Anakin Skywalker: New Star Wars comic fuels a huge 'Ahsoka' theory

Ahsoka just gets better and better. First, Rosario Dawson made her live-action debut as the Clone Wars star and former padawan in The Mandalorian. Then, it was announced Hayden Christensen would reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker in Ahsoka’s upcoming Disney+ spinoff series.

However, it’s unclear just how Christensen will appear in the series. Considering it’s set after the end of Darth Vader, he’ll either appear in a flashback or as a Force ghost. Though both possibilities seem equally likely, a new Star Wars comic tips the odds in one direction.

In Star Wars Adventures: Ghosts of Vader’s Castle #5, a comic book published October 20, 2021, a group of adventurers seek to rescue their friends from Fortress Vader on Mustafar. As they venture through the haunted lair of the late Sith Lord, they encounter all sorts of relics from the past, including Sith cultists and reprogrammed droids.

But in the last moments of the adventure, the title of the comic gets more literal. As the crew tried to escape the castle, they follow the glow of a blue lightsaber cutting through a thick hallucinogenic fog. They believe it’s their friend, Lina, wielding a lightsaber they found. Later, it’s revealed the mystery lightsaber wielder wasn’t Lina at all.

So who wielded this mysterious saber? On the last page of the comic, it was revealed the blade was held high by none other than the Force ghost of Anakin Skywalker, who acknowledges the confusion with a simple, “Heh.”

What does this mean for Ahsoka? Firstly, it reinforces a change to canon implemented in one edit to the original trilogy: Anakin’s Force ghost doesn’t look like the burned, wizened form behind the iconic helmet, but more like the Revenge of the Sith-era Anakin later left to perish by Obi-Wan.

This increases the likelihood of Christensen playing a ghost version of Anakin. Even though he’d have to be digitally de-aged, the same would apply to a young Anakin appearing via flashback. So with this comic appearance, which seems to be teasing further appearances, a Force ghost cameo by Anakin has already been foreshadowed.

What’s more: this appearance includes the first words ever uttered by Anakin’s Force ghost — and they seem to be not the intonations of moody edgelord Sith Anakin, but the cheeky asides of an earlier Anakin (though his hair is very much the Revenge of the Sith mane).

In a pretty even race between flashback and Force ghost theories, this one comic panel could tip the scales and prepare the fandom for a huge shift — a return to the younger Anakin we once lost to the Dark Side.

Star Wars Adventures: Ghosts of Vader’s Castle #5 is now available for purchase.