The Emperor Is Naked

Star Wars: Dark Empire

1991-2

Tom Veitch

Cam Kennedy (artwork)

**********

Pros: Artwork

Cons: Plot, Writing

 

 

        The 90’s Star Wars Renaissance was contemporary to my childhood, and I had a mild sampling of it. In those days I was somewhat close-minded toward the idea of continuing the saga after the resolution in Return of the Jedi. I gleaned most of my EU lore from Essential Guides and video games. Despite this, I had access to issues 1 and 3 of Dark Empire. Now more open-minded, I found out that this work had always been a sore spot in the EU fandom, and there is little wonder. By bringing back the Emperor from death, it besmirched Anakin’s legacy and, as I have recently confirmed, the writing is lackluster at best. In fact, I hear it was actually used as an argument for retconning the Expanded Universe in favor of the sequel trilogy! This turned out to be a Deal with the Devil. One can wonder less at TROS’ transcendent badness is that it’s not a bad rip-off of Return of the Jedi, it’s bad rip-off of Dark Empire.

        The one redeeming feature that attracts me to Dark Empire, however is that Cam Kennedy’s artwork is freaking awesome. It’s a shame that it seems to be the best work from someone who could have more satisfying used it during his career with Judge Dredd. The artwork is gritty and detailed, with some of the designs’ being the main source of creativity in this comic. The inking contrasts well with the unique water-coloring look. This is apparently controversial because this is the type of coloring that many people seem to despise and would likely see a soullessly antiseptic digital redux as an improvement (Killing Joke comes to mind) over. Then again, I also like the controversial coloring of V for Vendetta’s 30^th Anniversary Edition. If not for the visuals, I would give this comic no more than three stars, probably two. 

         I’ve occasionally drawn inspiration from it. 

         Still, there are some mistakes, most notably the moment in which our heroes discover that Boba Fett is still alive, and Han reacts with a hilariously stilted expression and subsequently has his faced awkwardly blocked by Boba’s foot. That’s an acceptable price to pay for the creative layouts this comic displays. Kennedy is also one of the artists who is guilty of drawing TIE Fighters with awkwardly short solar wing panels. Once could say that the Boba Fett comics have the best of both worlds, as they boast Kennedy’s same style with competent, interesting writing, but it sadly looks somewhat less impressive.

         The story, on the other hand, is just as lame as the artwork is beautiful. I’d make an obvious comparison between that and another flawed work with a divisive art style that I love, but that’s actually pretty unfair to even Viv. The story adds nothing in terms of interesting concepts to the Star Wars saga while bringing it down with the obvious aforementioned controversy. Only a few cool ships are added (the Lictor-class might be a reference to Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun?). Characters are not developed further, and there are hardly even any memorable lines of dialogue. Despite not adding much substance, the comic has some moments of stilted exposition and as-you-knowing. Ironically not much of that is in regards to the few potentially interesting original characters. These newcomers have interesting backstories that only come up in the supplementary material of an early-1995 edition I possess. Using the Manual as crutch for narrative that should have been integrated into the work (see also: Avatar’s lore). This, however, is a tentative criticism because I have yet to read Dark Empire II and Empire’s End, in which this problem could possibly be rectified.  

           Briefly after the events of Thrawn Trilogy, the Imperial Remnant, despite being bitterly divided against itself, has ransacked the Galaxy and taken the war to Coruscant while the New Republic is hiding in “Pinnacle Base.” In other words, the Rebellion Reset from TFA only it makes even less sense. Enough people have pointed out the aesthetic and ideological failures inherent in this trend. The narrative begins with Han and Leia leading a rescue mission for a group of good guys led by by Luke and Lando on Coruscant. They are forced to abandon Luke when a large Dark Force wormhole comes out of nowhere and destroys everything. Luke, knowing that it is meant for him, submits to it and is taken away with R2.

           Aside from the Emperor’s resurrection, the Force Storm is another utterly stupid addition to Star Wars lore that outdoes any made-up Force ability that Disney has come with as far as I know. An all-destructive storm that Palpatine can just simply summon and send anywhere apparently also serves as ride-sharing program. How convenient. 

           Meanwhile the Rebels (I’m calling them that for convenience’s sake) now have to contend with the Empire’s invasion of Mon Calamari using the dreaded World Devastators, large ships that consume the world’s surface and use it to expand themselves while creating swarms of droid TIE’s on the fly. A cool enough concept, except the comic constantly gaslights us into thinking that they are somehow “worse than the Death Star” despite not displaying much advantage as a superweapon over that of an orbital bombardment by Star Destroyers, let alone those stupid f---king Force Storms. One potentially interesting implication, which is never acknowledged in the comic, is that their consumption and expansion turns them into a sort of technological cancer that the Empire loses control of. Despite the lack of creativity, Starkiller Base and the Xyston-Class Star Destroyers are at least an upgrade from the Death Star.  

          Determined to rescue Luke from the clutches of the Emperor, Leia convinces Han to help her rescue him. The plan involves going to Nar Shaddaa to get someone that Han knows to take them to the new Imperial homeworld of Byss. Despite the Empire’s downfall coming from indie freighter pilots in the Trilogy, the mysterious Imperial world of Byss just lets any idiot with shipping license enter their space (also in spite of history, they don’t allow bounty hunters). Admittedly, this is actually an advantage boasted by The Rise of Skywalker because Exegol actually is a mysterious planet that could only be accessed by navigating a dangerous nebula using a secret artifact. When our heroes do reach Byss, all it takes to get into the Emperor’s sinister, but flimsy-looking stronghold is for Leia to use a Jedi Mind Trick on the security gunner. If they had not been driven to desperation to try this whole stunt by its being a rescue mission, they could have easily blown the place up, which is what they could have done the whole time!

            However, before this they have to go to Nar Shadaa. Han and Leia make their way to the secret base of a man with funny hair that Han knows where they meet a woman with funny hair that Han knows. The woman, Salla Zend, has a history with Han and is bitter because of his scoundrel nature. There are only two lines of lip service given to this before she simply shrugs and helps him anyway as the collective readership sighs in relief at comic’s dangerously coming close to actually having a character arc.

          For some reason, Hand and Leia kill time during the maintenance of Salla’s ship to visit Han’s old apartment despite every bounty hunter on Nar Shadaa’s looking for them. As it turns out killing Jabba actually made things worse for our heroes because the entire Hutt Community quadrupled the bounty and included Leia. This problem once so serious that it actually forced Han to temporarily abandon the alliance despite his loyalty to in Empire Strikes Back I guess is only an occasional inconvenience now. Han should expect his apartment to be trashed by now, but instead makes a sarcastic comment to his clearly damaged maid droid about its housekeeping abilities before a surprisingly living Boba Fett emerges from the shadows.

          Admittedly there is a good subtle foreshadowing in that one of the bounty hunter ships that attack the Falcon on the way to Shug’s is featured prominently, only to back off when it gets too dangerous; this ends up being the Slave II. Unfortunately, this is the only intelligence Boba displays in the comic. First, he fails to corner Han and Leia in the apartment despite the element of surprise. Then logically incurs a bounty on himself by accidentally killing a random Hutt boss during the chase. He completes the Hat Trick by running right into Byss’ planetary shield because the Empire doesn’t see any significance in a freighter’s being chased by a bounty hunter. This makes Dengar swear never to work with him again.   

          When our heroes eventually reach the Emperor, Leia is now being seduced by the cloned Emperor in the same way that Luke is, with Luke’s already becoming the new Vader in a desperate attempt to save the Galaxy. In reality, Luke is secretly attaining the deactivation codes for the World Devastators. Palpatine knows this, but lets him do it under the moronic assumption that he is still in control of the whole situation. I’d say he is making the exact same mistake he made in Return of the Jedi, but with neither Luke nor Leia’s actually falling for his shit, he has even less reason to think he is in control. He shows Leia a Jedi holocron and then pulls the same trick Vader did with Luke about turning her, except with her unborn child. Except it actually made sense for Vader to do this because the point was to get him angry enough to kill him; he’s ignoring the 20/20 hindsight that both sides should have. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t work, and Leia hilariously dumps him onto the ground and runs. Palpatine chuckles that this is going as planned until he notices she took the holocron and malds like the stupid old idiot that he is.

           We should all thank Lucas for making Sheev one of the most brilliant evil geniuses out there with the Prequel Trilogy.

           Luke deactivates the World Devastators, and Salla and Shug return to rescue everyone, but Luke stays behind to eliminate the Emperor and his clones. He almost succeeds but for the one clone that Palpatine managed to transfer his spirit into. In one of the most infamous visuals in the Expanded Universe, Luke finds himself in a lightsaber fight with a naked man who defeats him. Considering the recent efforts to rehabilitate Dark Empire after being disappointed by Disney, I think the obvious joke is not too inappropriate here. 

           Luke and the Emperor return in the Eclipse to menace Pinnacle Moon with a Force Storm, but Leia shows up again and she and Luke use the Power of Friendship to finally defeat him and cause his second “death.”

           Overall, Dark Empire is cheesy and poorly thought-out. It makes the same mistake that would inform The Rise of Skywalker, and is a testament to how sometimes the older works are not necessarily the best. The one thing that redeems it is the artwork, which alone makes this a guilty pleasure for me to the point where I don’t regret my ownership of the comic.

QUOTES

SHUG NINX: Han! Mako just got off the Link--said you were coming' my way...Sorry...I'm in enough trouble with the Hutt! No can do!

HAN: C'mon Ninx! I saved your skin when you got caught run-in' ion triggers to the Zyggurats...remember?

CHEWIE: NHURARRN!

SHUG NINX: Yeah...who could forget? But I paid you back, Buddy. Remember that free power core and shield generator I gave ya after--

HAN: Cut the gab, Ninx! I'm comin' in! Open the chute!

SHUG NINX: Yeah...but...oh, all right. Chute's unlocked. Get your tail in here! But it's gonna cost ya!