'Rise of Skywalker' Leaks: Rey's Rumored Ending Teased in Official Comic

One of the biggest mysteries to arise out of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back — once solved in Return of the Jedi — may have just been retconned in a Rise of Skywalker prequel comic to give Rey renewed importance in the overall saga.

Speculative spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker below.

“That boy is our last hope,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Yoda about Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back. To which the little green alien replies, “No. There is another.”

At the time, not even George Lucas probably knew what that meant, but when Luke has another conversation with Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Force ghost in The Return of the Jedi, Old Ben Kenobi reveals that Luke has a twin sister and that it’s Princess Leia. When Yoda talks about “another” source of hope, that’s who he’s referring to. Except maybe he’s not?

In a new comic previewed on StarWars.com set between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi called Age of Resistance — Rey #1, Leia passes the buck on to Rey in much the same way Yoda passed it to her all those years ago.

“Luke may be our only hope,” Poe Dameron says. 

“No. I believe … there is another,” Leia responds.

The original trilogy purported Leia as some kind of back-up hero who might actually be the one to bring balance to the Force. It’s unclear how these legends really work, but Anakin Skywalker was once the Chosen One. His fall from grace discredited him, so that burden fell upon his son — but his daughter was equally as qualified. Did any of them truly establish balance? Not really, so that burden is seemingly passing on to their spiritual — or perhaps literal — successor in Rey.

Canon novels like Star Wars: Bloodline confirm that Leia, despite being Force sensitive, neglected Jedi training after the original trilogy to invest more time into the politics of rebuilding the Galactic Republic. But she gained enough power to execute the flying-through-space maneuver to save herself in The Last Jedi. Recent leaks and rumors also claim we’ll see a flashback in The Rise of Skywalker of Luke and Leia training with lightsabers not long after The Return of the Jedi, and that Leia could have picked up Rey’s training after Luke’s death in The Last Jedi.

Leia could have become a powerful Jedi in her own right, but she sought a different destiny instead. She forsook the path that would’ve truly made her the “another” that dead Jedi are always talking about. That made more sense at the time during an era of relative peace, so we can’t really blame her for it.

Meanwhile, other Star Wars leaks suggest that Rey could take on the name Skywalker at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. If that’s true, then Rey really could be the “another” that Yoda and now Leia referred to. It’s almost like this comic book is rewriting Star Wars history to pave the way for the Skywalker Saga’s biggest twist.

For comics writer Tom Taylor to recycle this piece of dialogue in Age of Resistance — Rey #1 feels like a nostalgic riff that tells us the obvious: At the end of the Skywalker Saga, it’ll be Rey that finally brings balance to the Force once and for all, finally solving a mystery 40 years after it began.

Age of Resistance — Rey #1 will be released September 18, 2019. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released in theaters December 20, 2019.