Another season of Star Wars anthology storytelling is on the way from the franchise’s Tales banner. This series began in 2022 with Tales of the Jedi, 2024 delivered Tales of the Empire, and now Tales of the Underworld is set for a May 4 debut on the 2025 TV schedule. The newest season will spotlight Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane, both of whom were prominently featured in The Clone Wars and later returned in The Bad Batch. While I’m definitely looking to watching this installment on the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows slate with my Disney+ subscription, I also need to talk about the concern I have about the Ventress story being told.
Before I get into my concern, take a look at the Tales of the Underworld trailer that dropped earlier today, giving us our first taste of what awaits these famous bounty hunters from a galaxy far, far away over three episodes each:
While Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld will finally be delivering the origin story of Cad Bane (who was also depicted in live-action on The Book of Boba Fett), Asajj Ventress’ story will revolve around her protecting a young Palawan who survived Order 66 from what I assume is one of the Empire’s Inquisitors. It’s unclear if the story will take place before or after her appearance in The Bad Batch, but either way, I’m thankful she’s getting time to shine again. After her death in the book Dark Disciple, it seemed like any future Ventress appearances would be relegated to the Clone Wars era or earlier.
Which brings me to my concern: I’m worried that Tales of the Underworld isn’t going to provide any explanation for how Asajj Ventress is still alive. When she resurfaced in The Bad Batch, it was as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Now sporting hair and a yellow lightsaber, Count Dooku’s former assassin found Clone Force 99 in “The Harbinger” to test Omega’s Force sensitivity. She didn’t say anything about how she’d died in the Clone Wars just a few years earlier, though I understood at the time why this was considering there was only about 25 minutes to work with for the episode.
Judging by the Tales of the Underworld trailer, it seems like Ventress’ story will similarly forgo an explanation of her resurrection. Maybe the preview is just hiding footage or we’ll only learn what happened through dialogue, but clearly the priority is to show Ventress looking after her new ally. Even with much more screen time to work with compared to the aforementioned Bad Batch episode, there may just not be any room to shed light on this lingering mystery.
Dark Disciple was originally intended to be a multi-episode arc in The Clone Wars, but after the series was cancelled in 2023 (it was later revived for a seventh and final season in 2020), those episodes were adapted into the book written by Christie Golden. And while those who read Dark Disciple know how Ventress was killed by Count Dooku while she was with the Jedi she’d fallen in love with, Quinlan Vos, those who’ve only seen her in The Clone Wars just know she disappeared after Season 5.
In a way, I can understand if Asajj Ventress’ Tales of the Underworld won’t address the character’s death and resurrection so as not to confuse anybody. Maybe that will be delved onto in another book instead. But as someone who enjoyed watching Ventress on The Clone Wars and thought Dark Disciple was one of the better Star Wars books, I’d be disappointed if this chapter of her history was glossed over again, especially since there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see her onscreen again. Hopefully that’s not the case, but in a franchise often filled with unexpected developments (I’m still getting over The Acolyte’s cancellation), so I figure you should seize these opportunities while you can.
I’m sure I’ll enjoy both Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane’s stories when Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld is released on May 4. However, if there’s no mention of how Ventress rejoined the land of the living, I’ll be crossing my fingers that Lucasfilm announces a book chronicling those events. This story deserves to be told!
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