When I was a kid, like a lot of Star Wars fans, I spent way too much time arguing over which Jedi was stronger. Yoda vs everyone, Mace vs Obi-Wan, that kind of thing.
Now a canon story has quietly settled one of those debates for me: it shows that Qui-Gon Jinn is actually more powerful than Mace Windu—at least when we’re talking about raw Force potential.
Qui-Gon Is More Powerful Than Mace Windu
If you want to see where this actually comes from, the place to start is Star Wars: Jedi Knights #6 by Marc Guggenheim and Madibek Musabekov.
In this issue, we’re on the farming world of Mina-Rau. Jedi Master Fondar Etzis is dead, and the Order sends an honor guard to bring him home: Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, and Aayla Secura. On the surface, it sounds simple. A Jedi has fallen, three other Jedi go to collect the body and pay their respects.
When they arrive, the local magistrate, Khediva, walks them out to Etzis’ body and gives them the official story. Etzis had been helping the farmers drive off bandits who were stealing crops and was killed in one of those fights. On the surface it sounds straightforward, and Mace and Aayla treat it that way. Nothing about the place or her report gives them a reason to question it—at least at first.
Qui-Gon doesn’t. Standing over the body, he feels something in the Force that the others don’t pick up at all. There’s a darkness around Etzis’ death that doesn’t match a clean battlefield story. Instead of leaving it alone, Qui-Gon checks the ship’s logs, looks at who accessed Etzis’ transport, and works through the details until he can prove it: Etzis wasn’t worn down by bandits. He was poisoned. Whatever killed him didn’t happen in a straight fight.
That one choice—trusting what he feels in the Force—changes the whole mission. The three Jedi go back to Khediva, lay out the poisoning, and start treating Mina-Rau as a murder scene instead of a tragic accident. They talk through the idea that someone on the planet may have helped arrange it, possibly working with the same bandits Etzis was fighting. Khediva doesn’t want to believe her farmers could be involved, but the Jedi no longer have the option of pretending this was simple.
From there, the issue turns into a proper investigation. The Jedi spread out, ask questions, and follow the trail until the real threat finally steps out of the background: Corlis Rath, the masked assassin who has been targeting Qui-Gon across the series. The big set piece is a duel in the fields, between the harvest machinery of Mina-Rau, with Corlis focused entirely on Qui-Gon rather than Mace or Aayla. The whole action beat is built around that idea: out of three powerful Jedi, this enemy is here for Qui-Gon.
By the time we close the issue, the pattern is pretty clear. Qui-Gon is the one who feels that Etzis’ death is wrong when the others don’t sense anything. He’s the one who digs until the truth comes out. And when the real killer finally appears, they’re not measuring themselves against Mace Windu. They’re measuring themselves against Qui-Gon Jinn. That’s the story piece we’re going to lean on when we talk about who’s actually more powerful here.
Why This Makes Qui-Gon Look Stronger Than Mace
What I like about this issue is that it puts three Jedi in the same place, with the same information, and lets us see who actually picks up what the Force is trying to say.
The first moment is at Etzis’ body. Wookieepedia’s summary lays it out very plainly: Qui-Gon senses a darkness around the body, and Mace and Aayla don’t feel anything. They’re ready to take the official story at face value; he isn’t. He trusts that feeling enough to start testing blood, checking logs, and pushing until the poisoning comes to light. Without that instinct, they would have left Mina-Rau thinking a Jedi just fell in a normal fight.
The second moment is when the real killer finally shows himself. Corlis Rath is the one who poisoned Etzis in the first place, and he did it to draw Qui-Gon to Mina-Rau. His goal isn’t to test himself against Mace Windu. He wants Qui-Gon. When he moves in for the ambush, Qui-Gon senses his approach, while Mace and Aayla are caught off guard and dropped by poison darts before they can react.
So in one issue we see the same pattern twice:
- Qui-Gon feels the wrongness around Etzis’ death when Mace doesn’t.
- Qui-Gon feels the assassin coming when Mace doesn’t.
That doesn’t suddenly erase everything we know about Mace from the films. He’s still a top-tier fighter and the Council’s main champion. But this comic gives us a very specific kind of side-by-side comparison: three Jedi on the same mission, and the one who is most in tune with the danger and with the Force itself is Qui-Gon, not Mace.
That’s why, when I say Qui-Gon is “stronger” here, I’m talking about Force potential and sensitivity, not just who wins a lightsaber duel.