Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi

"In an era before lightsabers, before adherents of the Force were divided into light and dark, what does it mean to be a Jedi? And how did the Order first come to be?"

- Comic Book Resources preview of Dawn of the Jedi

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi is an ongoing comic book series from Dark Horse Comics, written by John Ostrander and pencilled by Jan Duursema, the creative team behind Dark Horse's critically-acclaimed Star Wars: Legacy series. Dawn of the Jedi is set almost 26,000 years before Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and the series focuses on the Je'daii Order, a group of Force-sensitives on the planet Tython who are the predecessors to the Jedi Order. Aside from the beginning of the first issue, Dawn of the Jedi is primarily set in the year 25,793 BBY, in a time before the polarization of the light and dark sides of the Force, and the series is the first to be set in the Before the Republic era&mdash;a new publishing era that includes all material set before the founding of the Galactic Republic.

A preview Issue 0 was released on February 1, 2012, and it was followed by the series' first issue on February 15. An ongoing but not monthly series, Dawn of the Jedi has released ten issues as part of two five-issue story arcs, Force Storm and The Prisoner of Bogan, as summer 2013, and the third arc, Force War, is set to begin in November 2013. The series focuses on three young Je'daii Journeyers&mdash;Shae Koda, Tasha Ryo, and Sek'nos Rath&mdash;as well as Xesh, a Force Hound of the Rakatan Infinite Empire who recently arrived on Tython, and the mad Je'daii Daegen Lok's plans to take over the Je'daii Order. Force War will focus on the Infinite Empire's arrival and attempted conquest of the Tython system.

Force Storm
In the year 36,463 BBY, the Talid monks of the Order of Dai Bendu on the planet Ando Prime feel the call of the Tho Yor, a massive pyramidal starship that has been buried in the Andobi Mountains for centuries. The Dai Bendu monks board the Tho Yor as seven other Tho Yor across the galaxy call out to the natives of the planets upon which they rest; the Tho Yor then travel the galaxy and visit other planets, gathering Wookiees, Humans, Twi'leks, Selkath, Cathar, and a number of other Force-sensitive species, before all eight travel to the planet Tython in the Deep Core. There, the eight Tho Yor gather around the ninth and largest Tho Yor, which floats above a pinnacle of stone, and the starships scatter themselves across Tython as the planet is engulfed in a ferocious Force storm.

The pilgrims come to realize that they have been brought to Tython to study the Force, and they form the Je'daii Order&mdash;an order of warriors and scholars whose name is a Dai Bendu word meaning "mystic center." Tython is a planet that reacts violently to imbalance in the Force, so the Je'daii develop a philosophy of balance between the light and dark sides of the Force, which they name after the twin moons of Tython: bright Ashla and dark Bogan. However, the Je'daii eventually come to realize that Tython is unsafe for those who are not sensitive to the Force, and so all those who cannot touch the Force migrate out across the Tython system, settling the ten other planets in the star system. However, resentment of the Je'daii grows over the millennia, and in 25,805 BBY the Twi'lek Despot Queen Hadiya of the planet Shikaakwa begins the Despot War in an attempt to conquer the Tython system. Hadiya is defeated at Tython, but the scars of the Despot War remain fresh for some even twelve years later in 25,793 BBY.

Across the galaxy, the Infinite Empire of the Rakata species conquers the planet Tatooine, which was discovered by the Force Hound Xesh in the service of his master, Predor Tul'kar. Tul'kar's superior, Predor Skal'nas, requests Xesh's services in locating a Force-strong planet in the Deep Core that his own Force Hound, Trill, is unable to locate. As Xesh leads Tul'kar's warship Devourer to the Tython system, three young Je'daii Journeyers&mdash;Shae Koda, Sek'nos Rath, and Tasha Ryo&mdash;receive a vision of Xesh, a vision that is also shared by the mad Je'daii Daegen Lok, who has been exiled on Bogan for the last seven years ever since he went insane and fell out of balance. The three Journeyers leave their studies and follow the call of their vision into the wilds of Tython, where the stricken Devourer crashes with Xesh as the only survivor.

The hostile Force Hound briefly battles the three Je'daii, a fight that sees Shae Koda gain possession of Xesh's Forcesaber before he flees into the nearby Rift&mdash;an enormous ravine that was saturated with the dark side of the Force and home to strange creatures as well as intense seismic activity. Xesh's presence on Tython, with his strength in the dark side, and the death of so many Force-sensitives among the slaves and crew aboard the Devourer triggers an immense Force storm that begins to sweep across Tython. Koda, Ryo, and Rath pursue Xesh into the Rift, where t

Development
Randy Stradley, Vice President of Publishing at Dark Horse Comics, began lobbying for a comic story regarding the origins of the Jedi as early as 2003. In that year, a painting was commissioned of two characters—male and female Humans—by artist Rodolfo Migliari.

In May 2011, Dark Horse's miniseries Star Wars: Legacy&mdash;War concluded, which itself was a followup to the fifty-issue Star Wars: Legacy. John Ostrander and Jan Duursema, longtime collaborators and the author-artist pair behind Legacy, announced that they were working on a new comic that was different from anything they had written for Star Wars before.

Dawn of the Jedi was first announced to the public at the 2011 New York Comic Con on October 13. According to Ostrander, the series is epic in scope and personal in storytelling. He and Duursema are working closely with established Expanded Universe continuity yet attempting to make Dawn of the Jedi accessible to even the most casual of Star Wars fans. Like Legacy, the series will feature a large cast of species-diverse characters; however, the series will focus primarily on the Tython system rather than the wider galaxy.

An Issue 0 of Dawn of the Jedi, serving as an official guide to readers, was released on February 1, 2012. The series' first issue, Force Storm, Part 1, followed on February 15 and kicks off a five-issue miniseries. Dawn of the Jedi will be an ongoing series but will not be published monthly, in the same vein as Star Wars: Dark Times and Star Wars: Invasion.