Asajj Ventress almost returned to Star Wars before The Bad Batch

Fans of The Clone Wars were stunned when the Season 3 trailer of The Bad Batch revealed that longtime fan-favorite character, Asajj Ventress, was back. Thanks to the novel Dark Disciple by Christie Golden, Asajj is very much dead by the end of the book. However, Dave Filoni had bigger plans for the ex-Sith Apprentice, and this wasn't the first time Star Wars Animation tried to bring her back.

To give a little history about how Asajj's return almost happened, it's important to know the background. When The Clone Wars was canceled by Cartoon Network, there were still 13 arcs of the show in development in what would have been eight seasons in total for the show. One of these arcs was about Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress teaming up to assassinate Count Dooku. The pair fell in love, but Quinlan slipped to the dark side to become Dooku's new Sith apprentice. Asajj sacrifices her life to save Quinlan and brings him back to the light side. These eight episodes would have been the back half of Season 6 if they had been able to finish the whole season. The scripts were given to Golden to write Dark Disciple. There are story reels of what would have been those episodes still floating around on YouTube.

However, Dave Filoni apparently never had plans to let the ex-Sith Apprentice be laid to rest. It would be a few years later, but he wished to revive the character in another series.

Star Wars Resistance is an underrated gem that broke the mold for series like Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi. This series is a character study and was the first not to try to change canon. It preferred to analyze concepts and how they impact characters and the time period. Andor and Resistance's first seasons are the exact same plot, only Resistance analyzes how fascism invades communities in a way that kids can understand and never shies to touch dark topics like torture, gaslighting, and genocide of aliens.

It would be in Resistance that Dave Filoni once tried to resurrect Asajj Ventress, and he tentatively had big plans for her, including fighting Kylo Ren. However, when faced with the prospect of such an impactful fan-favorite character, the team worried she would overshadow the rest of the new characters. Instead, they created a new character: Mika Grey. StarWars.com shared some details about Mika's development, as Lucasfilm Story Group head Pablo Hidalgo stated:

"The character of Mika Grey evolved from imagining what Asajj Ventress would be like had she survived into this era."

StarWars.com also added that, "Though not the same person, an unaffiliated Force-user who has gone through much was a strong point of inspiration for the well-traveled Mika."

Mika is an excellent character in her own right, bringing the concept of the Force into a show that's relatively light on space wizards outside of the Children from Tehar, Eila, and Kel, where the former is heavily insinuated to be Force-sensitive. Mika's introduction explores what people think of the Force in the era of the sequel trilogy, where Jedi have been removed from the galaxy for decades post-Order 66. It's a beautiful exploration of these concepts as the protagonist, Kaz, has to reckon with stories he'd heard of the Force and how there are powers outside his control in the galaxy.

While Asajj didn't make it into Resistance, her return in The Bad Batch is welcomed. Since StarWars.com quickly confirmed they were honoring the story of Dark Disciple, we'll have to wait and see how Ventress has returned. I'm sure Nightsister magick will have a part to play.