Warning: contains a spoiler for Star Wars #34!Star Wars has just exposed another insidious method the Empire used to catch surviving (or aspiring) Jedi. A key part of Palpatine’s fascist coup was eliminating the Jedi Order, an endeavor that was, for the most part, successful. Not only did Palpatine turn the galaxy against the Jedi Knights, but he also cleverly manipulated local planetary populations into maintaining the Empire’s grip on their respective worlds, with one particularly sinister method being employed on Christophsis.
In issue 34 of Marvel’s Star Wars comics, by Charles Soule and Madibek Musabekov, Luke Skywalker searches for a Kyber crystal on Christophsis, nearly walking into a deadly trap in a local cantina before a fighter named Gretta saves his life by blasting the bartender and the cantina’s patrons. Gretta explains that the Empire has put a bounty on anyone looking for Kyber crystals on Christophsis, and that the entire town survives by turning over those who visit hoping to construct a new lightsaber. Any Jedi hoping to construct a lightsaber will walk right into a trap, just as Luke does here.
