[CaptainCrunch]

I thought I would do a review as I read through some of my old Star Wars Legacy stuff, I'll put it in Spoiler tags so those that don't want to see a wall of text. But I want to cover the good, the bad and ugly of the Star Wars Legacy series.

Spoiler!

Star Wars Dark Empire Trilogy.

Now I’ve read the hardcover trilogy which was published in 2010. But this is just a reprint of the 12 part comic book series by Dark Horse Comics published in 1991-1992.
Now I will state here, I haven’t been a comic book guy since I was a kid, but I bought this in 2010 because it was pointed to as a major piece of Star Wars Lore. The series takes place 6 ABY and shortly after the rise and fall of Thrawn in the Heir to the Empire Series.

Story Line

The story starts with the Rebellion on the run. A massive Imperial fleet surges from the deep core and quickly conquers Coruscant. But shortly after that victory the Imperials fall on each other in a civil war. Meanwhile Luke Skywalker who is rebuilding the Jedi Knights is captured by a massive force storm and taken to the core world of Byss, where he is confronted by Emperor Palpatine who has survived his death by pouring his essence into clone bodies. Luke is confronted and dominated and turns to the Dark Side of the Force as he believes he can only defeat Palpatine by learning the secrets of the Dark Side.
Meanwhile the Empire unleashes its next super weapon, the World Devestators which are huge automated factories that can destroy worlds and convert the debris to weapons of War.



The Rebellion gets a fortunate break as they go to rescue Luke on Byss, Leia steals the great holocron from Palpatine and Luke betrays his master and gives the control codes to the Devestators to R2D2 who then destroys the Empires super weapon. Luke refuses to leave and again is crushed by Palpatine.



Luke shrugs off Palpatines influence and attacks the lab that makes Palpatines clone bodies and smashes all but one, but he isn’t in time as Palpatine occupies the last young clone and beats Luke into submission.


Because its his last clone, and the clones can’t contain his power, Palpatine intends to occupy a strong young Jedi body, like Leia’s unborn son who later becomes Anakin Solo a major piece of the Legends EU.



With Luke in tow Palpatine arrives at the Rebel base and demands Leia in exchange for a truce. Leia boards the Superstar Destroyer Eclipse and redeems Luke and they both confront the Emperor who in a fit of rage unleashes a force storm to destroy the Rebels but Luke and Leia turn it on him and the Eclipse is destroyed with Palpatine on board.



In the second part of the Trilogy. It covers Luke trying to rebuild the Jedi order and travelling to worlds like Ossus. Meanwhile the Emperor is betrayed by his advisors who destroy more of his clone bodies but Palpatine manages to occupy a flawed clone. At the same time, the Rebellion tries to go on the offensive with the assumption that the Emperor is dead. The second chapter ends with the birth of Anakin Solo.


The third part of the Trilogy is called Empire’s End. Palpatine now controls a new weapon, a Galaxy Gun. A weapon that can fire projectiles through hyperspace that can destroy planets and fleets. The Rebellion barely escapes a attack and the Rebel fleet scatters to the far corners of the Universe.



Meanwhile Palpatine is now desperate as his clone body begins to rapidly age and he focuses on Anakin Skywalker as his next and most powerful receptacle. The Rebels attempt to capture Palpatine on Byss and fail and Palpatine tracks down Leia in his new Star Destroyer the Eclipse 2. In a final confrontation Han shoots the Emperor in the back and the Emperors spirit is trapped by one of Lukes Jedi and is banished to eternal death forever. Meanwhile R2D2 reprograms the Eclipse 2 and it collides with the galaxy gun which spasmodically fires a projector that collides and destroys Byss.

Thoughts on the Lore

This comic series was released far before the Lore was established on lots of things. However there was some interesting things bought into being. The Jedi Holocron was introduced here, as well a lot of the old worlds like Ossus and Nar Shadda and Byss. At the same time Palpatine was never titled as a Lord of the Sith, nor was Vader, instead Dark Side users were Dark Jedi. There was no rule of two and Palpatine could just grant his people dark side powers and call them adepts. In other words he made instant Dark Siders. At the same time the Jedi perspective was different. Jedi from the Old Republic felt they had a right to rule as benevolent rulers. Luke was no longer the young enthusiastic Jedi, instead he was at time defeatist, and bitter and became scared by guilt over his actions as Palpatines Jedi. Boba Fett played a prominent role in this series for a while, but while he was the most fearsome Bounty Hunter in the Galaxy, he was more a prat falling buffoon. The story introduced a love interest for Luke who Palpatine killed, we saw Hans old girl friend. The story also fleshed out the history of the ancient Sith War, introduced us to Korriban the birthplace of the Sith in current lore, but again there was no connection between Palpatine and the Sith except as a source of knowledge and power.

Thoughts on the story

Because everyone was kind of acting a bit out of character, it was a bit jarring. The Emperor kept rolling out super weapons and super ships, and the Rebel leaders kept running around screaming that the Rebellion was doomed. The normal heros didn’t do the victorious heroic acts. Instead R2D2 destroyed the World Devestators and the second Eclipse. Han shot the Emperor in the back and a newly introduced Jedi sacrificed himself to banish the Emperor.
At the same time, victory felt assured because for the most part the villains were bumbling mustache twirling villains who were merely there to screw up to be killed by the Emperor or easily dispatched by the Hero.
There were some nice elements in the story, It was certainly galaxy wide in its execution as all of the heroes were on a hero’s quest. We also got a nice blend of new characters and worlds that made the GFFA seem larger.
Links to current Lore


Mostly on the Palpatine clone with his surviving his death and occupying clone bodies. In both ROS and in Dark Empire Palpatine admits that he’s died many times. As well we see the rapid aging of the Clone bodies due to Palpatines power. We also see Palpatines desire to occupy a young powerful force users body. In the case of DE its Anakin Solo, in ROS it Rey.



Illustration Style.

I have to admit, I didn’t really like it all that much. The frames were tiny and busy and every shot felt overly tight and constrained. There just felt like there was too much happening. At the same time most shapes in the comic felt square and blunt as well.



The characters.

For the most part there wasn’t any real growth or development for the characters. Luke was a little more Jaded, but Han was Han, Leia was Leia etc. Palpatine just felt like a cackling mustache twirling villain who called everyone my friends, he also felt less like the cagey Emperor that was developed in the PT and more like a homicidal maniac who continually talked about entering the child. The new characters were fairly forgettable as well. I finished this about a week ago and I can’t remember any standout new characters unlike the Crimson Empire Saga that I’ll cover later.


Final Thoughts

Where this is a must read is that it really does fill in a lot of lore that was used in later novels like the Jedi Academy novels and even the Legacy of the Force Saga. But that’s really the only reason to read this as a lot of the lore that was introduced would later be forgotten. Is it a fun read? Sure, its so action compressed that you can’t help but turning the page, but it does come across as a bit cookie cutter and 2 dimensional.

Next up: The Crimson Empire Saga