Jimmy Smits, more Star Wars on TV rumors, cavalcade of covers for Darth Vader, and an all new edition to the Star Wars Show.
By Mike Audette // Even through the dog days of summer there is Star Wars news. This week Jimmy Smits talked about Rogue One. Those pesky rumors of Star Wars live-action TV popped up. Darth Vader issue 25 has a boatload of variant covers, and now two days a week will provide Star Wars video content. 
Jimmy Smits confirmed for Rogue One
Jimmy Smits was on CBS’s The Talk Friday and went to confirm what has already been speculation. He will be reprising his role of Alliance architect Bail Organa in Rogue One. In the Rogue One sizzle reel that was shown at Celebration Europe, there appeared to be a man that bared a resemblance to Smits half-hidden behind a camera. Neither Disney or Smits’ representatives have commented on the rumor. I think it’s quite safe to assume we will see him in the film alongside Alliance leadership Mon Mothma and Jan Dodonna. I’m really interested to see what sort of role he has no matter how minor. Bail has been featured in a few episodes of Rebels, has a role in the upcoming Ahsoka novel, and mentioned in several other of the canon novels most notably Bloodline.
Star Wars Live-Action TV
In the Darth Maul of Star Wars news stories, aka it refuses to die, rumors of live-action television have come up. ABC’s entertainment president Channing Dungey commented that ABC is working with Lucasfilm to bring Star Wars to the small screen in live-action:
“We have had conversations with them. We will continue to have conversations with them. I think it would be wonderful if we could find a way to extend that brand onto our programming.”
The talk of live-action Star Wars seems to always be lying just below the surface whether the rumors are of ABC or HBO or Netflix, they just don’t go away. I would be a fan of seeing what LFL could come up with but until it’s a reality I won’t give it much thought.
Darth Vader #25
Probably the best Star Wars comic since the return to Marvel has been Kieron Gillen’s Darth Vader. The series is coming to an end with #25 this fall in an over-sized 50-odd page issue in addition to being a little more expensive. To celebrate the occasion, Marvel has unleashed the coffers on variant covers for the final comic. There will be almost a dozen different variant covers to collect. Many coming from notable artists like Adi Granov, Joe Quesada, Salvador Larroca, Cliff Chiang, and Sara Pichelli. Any and all of the covers done by Joe Quesada, Marvel’s CCO, are pretty incredible. It’s not unheard of for Marvel to do things like this. They did the same thing with Star Wars #1 but that was even on steroids.
Vader has been a great series! It introduced a lot of cool characters and story lines into the saga. I’m sad to see it come to an end but looking forward to what will be coming in the future.
The Star Wars After Show
Announced during the Star Wars Show on Wednesday, the Star Wars After Show will be an all new YouTube show. Hosted by the Star Wars Show’s Andi Gutierrez and Peter Townley along with numerous Lucasfilm employees as guests. They will talk about wide ranging topics in the Star Wars universe. The show will release on the Verizon YouTube channel every Thursday at 12 noon PST. It’s main focus is to give more time and detail to discuss the news introduced in Wednesday’s Star Wars Show. I really like what the online team at Lucasfilm is coming up with of recent. Efforts to bring more and innovative ways to share news and discussion topics to the fandom. You can watch the debut episode below. It features the aforementioned Gutierrez and Townley with LFL employees Matt Martin, Dana Jennings and Justin Bolger.