Chat corner 156: Kanan

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Monday chat corner!

This week's topic is "Star Wars: Kanan", the 2015 comic series that shows the backstory of Kanan Jarrus, one of the protagonists of the Rebels TV series.

You probably know the drill by now. Have you read it? Did you like it? Would you recommend it?

Wookieepedia helpfully informs me that events in this comic now contradict with the animated series The Bad Batch, which is interesting, on a meta level if nothing else.

Comments

[havendale]

With the caveat that I haven’t actually read Kanan, I do recall running into some fandom disgruntlement about the fact that TBB contradicted it – which is sort of funny given that as of this season they’ve now gone and retconned something much bigger.

I rambled a bit about this on my journal a while back but I think I’m generally willing to forgive retcons or contradictions re: comics/novels/etc., since I’m not sure it’s either practical or creatively healthy to expect TV shows to work around something that most of the audience probably hasn’t read. Curious what everyone else thinks!

[3picexplosions]

I've read a good number of Star Wars comics spanning from 1993's Knights of the Old Republic to Charles Soule's Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith from 2020, but I have to say that Kanan: Last Padawan remains one of my absolute favorites. I also think it's a lot more accessible than some of Star Wars' other comic runs since it's so short. I just...LOVE IT, and not just because the Shatterpoint Lineage is one of my faves and I think Kanan is such a wonderful character. It fits neatly and beautifully into the larger tragedy of this specific era of Star wars, and the one-off characters, especially Kanan's clone friends-turned-enemies Grey and Styles, are effective and colorful.

I'm one of the people that hissed at TBB for retconning it, for two reasons: it did a profound disservice to Kanan's character, and, (without spoiling too much) contains a really profound sacrifice on the part of clones fighting their control chips that I think added a whole new layer of emotion and tragedy to the whole idea of the chips in the first place. Also, Kanan is actually brown in the comics, unlike his TBB model...