Jar Jar Binks’ New STAR WARS Comic Finally Deals With His Clone Wars Guilt in a Big Way

For years, one of the most persistent jokes about the Star Wars prequels has centered on Jar Jar Binks and his role in giving Supreme Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers at the start of the Clone Wars.

Fans have long pointed out that the Gungan who stumbled through galactic politics basically helped set the Empire in motion. It became meme fuel. It became shorthand. And for a while, canon stories that touched on it didn’t exactly treat him kindly.

Now, Marvel’s new Jar Jar Binks one-shot actually confronts that history head-on and does something surprisingly thoughtful with it.

The issue is co-written by Ahmed Best, the man who brought Jar Jar to life in the films, alongside Marc Guggenheim, with art by Kieran McKeown, Laura Braga, and Mike Atiyeh.

The story pairs Jar Jar with Best’s other Star Wars character, Kelleran Beq, in the early days of the Clone War. The two travel to the planet Urubai, where the Republic’s sudden war demands have triggered aggressive coaxium mining operations.

What they find isn’t pretty.

Urubai is being strip-mined to keep the Republic war machine running, and the work is happening in direct conflict with the labor protections and safety standards the Republic is supposed to uphold.

Jar Jar sees firsthand how the machinery of war chews through people and planets alike. For the first time, he truly feels the weight of his political decision. Manipulated or not, he played a role in handing Palpatine the authority that made this possible.

But the mission takes an unexpected turn. Beq didn’t bring Jar Jar to Urubai just to show him the damage. The excessive mining has uncovered a new crystalline mineral called Cyphristal. This material can be shaped into the core of a nearly unbreakable communication system, a “fractal network” that could give the Republic a serious intelligence edge.

Or, as Beq hints, it could become something else entirely.

The Jedi Master doesn’t fully trust the direction the galaxy is heading. The Cyphristal network could serve as a safeguard, a secret tool if powerful forces need to be resisted on a galactic scale. That idea hangs in the air as Jar Jar wrestles with his growing unease.

Of course, the heroes manage to extract the key inventor behind the fractal network and return to Coruscant. But Jar Jar can’t shake what he has seen. Believing his status as the senator who elevated Palpatine still carries some weight, he approaches Palpatine and urges him to intervene on Urubai’s behalf.

Palpatine brushes him aside with smooth, calculated indifference. He offers vague assurances while making it clear that sacrifice is part of war. If one planet must suffer to ensure victory, so be it. In that moment, Jar Jar finally understands. The war isn’t just about defeating the Separatists. It’s about consolidating power.

And Palpatine knows Jar Jar can’t stop him.

What follows is the comic’s most fascinating twist. Disillusioned but not defeated, Jar Jar reconnects with Beq and decides the fractal network must be developed in secret. Not for the Republic’s glory, but as preparation for what might come next. They’ll need help, specifically from the woman they rescued from Urubai: Mira Bridger, mother of Ezra Bridger.

Fans of Star Wars Rebels already know Ezra’s parents were involved in anti-Imperial resistance efforts on Lothal, running pirate broadcasts before being captured by the Empire. This comic suggests Jar Jar may have helped spark that movement much earlier than we realized.

It also connects in intriguing ways to the Hidden Path seen in Obi-Wan Kenobi and even the covert communication systems that show up in Andor. The fractal network concept could easily be the backbone of those underground channels.

That’s what makes this story so satisfying. Instead of leaving Jar Jar as the punchline of galactic history, it reframes his legacy. Yes, he helped give Palpatine the power that led to the Empire. But here, he also becomes part of the groundwork for resistance. His complicity doesn’t disappear, and it shouldn’t. What changes is what he chooses to do once he sees the truth.

For a character who has carried years of mockery, this feels like a smart and heartfelt course correction. Jar Jar is still central to the saga. Only this time, he isn’t an unwitting pawn. He’s someone trying to make things right.