The Skywalker storyline comes to an end with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and that’s
too bad because there are plenty of stories about the most famous family in the galaxy
far, far away.
From pirate adventures to clone craziness, here are the best Skywalker stories we'll
never see in the movies.
Though there were rumors of a turn to the Dark Side for Luke Skywalker leading up to
The Last Jedi, such a turn never took place.
Luke remained, even in his disillusioned state, a bastion for good.
He got to save the day with his Force projection duel against Kylo Ren, which allowed the Resistance
fighters to escape and proved that Luke remained a true hero to his core.
But fans of the Expanded Universe know that Luke was previously tempted by the Dark Side,
going so far as to become the apprentice to the Emperor himself.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
The storyline occurred in one of the first Expanded Universe stories, the aptly named
Dark Empire.
This 1991 comic book from Dark Horse Comics takes place just a handful of years after
Return of the Jedi, and it sees the Emperor return from his presumed death at the end
of that film, with the explanation being that he transferred his consciousness to a cloned
body at the moment of his death.
Luke, shocked to see him alive, agrees to become his apprentice, with his plan being
to bring down the resurgent Empire from the inside.
But the Dark Side corrupts Luke, and he loses sight of his goal.
It takes a lightsaber fight against Leia for him to snap out of it, and at that point,
he's finally able to defeat Palpatine.
Dark Luke would've been cool to see on the big screen, but the window for this story
closed long ago.
In the official Star Wars sequel films, Luke is not shown to have settled down.
As far as we know, he never had a serious relationship, never married, and never had
children.
But in the Expanded Universe, Luke did all of those things with a woman named Mara Jade.
Mara Jade was introduced in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, the first installment
in Timothy Zahn's wildly popular Thrawn trilogy.
Mara is introduced as a smuggler who was previously employed as the Emperor's Hand.
She's an extremely skilled user of the Dark Side of the Force, and prior to the Emperor's
death, Mara was given the command to kill Luke Skywalker.
She manages to kidnap Luke, but the two subsequently become stranded in a harsh environment and
must work together to escape.
This event starts to bring the two together, and though it takes several more novels, Luke
and Mara eventually fall in love and finally get married in the 2000 Dark Horse comic Star
Wars Union.
But that's not the end of their story.
Luke and Mara also have a son together named Ben Skywalker, whose first name appears to
have been recycled in the sequel trilogy as Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren.
Ben Skywalker grows up to become an accomplished Jedi like his mom, but Mara doesn't live to
see it.
She's murdered by her nephew, Jacen Solo, while on his way to becoming Darth Caedus.
Mara Jade wasn't the only character of significance to be introduced in Zahn's Thrawn trilogy.
There was also Luuke Skywalker, with two U's, an evil clone who made his debut in the conclusive
novel in the trilogy, The Last Command.
In the story, it's revealed that the clone was created by the mad Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth.
C'baoth made the clone using Luke's severed hand that Darth Vader cut off during their
battle on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, and Luuke even wielded Luke's original
lightsaber that was also lost in that battle.
C'baoth sics Luuke on Luke, and the two engage in an intense lightsaber duel.
Given that Luuke is a genetic clone of Luke, and that he's received expert Jedi training
from C'baoth, the two are a perfect match for each other.
Their fight ends when resident badass Mara Jade intervenes, using Leia's lightsaber to
slay both Luuke and Joruus C'baoth.
The real Luke comes to view Luuke as the fulfillment of the vision he had on Dagobah in The Empire
Strikes Back, where he duels someone he thinks is Darth Vader, only to realize it was himself.
Luuke Skywalker may not have featured heavily in the Expanded Universe, but the idea of
an evil Luke clone whose creation came about thanks to one of the most iconic scenes in
the franchise is undeniably awesome.
Not every Skywalker story in the Expanded Universe revolved around Luke.
Leia also got some love in the EU, and she got to do some pretty cool stuff in books
and comics that her on-screen counterpart could only dream of.
And one of Leia's best stories that will never make it to the big screen is the adventure
she took in Marvel Comics' Star Wars #73, which was published roughly two months after
the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983.
The story, dubbed "Lahsbane" after the planet on which it takes place, picks up not long
after the Battle of Endor.
Leia, Luke, Lando, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO are all still hanging out together, though
Han Solo had gone missing at the time, and they've recently picked up a new ally: a pink-skinned,
female thief named Dani.
The gang heads to the planet Lahsbane to search for the flight record of a Rebel pilot who'd
crashed there, and they learn the records they need are located across a vast canyon.
Leia and Dani hatch a plan to secretly secure the records themselves.
So under cover of night, the two women cross the canyon...in a pair of hot air balloons.
Okay, yes, this story is ridiculous, but the idea of Leia going on a female-only adventure
to prove her worth, even in a hot air balloon, would've been fun to see on the silver screen.
If there's one thing Star Wars desperately needs, it's a Jedi pirate.
And that's exactly what Cade Skywalker is.
Debuting in Dark Horse's Star Wars: Legacy comics, Cade's story takes place many years
after the exploits of our traditional Star Wars heroes.
Over 100 years after, in fact, as Cade is the great-great-grandson of Luke Skywalker.
And since canon Luke had no children, that means we'll never see a Cade Skywalker movie,
and that's a shame.
Cade Skywalker is downright awesome, there's no getting around it.
The guy is basically a cross between Luke and Han, with a little Boba Fett and Jack
Sparrow thrown in for good measure.
"You are, without doubt, the worst pirate I've ever heard of."
"But you have heard of me."
He was raised a Jedi, but after seeing his father murdered, he takes a different path
by operating in the seedier side of the galaxy.
He becomes a pirate and a bounty hunter, and he has his own sweet ship with a loyal crew
of scallywags.
Cade eventually is confronted with his past when he's discovered by the Sith Lord Darth
Krayt, who seeks him out due to his Skywalker heritage.
Cade ends up reluctantly embracing his Jedi roots and proves to be an extremely powerful
Force user, taking the fight to Krayt and eventually killing him in combat.
Cade Skywalker's story is one of the EU's most thrilling adventures, and it would give
Star Wars fans something they hadn't seen in a movie before.
But alas, it seems like they never will.
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