JuicyTalk
In theory, seminal Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian wrapped up at the end of its third season in 2023. But small-screen spinoffs Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew proved to be the precursor to a fully fledged feature film starring Din Djarin and Grogu, which was billed as the sequel to the original show.
It turns out that there’s another sequel that comes before The Mandalorian & Grogu in the chronology of the Mandoverse, however. That sequel has been released today, on July 22, 2026. It fills a gap in The Mandalorian’s timeline between season 3 and the recently released movie, by sending Djarin and Grogu off on another mission.
During the course of its story, Grogu comes of age as a warrior, by taking onboard the guidance of his mentor and navigating both of them through a perilous situation. While The Mandalorian and Grogu: Danger in the Dark is principally being presented as a prequel to the show’s big-screen spinoff, it effectively replaces a fourth TV season, too.
If The Mandalorian were to return with a new televisual adventure on Disney+, then this story would likely be its starting point. Danger in the Dark is the first original one-shot comic book featuring Din Djarin, and the first Star Wars comic appearance of any kind for Grogu. This release makes franchise history for Mandoverse fans, in particular, then.
Danger In The Dark Is Set After The Mandalorian Season 3 But Before The Movie
The events of Danger in the Dark take place before Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, but after the season 3 finale of The Mandalorian itself, when Din Djarin decides to settle on the planet Nevarro for good. It’s for this reason that the comic book’s story is set where they’ve chosen to live.
They haven’t yet taken on the work we see them do for the New Republic in the movie, which sends them across the galaxy in search of warlords. Instead, Danger in the Dark finds Djarin and Grogu exploring the lava tubes beneath the surface of Nevarro, as they attempt to defuse a crashed pirate ship which threatens the future of their planet.
The story’s central heroes count on the help of sympathetic Anzellan engineers, but it’s ultimately down to the pair of them to save Nevarro. It isn’t just the crashed spacecraft that poses a danger, though, as Djarin and Grogu are also confronted with the notorious dragonlike reptavians whose poisonous fangs often prove deadly to humans and other creatures.
Reptavians roost in the dark, rocky areas around the entrance to lava tubes. At the same time, as the comic’s cover page suggests, Djarin and Grogu will come face-to-face with Nevarro’s fire rats, who live in the lava tubes themselves, but are generally considered harmless.
The Mandalorian and Grogu: Danger in the Dark was written by Delilah S. Dawson, who’s previously penned comics for the Star Wars Adventures anthology series, and episodes of the web series Star Wars: Forces of Destiny. Mario del Pennino and Arianna Florean are behind the one-shot’s artwork, and it’s been published by Mad Cave Studios imprint PaperCutz.
Will The Mandalorian Season 4 Ever Happen?
While Danger in the Dark changes The Mandalorian’s genre somewhat to fit a middle-school comic-book readership, it’s also the clearest indication yet that there’s plenty more of Din Djarin’s story still to be told. Indeed, there are whole storylines already written for a future Mandoverse release which haven’t yet seen the light of day.
Jon Favreau famously had fully worked-out plans for The Mandalorian season 4 before he ended up making a big-screen spinoff instead. Nevertheless, much of what Favreau wrote for a prospective fourth season wasn’t included in the plot of The Mandalorian and Grogu.
With the Mandoverse arguably the most celebrated Star Wars creation of the Disney age, and its movie a relative box-office success without doing spectacularly well, there’s every chance a small-screen revival of The Mandalorian comes to fruition sooner or later. It might go against Disney’s new cinema-centric strategy for the franchise, but Din Djarin’s popularity has to count for something.
- Release Date
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2019 – 2023-00-00
- Network
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Disney+
- Directors
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Rick Famuyiwa, Bryce Dallas Howard, Dave Filoni, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed, Deborah Chow, Jon Favreau, Peter Ramsey, Robert Rodriguez, Taika Waititi, Lee Isaac Chung
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Din Djarin / The Mandalorian
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Katee Sackhoff
Bo-Katan Kryze
