There are definitely challenges, although Han’s finally easier, actually. I have a Loki run people seem to like, I write a lot of dark books… Even the heroic figures tend to be pretty much conflicted. In my work for Marvel Comics, there is a tendency to try to write the villain. So part of me is like, 'Oh, it’s just circumstance, but I think the reason I was offered Vader is I write a lot of bad people. Aphra has “evil” leanings, let’s say, because she hung out with Darth Vader. I was phoned and asked, do you want to write Darth Vader? And, of course, Darth Vader led to Aphra. Kieron Gillen: It’s a little bit because those are the jobs I get offered.

Is that because we already know Luke, Leia, and Han’s stories so well? : A lot of your stories are focused on the point of view of a villain or anti-hero in the Star Wars universe. All this stuff was like, yes, 'I'll have that, have that, have that.' I could have done an entire 50-issue series based around random cool stuff like Ackbar at the bottom of the ocean, fighting various sea creatures.

I think, like many people, I was watching Blue Planet II over Christmas, as well. And that’s kind of what my inspiration was for it. Thinking about the Pacific Ocean, there are coral reefs and just tiny bits of stuff above the surface. Kieron Gillen: The thing about Mon Cala is, in some ways, Tatooine is the definitive desert world in the Star Wars universe, so I liken Mon Cala as the water world… We’ve seen underwater, we’ve seen the complications with the Quarren and its own history, so what’s the surface like?

Where do you look for inspiration when you’re creating a setting we don’t know too much about yet? : We haven’t seen a lot of the surface of Mon Cala before.

caught up with Gillen to talk about 'Mutiny at Mon Cala,' heroes and villains, and how his current Star Wars story connects with Marvel's Darth Vader series. And 'Mutiny at Mon Cala' exemplifies this. Gillen is a master at blending unfamiliar story elements like new settings and characters with the familiar faces and locales of Star Wars without ever losing the feeling that you’re still in the galaxy far, far away. Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larocca have taken readers of Marvel’s Star Wars back to Jedha in their first story arc, and now to the strange surface of Mon Cala in the current story in the ongoing series. But will his personal desire for vengeance against the young Jedi who destroyed the Death Star distract from Vader's duty to the Emperor? As a fateful quest begins, the Dark Lord of the Sith will face fresh threats to his talks with writer Kieron Gillen about taking Han, Luke, and Leia from the ashes of Jedha to Mon Cala. One of the greatest antagonists in all of fiction rises again! Fresh from a stinging defeat at the hands of the Rebel Alliance, Darth Vader must reassert the Empire's iron grip on the galaxy.

Star Wars by Kieron Gillen