Grand Admiral Thrawn is getting a manga adaptation of Timothy Zahn's 2017 novel Thrawn, with Volume 1 landing in the US and Canada on September 29. The UK already got it on June 9.
The manga is drawn by Man Tsang and adapts the first book in Zahn's Star Wars: The Imperial Trilogy — a separate trilogy from Zahn's original 1991–1993 Thrawn Trilogy. The story follows Thrawn from his origins as an exiled Chiss warrior through his rise to become one of the Empire's most feared tacticians under Emperor Palpatine. Tsang has spoken openly about the challenge of the adaptation, noting in a YouTube interview that Thrawn's cold, calculating personality doesn't fit the usual emotional range of action manga. "There are only two types of expressions in action comics. Either extremely angry or happy and smiling, which is much simpler," he said. "But now Grand Admiral Thrawn is more like a politician who plots and schemes. As soon as I read the novel, I realized that adapting it to manga will be a lot harder than I thought it would be."
Thrawn last appeared in live-action in the 2023 Disney+ series Ahsoka, where Lars Mikkelsen's version of the character escaped exile on the distant planet Peridea and began his return to the known galaxy. That storyline has been left hanging since, making this manga a timely reminder of why the character matters. Zahn essentially invented the modern post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars universe with his original Thrawn Trilogy, and his 2017 reboot brought the character into official Disney-era canon.
Whether Tsang will continue to adapt the other two novels in the Imperial Trilogy — Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason — hasn't been confirmed, though Marvel Comics did adapt all three books in comic form. For now, Volume 1 is the only confirmed release.
Sources (1)
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