Formerly scrapped villain Atha Prime finally making his canon debut in upcoming Jedi Knights series

Fans who have been following the Star Wars franchise since the 1980s might be aware that Kenner Toys planned to launch a line of action figures with an accompanying animated series called Star Wars: The Epic Continues in the 1980s. The purpose of The Epic Continues was to keep sales of Star Wars merchandise afloat at a time when the popularity of the brand was starting to dwindle due to the lack of new movies. And while The Epic Continues never came to fruition, the planned villain from the series will soon be making his canon debut in the upcoming comic book Star Wars: Jedi Knights.

Atha Prime is back in the comic book Star Wars: Jedi Knights

Since The Epic Continues would have taken place after Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine would not have been able to appear. Instead, the main villain would have been Atha Prime, a mysterious, masked figure who ruled the Unknown Regions principality known as the Dark Worlds as a ruthless dictator, and he no doubt wished to expand his rule to other sectors of the galaxy. He was also planned to have been one of the arbiters of the Clone Wars before the details of the conflict were later explored in more depth several decades later in animated series.

With his aggressive-looking battle helmet and his elaborate robes, you can tell that Atha Prime is clearly a character who was designed to sell toys, with the fact that he looks like a supervillain amplifying his toyetic appeal.

Although he had been regulated to the annuls of deleted content for many years, Atha Prime will be featured in the upcoming canon comic series Star Wars: Jedi Knights, by Emmy-winning writer Marc Guggenheim and illustrator Madibek Musabekov. Since the Marvel-published ongoing series takes place shortly after the events of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, it will see the villain contending with the Jedi before the execution of Order 66. We can see from Rahzzah’s cover of the second issue of Jedi Knights that Yoda will be using his lightsaber in the comic, so we can expect some incredible action sequences to be featured in the story.

When the series was announced at the New York Comic Con last October, editor Mark Paniccia gladly expressed his passion for the character’s long-overdue debut in canon, and the publisher’s summary for the second issue also enthusiastically describes how it will be the first canon story featuring an appearance from Atha Prime.

To create even more hype around Atha Prime’s canon debut, a variant cover for the first issue of Marvel’s Legacy of Vader series by Ramon Rosanas features the character in a battle-ready pose. Clearly, Prime is a villain who is always ready for a fight. It seems like Atha Prime really will be a character who fans will never forget when he makes his long-awaited debut in Jedi Knights.

It has also been confirmed that the comic series will focus on Jedi undertaking a series of assignments, which will all be connected by an overarching plot thread. Aside from Yoda, many other familiar Jedi who were active in the decade before the outbreak of the Clone Wars will be featured, so we can expect many other familiar faces to show up in the miniseries.

The first issue of Jedi Knights will be published by Marvel on March 5, 2025, with Prime making his debut in the second issue, which arrives on April 9. You can pre-order your copies of the issues from Marvel's official website or grab them in your local comic book store.