Dark Empire’s Mediation on Star Wars’ Cycles Helped Shaped the EU

At the daybreak of the ‘90s, Star Wars’ “dark ages”—with the tip of Marvel’s Star Wars comics, new toys on the decline, and the films lengthy over within the eyes of followers and maybe even its creator—out of the blue led to an excellent flash. Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire heralded a brand new, post-Return of the Jedi saga that might be informed throughout books and comics for many years to return. But as forward-trying because the Thrawn Trilogy would turn into, Dark Empire was simply as necessary for the methods it seemed again.

Written by Tom Veitch, who sadly handed away final week, lettered by Todd Klein, and brilliantly illustrated by Cam Kennedy—starkly shadowed line artwork painted in luxurious cool colours shot via with blasts of heat yellows and reds—Dark Empire is chronologically set after the occasions of Zahn’s trilogy of novels. Those books, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, coated the plans of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s makes an attempt to maintain the Imperial armed forces in management as he battled the newly christened Republic within the years after Return of the Jedi. But whereas Heir to the Empire and its successors seemed to chart the way forward for Star Wars’ story past the film trilogy, new threats within the cracks of the Empire’s blunting, if not outright destruction, on the time Veitch’s story within the pages of Dark Empire—which started hitting cabinets simply six months after Heir’s launch—seemed again to Star Wars’ rapid previous.

In hindsight, many years later, we will see the parallels between Dark Empire and the prolonged Skywalker Saga’s film self within the conclusion of The Rise of Skywalker. Defeated threats return, outdated faces thought gone are again, and sure, Emperor Palpatine may be very alive, a clone, and has darkish plans for the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. At the time, Dark Empire and the Thrawn Trilogy, had been thought of huge successes that proved the starvation for a brand new period of Star Wars—the delivery of the legendary Star Wars Expanded Universe as we actually knew it. Without Dark Empire or Heir to the Empire kickstarting many years of books, comics, and video games, the dwelling historical past and way forward for the fictional galaxy far, far-off would by no means have come to go, its legacy secured in its eager affect on Lucasfilm’s personal renewed direct returns to Star Wars on film and on TV—even after the EU was declared non-canonically to be “Legends” after Disney’s buy of the studio in 2012. And but, for these story causes, on the time Dark Empire was seen as one thing of a bizarre side-step—rehashing the battle of the films, bringing again outdated villains like Palpatine and Boba Fett so quickly after their seeming deaths, and seeing Luke wrestle with the Dark Side’s temptation so quickly after turning into a Jedi. Dark Empire, it appeared, re-litigated Star Wars slightly than trying to the potential of its new future.

And but, Dark Empire works and stays beloved three many years after the very fact, as a result of Veitch’s utilization of those thought-defeated conflicts has a weight that Star Wars has tried to wrestle with in all these many years since after Dark Empire got here to an in depth. In some methods maybe it’s honest to say that Veitch’s story set the template for Star Wars’ love of generational cycles of battle that might be explored each retroactively with the prequels after which in a while within the sequel trilogy: sins and evils of 1 technology worming their manner into the subsequent, and the subsequent, as the subsequent cycle of insurgent heroes and future Force wielders rises to put them low once more. The return of the Emperor, youthful and renewed to actually prey on the flesh of the brand new technology—cloning shenanigans apart, Palpatine’s endgame in Dark Empire is to place his spirit within the physique of Leia’s unborn youngster—is ludicrously foolish in the way in which that Star Wars is ludicrously foolish. But the way in which it serves as a catalyst for Luke to re-confront the evils that tempted him previously offers Dark Empire with a thematic coronary heart that goes past the continued story of insurgent heroes and resurgent empires.

Dark Empire leverages its thematic echoes to re-affirm that, ought to Star Wars proceed past the movies, its fights don’t so simply finish with a celebration within the Ewok village and a destroyed superweapon. Zahn’s novels fleshed out the Imperial Remnant with new characters, however its very existence as a serious risk within the early EU tales and in Dark Empire—hanging again furiously with horrifying, beforehand unseen tech like the enormous World Devastators, even because the Republic builds its personal fleet, one seized Star Destroyer at a time—underlines that Star Wars’ key battle was by no means so easy as to be received by one main victory. In selecting this time to go to the Emperor’s aspect—to avoid wasting his sister and her youngster—slightly than defy him, and momentarily embrace the facility of the Dark, Dark Empire doesn’t undo Luke’s actions in Return of the Jedi, however emphasises {that a} Jedi’s wrestle to withstand the Dark and embrace the Light is a continuing journey, one that may be marked by setbacks and triumphs in equal measure. For Luke specifically, Dark Empire is a narrative of perseverance, to problem the love he has for his household and buddies—the weak spot Palpatine as soon as mocked him for in Jedi—and embolden it by pushing himself to the brink of his temptations.

It’s fascinating to revisit Dark Empire, particularly now after the Skywalker Saga has concluded once more, and to see a few of its plainest influences in Veitch’s writing and Kennedy’s haunting, hanging artwork. They’re arguably executed way more strongly in Dark Empire than they’re in The Rise of Skywalker, if solely as a result of, in contrast to its cinematic parallel, there’s much less tangled materials and potential for Dark Empire to extricate itself from earlier than pivoting to its story of cyclical battle. After all, there wasn’t actually a lot earlier than to extricate itself from. Alongside the Thrawn trilogy, Dark Empire led the way in which for Star Wars to stay on past the movies—even it it did so by returning to its largest themes and conflicts and re-imagining them as ever-flowing, repeating classes that should be returned to, endured, and re-learned from time and time once more. In order to maintain Star Wars going perpetually, Dark Empire realized that the previous may by no means actually be forgotten… simply in some methods extra literal than others.

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