“I would like her to be in the book more than she is because I think Will draws a beautiful Leia Organa,” he says. Soule says as much as he enjoys writing the character of Leia, he used her sparingly in this story.

In the first issue, surveying the aftermath and Ben Solo standing among the wreckage, one of these students asks, “Should we call his mother?” The story also introduces a trio of Ben’s classmates, survivors of the Jedi temple destruction by virtue of being off-world on a mission at the time of its collapse. “Mostly they’re just kind of out to live their lives the way they want to live them and take what the galaxy will give them and eat what the dark side sends,” Soule says. They’re flexible.” Like all good galactic thugs and scoundrels, they’re in it for themselves. They have some sort of a code, like a motorcycle gang, but it’s not elaborate. “They’re not as powerful as a Jedi or a Sith, but they use it when they fight…. “They can all use the Force, the dark side of the Force, to varying degrees,” he reveals. Soule was inspired by motorcycle gangs, classic Westerns, and Samurai tales as he dramatized some of the lore behind the masked marauders. “I think when that first page shows up in previews it’s going to land so hard,” adds Soule. “He has this almost childish pout of his bottom lip that gives away emotion, so I’m trying to bring that in there ever so slightly at different times, which is difficult to do when it’s a still image.”Īn integral part of Ben Solo’s journey involves the Knights of Ren, a mysterious helmeted posse we’ve only just glimpsed in The Force Awakens, but will meet again in the upcoming film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.īut first: “You’ll learn an awful lot about the Knights of Ren very, very fast in this book,” Sliney teases. “I’ve never seen an actor or character that gives away so much with kind of the quiver of a lip, which is something that I’m trying to get across as much as I can in the panels,” Sliney adds, which can be a challenge. Sliney studied Adam Driver’s portrayal of the character to quantify exactly how the character betrays his emotion in those quieter moments - sometimes with little more than the twitch of his mouth. “He’s a very internal person…except when he’s not, right? He’s completely under control and completely compartmentalized until sometimes all those walls break at once and he does things like smashing his helmet or slicing up a computer console with his lightsaber.” “There’s lots of moments where you can see him thinking and waiting before he reacts,” Soule adds. It’s something that has to be subtly done.” Within the course of two panels, you want to show in one instance this is a frightened boy and in the second instance he has the potential to be this really, really dark person. “In one of the very early moments…we kind see the two sides of Ben where you can see him emotionally hurt and then he starts to put up this shield, this outer shield. “In this book, we’re leaning towards the mask,” Sliney says. In The Rise of Kylo Ren, Soule has written in emotional beats by folding in quiet moments, omitting dialogue from panels to firmly place the focus on the internal struggle within Ben and allow Sliney’s art to sing. Soule previously delved into Darth Vader’s past with another Marvel comic, Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, an epic story that kicked off as the machine-enabled man was lurching off Emperor Palpatine’s operating table at the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. “Because this transition, this turn to the dark side has to be as good and stand at the same level as some of the other big turns to the dark side we see,” including the fall of Anakin Skywalker, who was transformed into the infamous Sith Lord Darth Vader. “And then it was about creating a story that felt epic and above all emotional for Ben Solo,” Soule tells.

The director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had created the Knights of Ren for the first film in the sequel trilogy, and the pair knew their story had to fit between two fixed points in the Star Wars timeline: the destruction of the Jedi temple that sent Luke Skywalker into exile and the arrival of the fearsome dark warrior who appeared on Jakku at the start of The Force Awakens. To tell the tale of Ben Solo’s fall to the dark side, the subject of the upcoming Marvel Star Wars comic The Rise of Kylo Ren, writer Charles Soule and artist Will Sliney started from a framework developed by Lucasfilm after a lengthy conversation with none other than J.J. Writer Charles Soule and artist Will Sliney tell about capturing the subtle emotion and sweeping mythology inherent in Ben Solo’s epic journey to the dark side.

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