After destroying the Death Star and rescuing Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker is going to chill out in a haunted castle. A new crossover event across multiple titles of Marvel’s Star Wars comics called The Screaming Citadel will fuse the beloved space opera with gothic horror.
“Star Wars is a genre mash,” comic writer Kieron Gillen told StarWars.com, and he made it clear that The Screaming Citadel will add a “hard twist” onto what fans are accustomed to in terms of tone and style. “Let’s do a horror story, and let’s do a horror story with this level of gothic fantasy to it,” he said.
The plot of The Screaming Citadel will find Luke teaming up with Doctor Aphra — the former right-hand woman of Darth Vader — to investigate a creeptastic castle on a remote planet. In the same interview, co-writer Jason Aaron explained that Luke’s desperation to get as much experience to become a Jedi and help his friends leads to his alliance with the badass archeologist/mercenary. “Aphra shows up and dangles something in front him,” he said. “It’s a very different dynamic between the two of them than what we see in Star Wars.”
LEFT: Han surrounded by creepy buys. RIGHT: Doctor Aphra among skulls.
Following the success of the multi-title story arc Vader Down, the story of The Screaming Citadel will play out over installments of the regular Star Wars title, Doctor Aphra’s own standalone title, as well as a one-shot issue that kicks it all off. Gillen and Aaron also promise that the horror elements won’t feel out of place in the Star Wars canon. “It’s instantly a Star Wars take on the trope of doing a village and there’s a really weird castle up on the hill and it’s a bit suspicious, and they arrive there and [the people] seem very friendly but something is definitely off.”
The early images from The Screaming Citadel give the series a very Dracula feeling, and the creators have promised that Han and Luke will at some point be in “regency-inspired costumes.” At present, it’s unclear if Han, Chewbacca, Luke or anyone else will also briefly sport fangs, lose their ability to use a mirror, or develop a strong aversion to garlic.
Star Wars: The Screaming Citadel hits comic book stores in May.
