Star Wars Adventures is a series of comic books aimed at "the next generation of comic book fans", written by Landry Q. Walker (Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away Volume 1: Aliens), Cavan Scott (Adventures in Wild Space), Ben Blacker & Ben Acker (Join the Resistance), and John Jackson Miller (A New Dawn, & Legends works Kenobi, Knights of the Old Republic comic series, Knight Errant, Lost Tribe of the Sith). Adventures features ambiguously canon stories from before The Phantom Menace all the way up to The Last Jedi, featuring a rotating cast through adventures of different genres and approaches.
It has received a spin-off title tying in with the Forces of Destiny animated shorts, under the subtitle of Adventures: Forces of Destiny. In October 2018, it also received a similar spin-off title as a Halloween special, Tales From Vader's Castle. In October 2019, a follow-up Halloween spin-off title was released, Return to Vader's Castle. Another spinoff, The High Republic Adventures, was announced in 2020.
A comic book series in Legends, Tales, delved into a similar premise, while the structure and target audience is comparable to its fellow Disney-owned property Marvel Adventures.
An "ashcan" preview
was released on StarWars.com on July 12, 2017. Under publishing by IDW Publishing, the first issue was released on September, 6, 2017. The first volume was released on October 17, 2017.
Tropes in this comic series include:
- Babysitting Episode: One of the Tales from Wild Space stories is about Cassian & Kaytoo having to take care of a trio of Wookiee babies.
- Bait-and-Switch: After escorting the eggs to the Rebel Alliance, Jaxxon has his droid bring them in... only for him to trip and break the eggs, cuing a seeming Mass "Oh, Crap!". Jaxxon then reveals that he knew that Leia, Han, and the client actually gave him fake eggs as a diversion while Han escorted the real eggs.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tales from Vader's Castle ends with Lina, Skritt, and Crater escaping alive, but Hudd was caught and XM-G3 was killed. However, Return to Vader's Castle reveals Hudd is alive and his teammates are trying to rescue him.
- Breather Episode: "Pest Control" is about Finn during his time with the First Order (including being the janitor of the Finalizer), but instead of being about some sort of troubled childhood, abuse, sociopathy, a Wham Episode, evil plans, or some other Cerebus Syndrome-related thing... it's about Finn having to catch a cute creature when it goes rogue on the Finalizer. Hilarity Ensues.
- Canon Immigrant:
- Jaxxon and Amaiza from Star Wars (Marvel 1977) return. They even mention Aduba-3 and the Wheel.
- Jaxxon's droid, Mel, appears to be a T3-model droid or a successor down that line.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Hoo boy. Adventures has the largest "crossover" of characters from numerous stories through the Expanded Universe (not counting the non-canon non-story Force Arena or Galaxy of Heroes games).note
- Continuity Nod:
- A Dynamic-class freighter—the same model of ship as the Ebon Hawk from Knights of the Old Republic—appears as the ship of Zendiat and his crew. A ship of the same model was first recanonized in Uprising as another cameo.
- Shepherd Squadron from "The Ghost Ship" participated in the assault on Fondor Shipyards and the Battle of Jakku. Rae Sloane is also mentioned.
- The ghost that Kanan and Hera come across in the first issue of Tales From Vader's Castle is reminiscent of Eternal Rur from the Doctor Aphra comic. The ghost claims that centuries ago, he was a dark-sider who was stripped of his body by the Jedi and literally became a ghost in a machine. As a corporeal spirit, he is able to possess machines like Chopper. However, Eternal Rur turned out to be an AI that thought he was the ghost of Rur.
- The "Secret Agent Droid" arc takes place on Garel, one of the recurring worlds in Star Wars Rebels (in fact, Artoo and Threepio had previously been to Garel in its debut episode, "Droids in Distress"). The title of the arc is also a reference to Rebels episode "Double Agent Droid".
- Issue #32, "The Battle for Horizon Base", takes place on Horizon Base, the Imperial station from Rebels episode "The Forgotten Droid".
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Creepy Cute: The acklay, that terrifying giant insect that nearly ate Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones, turns out to be downright adorable when tamed, licking Zeb and even purring. - False Flag Operation: After hearing from Dexter about a local pickpocket that's been stealing from his diner and patrons, Obi-Wan pretends to leave pay for his meal so that the pickpocket can steal it and return back to her hideout, unaware that it's actually just a paperweight with a tracker attached to it.
- Forgot About His Powers: Due to Ezra being the main animal tamer of the group, the Ghost crew spends a while running from the loose creatures before Kanan remembers he can tame them too.
- Gateway Series: It is meant to introduce younger Star Wars readers to the medium of comic books.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Obviously, given that the series spans throughout the entire known timeline of the franchise. However, Rebels is a recent entry (albeit only by a couple of years by the time Adventures was released), so readers that aren't caught up on Rebels may be wondering why Kanan has a mask over his eyes.
- Similarly, the ashcan issue straightaway reveals that Kix is hanging out with the Crimson Corsair for some reason despite the two being from different eras, which is a huge spoiler for the short story, "The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku", in Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away Volume 1: Aliens.
- If you haven't finished Adventures in Wild Space, it gets spoiled right away in the Tales from Wild Space segments that Lina, Milo, and Crater joined the Rebel Alliance after the events of the books and survived the Galactic Civil War.
- Letters to the Editor: Dispatches from Wild Space is one of these, hosted by Emil Graf.
- Lighter and Softer: The comic has a Saturday morning cartoon feeling to it. While it does expect you to know some of the more mature things going on in the other works of the franchise, the comic focuses on average days or tall-tales of the characters rather than delving into those darker subjects.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Some of the original character designs look rather cartoonish for regular Star Wars. Take the argora in the Rebels-centric issues, or any of the creatures in the B-plot to Issue #19, for instance.
- Odd Name, Normal Nickname: In "Roger Roger" from issue 19, a Separatist B1 battle droid gets hit in the head with a stray blaster bolt deflected by Obi Wan's lightsaber. This gives it a conscience that determines Obi Wan and Captain Rex are greatly outnumbered by "bullies" (its fellow droids) and spontaneously decides to side with the Republic warriors. It's designation is B1-0516, which Captain Rex declares "a bit of a mouthful, even for a battle droid", so Rex decides to call the droid Bats instead.
- One Degree of Separation: Agent Kallus once hired IG-88 to help him arrest Han and Chewbacca after the events of Solo, but before Rebels.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The A-plot usually takes two issues to conclude, while the B-plot (dubbed as Tales from Wild Space, as it is a story told by Emil and co.) is a short story resolved in one issue after the A-plot section of the issue concludes.
- Sequel: The first annual issue in the 2020 run, "A Rebel Bounty", is an indirect sequel to the story "Spy Games", first run's Issue #14, with both stories featuring guest star appearances from Kallus and IG-88.
- Series Continuity Error: Due to Unreliable Narrator, some of the Tales from Wild Space stories as they are told don't seem to fit what is already established by canon, so it's better off to assume some sort of Broad Strokes is in play.
- "The Flat Mountain of Yavin" takes place after Leia meets Evaan, but soon after they meet, they go off to help Alderaanian refugees and there is no attack on Yavin 4 in between. Evaan also leaves the Rebellion to lead the refugees at the end of the mission, so the timeframe of the true events of this story is unknown.
- In Issue #7 and #8, the Ghost crew is depicted with their Season 3 appearances, but they still have the original Phantom, which was destroyed at the beginning of Season 3. It can't take place during the Time Skip between Season 2 and 3, since Kanan was out of action during that time.
- In Issue #1 of Tales From Vader's Castle, Kanan's holocron has been emptied after the events of "Twin Suns", but Kanan and Hera are depicted with their Season 1-2 appearances. Possibly justified as Lina is recounting a story that Crater told her, so some details were lost and neither of them are indicated to have met Kanan before his death.
- Shout-Out:
- Jaxxon's droid, Mel, is named for Mel Blanc, the voice actor of many well-known cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny.
- The names of Jaxxon's cousins include Reegor, Peeta, Arvi, Maxx, and Benji.
- Additionally, Peeta's name is also a reference to the deuteragonist of the same name from The Hunger Games, seeing that it isn't a very common name in real life or other media.
- Skewed Priorities: Upon discovering a triplet of Wookiee babies, Cassian is less concerned about the fact that he and Kaytoo have to take care of them and focuses more on that they could get vital intel from this.
- Stealth Sequel: Since the return of the Grafs was unexpected, perhaps it should have tipped readers off that Adventures shares a part of its title with Adventures in Wild Space.
- Unexplained Recovery: It is revealed that Lina & Milo from Adventures in Wild Space joined the rebels and lived to see at least one of their grandchildren grow up, though what exactly happened after the duo returning to Lothal to help the Bridger transmissions and before now is currently unknown. Nevermind that we don't know the fate of their parents, either.
- Unreliable Narrator: Like Forces of Destiny, the stories are said to be told by Maz, Artoo & Threepio, and/or Emil, who might have taken some liberties with the stories, but are otherwise mostly telling the truth.
