, referencing a variety of canonical elements spanning from the 2015 novel Aftermath to the mobile game Star Wars: Uprising. It’s a bigger look at this Imperial puzzle.
Insurgency Rising #2 also shows us Luke Skywalker trying to reclaim a “Jedi Compass Star,” which leads to a confrontation with “The Acolytes of the Beyond.” And it's in this detail that the comic does some heavy lifting in explaining Palpatine’s return. One of the Acolytes tells Luke, “We serve the Sith, Skywalker. We serve Palpatine and Vader. We are but shadows that flow beneath them. And we await their return.”
Luke, for obvious reasons, is confident Vader will never return, but this moment plants the idea that Palpatine could come back. The purpose of the Sith Eternal in Rise of Skywalker is evident in their name: they want the Sith to live forever, which is exactly why Palpatine has been scheming with his clones and genetic offshoots, like Rey. Neither the Acolytes nor Palpatine could have foreseen exactly how this would play out, but one crucial detail of how Palpatine returned is now clear.
Palpatine’s consciousness has to be floating around in a Sauron-esque state at this point, perhaps even inhabiting an early clone body or similar receptacle. That said, his comeback would never have happened without some help from the living, and so the Acolytes of the Beyond put plans in motion to make it happen. Luke Skywalker will no longer be alive when those plans reach their climax, making it chilling to see Luke fight people destined to shape a dark future. Right after Luke’s ultimate victory against the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, he was, from a certain point of view, already losing again.
Star Wars: The Battle Of Jakku — Insurgency Rising #2 is out now.
