It’s only been a few months since the third season of The Bad Batch came to a close. The Star Wars series capped off the 15-year saga of The Clone Wars with one hugely satisfying finale — but fans understandably aren’t quite ready to say goodbye. The rag-tag group of fighters known as Clone Force 99 became fan favorites across three seasons of The Bad Batch, and though we may not be getting another season of the show, their adventures will, fortunately, continue in another medium.
Lucasfilm and Dark Horse Comics are teaming up for a five-issue prequel series centered on Clone Force 99. The Bad Batch: Ghost Agents will take place during the Clone Wars, years before the rise of the Empire. According to Dark Horse’s official synopsis, Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, and Tech are hunting a “mysterious Separatist ghost agent who executed a daring heist on Coruscant.” Their mission will take them “to the seediest corners of the galaxy, where kingpins and thugs threaten the clones’ mission — and their lives!”
Another Bad Batch adventure, even one set in the past, is undoubtedly a pleasant surprise for fans of the series. Ghost Agents takes place before the team recruits characters like Echo or Omega, the beating heart of The Bad Batch, so it won’t be entirely the same. But it will be exciting to see the original line-up in action, as they don’t get to spend much time together in the series. And it’s especially rewarding to see the return of a fan-favorite clone, whose arc in The Bad Batch might have been the show’s most tragic mistake.
The Bad Batch might have started as a show for kids, but the animated series heads to some pretty dark places as the story matures. Its second season was an especially low point for the team, with their young ward Omega captured by Imperial forces, Crosshair enduring psychological torture, and Tech sacrificing himself outright to save the rest of the squad. By the end of Season 2, the Batch is entirely fractured — and they’re never the same again.
Omega and Crosshair do rejoin the team in Season 3, and many assumed that Tech would follow suit eventually. He wouldn’t be the first Star Wars character to return after a fake-out demise, after all. But as the final season came to a close, it became clear that Tech was, in fact, gone for good. He became one of the series’ most surprising casualties, and most fans seem to agree that The Bad Batch failed to give the character a proper send-off, or even properly grapple with his passing.
The Bad Batch can’t go back in time to fix its mistakes — and for the most part, it doesn’t really need to. Tech’s sacrifice does make narrative sense, as his unique set of skills were already making things difficult for the Empire in its early stages. He technically has to perish, otherwise, the Rebellion’s fight against the Empire would have been over in a flash. And his loss is meant to feel like a loss: that’s how you know The Bad Batch is telling an engrossing story.
But that also doesn’t really have to be the end for Tech! Ghost Agents will allow his story to continue, in a sense, and there may be room for more Tech-centric adventures set during the Clone Wars. Bad Batch prequel comics could be the perfect consolation prize for the series’ bittersweet ending: again, it won’t be totally the same, but at least Tech fans will get to see their fave in action again.
