This article contains spoilers for Star Wars #5.
This week's Star Wars #5 suggests Rey has broken the Skywalker curse. Lucasfilm is rightly criticized for a lack of planning when it came to the sequel trilogy. As an example, although Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy initially tried to pretend Palpatine's resurrection had been in the works from the beginning, it didn't take long for that claim to fall apart. It was actually the brainchild of JJ Abrams, who seems to have come up with the idea shortly after signing up for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. This serves as a perfect illustration for a problem that can be seen throughout the sequel trilogy, with contrasting visions and studio-mandated course corrections giving the films a disjointed feel.
One thing that does appear to have been planned, however, was a key scene at the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in which Rey claims the Skywalker surname. The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker includes a transcript from a meeting of the Lucasfilm Story Group in 2014, roughly a year and a half prior to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. "I like the idea that she's going to be our Skywalker," Pablo Hidalgo observed in the meeting, "but she's not a Skywalker. Then, for our purposes, 'the Skywalker' is really a metaphor. It doesn't have to be something that's directly connected to blood."
This reinterprets what it means to be a Skywalker. To be a Skywalker is to be an agent of balance, standing against the rise of the dark side. It has fascinating implications for the Star Wars mythology as a whole, because it suggests to be a "Skywalker" is to serve an essential function in terms of the Force. The Prime Jedi was an ancient of balance, and so was Qui-Gon Jinn. The recently published Secrets of the Force doubles down on this, suggesting Qui-Gon should be seen as a "Skywalker" by function if not by blood. But there is a darker side to this legacy - one reveal in Star Wars #5.
Darth Vader Declares The Truth: Skywalkers Die
Marvel Comics' current Star Wars series is set shortly after the events of The Empire Strikes Back. A rejected Darth Vader is furious at Luke Skywalker's refusal to join him, and - as you'd expect of any Sith - he wants revenge upon his son. He's scouring the galaxy for Luke Skywalker, but his efforts are hampered by a flurry of Luke Skywalker impostors. Luke has become famous as the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and countless egotistical, down-on-their-luck pilots and smugglers are pretending to be Luke in the hopes of impressing prospective clients. In Star Wars #5, Darth Vader is called in to investigate what turns out to be yet another false lead, and he has enough. He kills the latest impostor, and instructs everybody in the area to pass on a disturbing message: "Skywalkers die," Darth Vader declares.
The statement is more a reflection of Darth Vader's momentary frustration, but there's a sense in which the pronouncement seems more like a prophecy - or, perhaps, a curse. Shmi Skywalker was tortured to death in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. But the statement proved true when applied to Anakin Skywalker himself, and even to his son Luke. In spite of his fall to the dark side, Anakin fulfilled his destiny as the Chosen One when he chose to kill the Emperor - but doing so resulted in his death. Rather than confront the returning darkness of the First Order, Luke fled to the ancient Jedi temple of Ahch-To. When he finally returned in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the effort of Force-projecting himself across the galaxy led to his death. Looking at the Star Wars saga as a whole, Darth Vader is right: Skywalkers die.
Rey Almost Paid The Price In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Although Rey didn't claim the Skywalker name until the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, she was fulfilling the Skywalker role throughout the sequel trilogy. Although Rey's training in the Force began under Luke Skywalker, and continued under his sister Leia, she spent a substantial amount of time studying the ancient Jedi texts. These were associated with the Prime Jedi and his earliest followers, back when the Jedi Order had themselves been servants of balance rather than exclusively with the light side. She truly became a Skywalker, the agent of balance who stands against the darkness, when she opposed her grandfather Palpatine on Exegol. There, she proved willing to pay any price to drive back the dark side, even weather the Emperor's lightning - and deflect it right back at him.
True to the Skywalker curse, this killed her. Darth Vader was more right than he could possibly know when he said "Skywalkers die," because becoming the Skywalker cost Rey her life, just as it had killed all the others who performed that cosmic role. The film and its various novelizations are quite clear about this; Rey's heart ceased to beat, and she stopped breathing. To be a Skywalker, to be the one destined to bring the galaxy into balance once again, seems to be fatal.
The Sequel Trilogy Breaks the Skywalker Curse
But there is a reason Star Wars 9 is called "The Rise of Skywalker." It is because Rey, unlike all her predecessors, is the Skywalker who rises from the dead. She does so because of Ben Solo, a Skywalker by blood who gives his life to save the one who had become a Skywalker by choice. Viewed from this perspective, there is a Messianic aspect to Rey's story; she is the Skywalker who carries the curse to death, and breaks its power when she is resurrected.
And notice the symmetry of all this; she does so because the power of love is greater than the dark side, greater even than death itself. It is Anakin's love that redeems him, it is Luke's love that causes him to save Leia and the Resistance from Kylo Ren, and it is the intimate union Rey and Kylo Ren share through the Force Dyad that results in her being raised from death. The Old Jedi Order feared attachment, believing it to be an opening for the dark side. Rey's resurrection, and the breaking of the Skywalker curse, proves just how wrong they were.