Kol Skywalker

"We take what is given."

- Kol Skywalker to Wolf Sazen

Kol Skywalker was a Jedi Master and member of the Jedi Council. Descended from the famous Luke Skywalker, he grew to be a powerful and respected Jedi. A chance meeting with Imperial assassin Morrigan Corde led to love and the birth of a son, Cade Skywalker. Kol raised Cade on his own after Corde left to continue her Imperial career and eventually entrusted him to the care of Kol's former Padawan, Wolf Sazen, as an apprentice. Skywalker took on his own apprentice yet again in Shado Vao.

Skywalker spearheaded the Ossus Project, designed to rehabilitate the Yuuzhan Vong's public image by having them restore war-torn worlds, but the biotechnological experiment was sabotaged, provoking war in 127 ABY between the Empire&mdash;joined by the Sith&mdash;and the Galactic Alliance and Jedi with them. When the Galactic Alliance surrendered three years later, Skywalker refused to serve the Empire and withdrew to Ossus, where the Sith followed and attacked the academy there. In a one-man last stand, Skywalker held off the hordes of Sith, giving his own life to buy enough time for the Jedi younglings, his son, and Vao and Sazen to escape.

Jedi Master


A descendant of the legendary Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker, Kol Skywalker was raised as a Jedi and trained to wield the Force. Eventually, he happened to meet the Imperial Intelligence agent Morrigan Corde, with whom he fell in love. They had a relationship for as long as two years before Skywalker impregnated Corde, who gave birth to a son named Cade. Corde, unprepared to be a mother and summoned back into service, departed despite Skywalker's pleas to stay with him and their son. Skywalker was left to raise Cade alone.

Skywalker disliked politics and formality; instead, he spent most of his time as a trainer on Ossus, where he provided tactical training to the Jedi students from his own considerable expertise. Skywalker had a particular student of his own, Wolf Sazen. Skywalker trained the Zabrak Padawan to Knighthood; Sazen eventually achieved Mastery himself and took Skywalker's son Cade as his own apprentice. Skywalker eventually took the Twi'lek Shado Vao, a friend of Cade's, as his Padawan learner, training Vao to a mastery of the lightsaber. With Sazen now his peer, the two became close friends as well as master and student.

The Ossus Project
"He&hellip;was more than a good man. He was a hero. Like your ancestor Luke Skywalker, Kol championed the integration of my people into the galaxy&mdash;even after what the Yuuzhan Vong had done. We worked closely together on the Ossus Project. I admired Kol&hellip;the eyes of Yun Ne'Shel shone brightly upon him."

- Nei Rin to Cade Skywalker



Despite his dislike of politics, Skywalker became a leading member of the Jedi Council. In that position, he conceived of and championed the Ossus Project, in which Yuuzhan Vong shapers used their biological techniques to terraform a barren patch of Ossus. Skywalker wished to help integrate the Yuuzhan Vong, long stigmatized due to the war they had brought to the galaxy, into society and rehabilitate their reputation by proving that they could use their knowledge to heal the worlds they had devastated in the past. He worked closely with Master Shaper Nei Rin to bring it to fruition, developing a friendship with her. With that project successful, the Galactic Alliance was persuaded to allow the shapers to restore life to worlds devastated by the Yuuzhan Vong War. The project went awry, with individuals becoming malformed and plant life dying.

Skywalker and the Jedi worked with Rin to discover the cause and suspected sabotage, correctly, but blame fell on the Yuuzhan Vong and in 127 ABY the Galactic Empire invoked the Treaty of Anaxes and declared war. Skywalker and the Jedi were able to convince the Galactic Alliance to back them and protect the Yuuzhan Vong in the war. The Sith order, until then hidden&mdash;and secretly responsible for the sabotage of the Ossus Project&mdash;emerged on the Empire's side and helped turn the tide of the war against the Jedi and Galactic Alliance. After three years of battle, the Galactic Alliance surrendered. Galactic Emperor Roan Fel called upon the Jedi to surrender as well, but Skywalker withdrew the Jedi to Ossus with Fel's guarantee of safe passage.

Massacre at Ossus
"They're coming, Kol." "I sense them too, Wolf. We hold them here. There's no escape from the landing pad except with the shuttle&mdash;and no way to the shuttle but through us."

- Wolf Sazen and Kol Skywalker

The forces of Darth Krayt, Dark Lord of the Sith, followed the Jedi withdrawal from Coruscant to Ossus. Supplemented by Imperial troops and led by Darth Nihl, they assaulted the academy on Ossus. Woken by the impending battle, Skywalker organized a defense while evacuating the young students. He and Sazen made a stand at the landing platform on which the evacuation shuttle stood, holding off waves of stormtroopers while Vao and Cade Skywalker, among the older apprentices present, shepherded the younger Jedi students into the shuttle. Skywalker and Sazen could sense the Sith oncoming and ordered Cade and Vao to take off when all the others were aboard, prepared to give their lives to save the younglings. Cade refused to follow instructions, however, joining the battle with his father. Skywalker ordered his son to follow his master's instructions and leave with the children.

As Cade departed for the shuttle, Nihl approached at the head of a column of Sith warriors. Skywalker and Sazen engaged them, but Sazen quickly received grievous injuries. Skywalker drove Nihl back and stood over his former student's body, summoning Sazen's lightsaber and warning the Sith back. He stood alone against an army of Sith but successfully held them back despite being surrounded; however, upon seeing Sazen fall, Cade once more left the shuttle and went to his father's aid. Skywalker admonished his son for placing his emotions above his duties, and commanded him to take Sazen, not yet dead, from the field and evacuate. Tearfully, Cade complied. Skywalker continued battling, holding back the Sith and standing upon a heap of the dead. Nihl, however, was able to strike Skywalker with Force lightning, killing him as Cade watched from inside the shuttle. Skywalker sent a final message through the force to Vao, ordering him to launch the shuttle.

Legacy
"I hear his voice, over and over, in my head, nagging at me! But I never feel his presence! Not in my dreams&hellip;not in my visions! It's as if his spirit avoids me. Maybe&hellip;maybe if during that final battle&hellip;if I hadn't distracted him&hellip;if I'd been stronger, faster, better&hellip;" "He wouldn't have died? I felt much the same at first. If I had just moved more quickly&mdash;if I had just been a split-second further ahead! Finally I made peace with myself and accepted that it was the will of the Force. We must take what is given."

- Cade Skywalker and Wolf Sazen, speaking of Kol Skywalker



The transport escaped, though Cade launched in a fighter to defend it and was disabled. He was picked up by pirates, who did not know that he was a Skywalker, and brought back to the surface to help them loot the academy, where Cade found his father's body lying as it had fallen on the landing platform. Upon returning from a mission into the Ossus wilderness to find samples, Rin found Skywalker's body lying exposed and gave it a proper funeral. During the cremation, Skywalker's body disincorporated, becoming one with the Force. To honor Skywalker and the Jedi legacy, they gathered all the Jedi artifacts remaining which they could and kept them safe in the bowels of the academy.

Cade became a bounty hunter and turned to death sticks, rejecting the Force. Luke Skywalker's Force ghost appeared to him at times, urging him to take up his family legacy, but Cade wished only to be left alone, free from the burden of saving the galaxy. Cade continued to hear his father's words in his mind as well, but was never able to sense his presence, driving even farther into bitterness and depression. Cade eventually returned to Ossus in 137 ABY and began training under Sazen, Vao, and K'Kruhk before departing for Coruscant to rescue Hosk Trey'lis, a Jedi he had turned over to the Sith as a bounty hunter. Rin gave him Kol's lightsaber, which she had recovered and repaired with a lambent crystal after the original crystal had suffered battle damage. Cade took to it Coruscant, where he was captured by Darth Krayt and the lightsaber was taken from him and encased by Krayt to honor a foe even he respected. Cade, meanwhile, joined the Sith while Corde devised a plan to free him. When Cade confronted Krayt, Kol appeared to him as a Force ghost to give him advice; Cade took up his father's lightsaber and attacked the Sith.

Personality and traits
"His loss was more bitter to me than the loss of my arm. I know, however&mdash;and accept&mdash;that Kol's sacrifice was selfless. It saved you, me, Shado, the younglings. Kol knew what he was doing. The odds against us were insurmountable. He knew he could only hold off the Sith for a time&mdash;not defeat them. Living&mdash;his own survival&mdash;was not the point. Buying time for us was."

- Wolf Sazen to Cade Skywalker

Kol Skywalker was a man of honor and driven to serve justice. He had little love for politics and preferred the more relaxed atmosphere of Ossus to the stuffier Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He firmly believed in the Living Force, a trait he passed on to his apprentice Sazen. Focused on serving and protecting others instead of himself, he was willing to, and ultimately did, give his life to save another. Proud of his Skywalker heritage, he wanted himself and his son to live up to their ancestors' names.

Skywalker had a significant talent for tactics, leading him to teach the discipline to his fellow Jedi; he believed that a mastery of the skills of warfare made the Jedi better suited to keep the galaxy peaceful.

Powers and abilities
"I am Kol Skywalker, servant of the Living Force! None of you will pass!"

- Kol Skywalker to Darth Nihl and Nihl's Sith warriors



Skywalker was skilled in battle, having an aptitude for tactics as well as personal combat; Nei Rin considered him the Jedi's greatest warrior. He was skilled enough in the use of the lightsaber to train Shado Vao to an extremely high degree of competency and was able to use the two-lightsaber Jar'kai style with proficiency when pressed. In the Massacre at Ossus, Skywalker killed at least seven Sith and numerous stormtroopers, holding off even more, before being overcome and dying on a pile of those he had slain. In his final battle, Skywalker demonstrated skill in Force Push but also displayed an inability to counter Darth Nihl's Force lightning.

Though his body lingered after death, it disappeared while being burned and Skywalker did indeed become one with the Force while retaining his identity. Skywalker was able to appear as a Force ghost, which he did in 137 ABY as his son faced Darth Krayt.

Behind the scenes
The character of Kol Skywalker was created for Star Wars: Legacy by writer John Ostrander and artist Jan Duursema; in the introductory Broken arc, Skywalker dies defending the Jedi academy in events that push his son Cade, Legacy's main character, onto his eventual path. Skywalker was actually debuted in the informational preview Star Wars: Legacy 0 along with most of the rest of the cast of Legacy. Skywalker's only actual physical appearance was in Star Wars Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1, not counting a brief time-collapse sequence showing the events of that issue in Star Wars Legacy 8: Allies; however, frequent flashbacks on the part of Cade, Corde, and Rin and mentions by other characters have revealed more information about Skywalker in several more Legacy issues. Skywalker reappeared in Force ghost form in the Claws of the Dragon arc.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Legacy 8: Allies
 * Star Wars Legacy 1: Broken, Part 1
 * Star Wars Legacy 3: Broken, Part 3
 * Star Wars Legacy 6: Broken, Part 5
 * Star Wars Legacy 7: Broken, Part 6
 * Star Wars Legacy 10: Trust Issues, Part 2
 * Star Wars Legacy 11: Ghosts, Part 1
 * Star Wars Legacy 12: Ghosts, Part 2
 * Star Wars Legacy 14: Claws of the Dragon, Part 1
 * Star Wars Legacy 15: Claws of the Dragon, Part 2
 * Star Wars Legacy 16: Claws of the Dragon, Part 3
 * Star Wars Legacy 18: Claws of the Dragon, Part 5