🔴Star Wars Visions' Ronin vs Darth Maul Battle Is On a Mission to Blow Your Mind🔴
0The Ronin from Star Wars Visions returns thanks to Marvel Comics, starring in a brand-new tale that pits him against a dynamic version of Darth Maul. Resembling feudal Japan and the classic Akira Kurosawa films that inspired George Lucas with Star Wars itself, the Star WarsVisions episode "The Duel" first introduced the former Sith known only as Ronin. However, the character has received multiple spin-off comics as well as a novel. Now, the newest Visions one-shot comics reveals an exciting lightsaber duel as well as the origins of B5-56, the Ronin's loyal astromech companion.
In the new one-shot Star Wars: Visions - Takashi Okazaki #1, the Ronin's newest tale is written in a uniquely non-linear format, though it remains focused on how B5 came to join the adventures of the Ronin himself. Originally, B5 belonged to a masked Sith swordmaster named Master Okinaa, and the duo lived together peacefully among the members of a small fishing village for 10 years. However, Okinna also received a vision of B5 traveling with the younger Ronin who ends up arriving at the village and challenging the swordmaster not soon after, a duel that reveals Okinaa's surprising identity:
Written and drawn by Takashi Okazaki who worked on the Ronin's original Star Wars Visions episode as character designer, concept artist, and artistic director, the detail featured in his second Visions one-shot is remarkable. Rather than being set in the established Star Wars canon, this alternate world instead utilizes elements from the galaxy far, far away while still being in an age resembling the Edo period. Ronin, samurai, and shogun abound, all of whom are wielding lightsabers as their weapons of honor.
Case in point, Okinaa is clearly meant to evoke Darth Maul who first appeared in The Phantom Menace before becoming one of the most beloved Star Wars villains of all time. The Maul face reveal following the breaking of his mask is quite surprising, as is Okinaa's history with B5 and his willingness to allow destiny to run its course, having foreseen his younger foe's adventures with his droid. It's also worth noting that this one-shot explains where B5 got his iconic thatched hat, having come from Okinaaa following his cremation (courtesy of the Ronin and his honor).