When The Mandalorian introduced Baby Yoda to the world, it gifted us a new obsession that we still haven’t gotten over yet. Beyond being of the same species as the Jedi grandmaster, though, the child’s origins remain a mystery, but an old Star Wars comic might offer a small clue.
Star Wars Tales was a series of anthology comics, each issue made up of half a dozen or so short stories. Issue #13 was centered on Mace Windu, and in the final of its tales, “Children of the Force,” he faces off with a bounty hunter who it transpires had been hired by the parents of a Sullustan baby who regretted their decision to have their child inducted into the Jedi.
The relevance here comes from the one panel of the comic that shows a Jedi nursery housing multiple species of babies, one of them having the distinctive appearance of green skin and pointy ears, suggesting in retrospect that Grogu, as many fans still refuse to call him, may have begun his life intended to join the Order.
While the date of the events is difficult to precisely place, they did occur some time before the instigation of the Clone Wars, which began 19 years after Baby Yoda’s birth. Due to the immense longevity of his species causing them to age far slower than others (if you recall, Grogu is 50 during The Mandalorian), it’s likely he would have still been an infant around the time the comic is set, meaning it tracks for the two to be considered one and the same.
Star Wars Tales was relegated to the status of Legends along with the rest of the Expanded Universe after Disney bought Lucasfilm and wiped the slate clean for new stories, but inspiration has previously been taken from the decanonized narratives and characters. Thus, it’s not outwith the realm of possibility that Jon Favreau remembered the image and centered the initial arc of The Mandalorian around its expansion.
