Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Star Wars: The High Republic #8

Star Wars has just darkly upgraded the High Republic Era’s most dangerous villains. As mysterious as they are dangerous to Force sensitives like the Jedi, the Force-eating predators known as the Nameless are under the influence of Marchion Ro and his Nihil marauders. However, Marvel Comics’ High Republic series has confirmed that one of Ro’s new ministers is hard at work making the Nameless even more horrifying.

The Nihil have evolved quite a bit since their debut in Charles Soule’s novel Light of the Jedi. Their power has grown exponentially, and they’re far more organized than ever before. This includes Marchion Ro’s new ministers such as the Ithorian Baron Boolan. Serving as Ro’s Minster of Advancement, the Baron’s labs are revealed in the new High Republic #8 from Cavan Scott and Jim Towe, containing a Nameless that’s somehow even more terrifying than the creatures already were with their ability to paralyze even the strongest Jedi with fear-filled hallucinations while draining their life-force, reducing them to nothing more than calcified husks.

With the labs having been discovered by Jedi Master Keeve Trennis, her fellow rogue Jedi, quasi-reformed Nihil Tempest Runner Lourna Dee, and their new ally Tey Sirrek in this new issue, the team is shocked to find a fully dissected Nameless suspended in a containment unit, one that’s somehow still alive thanks to Boolan’s disturbing experimentations. Likewise, the heroes soon find themselves attacked by more of Boolan’s experiments.

Baron Boolan Is One Of The Nihil’s Most Dangerous New Leaders

The Minister of Advancement

Jedi Master Trennis and company came to Boolan’s labs to save a young Force-sensitive girl who’d been captured by the Baron’s agents. This resulted in a face-to-face encounter with both the Baron himself and several of his dark experiments. To that end, Keeve and her fellow heroes quickly learn that Baron is responsible for many of the Nihil’s darkest agents and creations, including the Children of the Storm.

As Marchion Ro’s Minister of Advancement, Baron Boolan has two primary tasks. The first is to make the Nameless even easier for the Nihil to control while also making them stronger, something he’s seemingly achieved through a variety of cybernetic upgrades. The other is to create more Children of the Storm, a new faction of the Nihil who’ve proven themselves to be some of the most capable hunters and warriors among the marauders’ ranks.

Boolan’s Dark Force Experiments Explained

The Nameless and Children of the Storm

The Nameless are one of the Nihil’s best weapons that’s successfully been keeping the bulk of the Jedi Order at bay since the marauders used the Force-eaters to destroy Starlight Beacon. The exception has largely been Keeve and her fellow Jedi who defied the will of the High Council to save any Jedi who’d become trapped within the Nihl’s walled-off sector of space known as the Occlusion Zone, including Keeve’s old master Sskeer. As such, it makes sense that Marchion Ro would want Boolan to make the Nameless as powerful as possible.

However, the Children of the Storm is Boolan’s other important project. Horrifically, the Children of the Storm are confirmed to be Force-sensitives who’ve been captured, experimented on, and subsequently brainwashed into serving both Boolan and the Nihil. As such, Boolan would have done terrible things to the young Yacombe girl his “Children” recently captured had the Jedi not arrived in time to save her in this new issue of The High Republic.

Star Wars: The High Republic #8 is available now from Marvel Comics.