Dark Empire I (Star Wars)
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Dark Empire I (Star Wars) description
Tom Veitch's original comic strip story traces Luke Skywalker's entrance into the Dark Side in the years after the fall of Darth Vader. The Empire is fragmented, and the Rebels seem on the verge of winning their long struggle when the sinister power of World Devastators emerges from the galactic core. These Devastators chew up worlds and manufacture robotic war machines out of the resources they consume. Luke's dark journey seems the only way to halt the massacre. But despite the importance of Luke in Dark Empire, the portrayal of Leia as an emerging Jedi is really the centerpiece of this volume. Married to Han (who goes flat in Veitch's hands) and with two children, Leia is torn between her role as mother and her role as Jedi warrior. While the story sometimes jumps too quickly between major scenes, Veitch does a good job of capturing the epic feel of George Lucas's masterpiece trilogy. Cam Kennedy's artwork is mixed in quality. Some of his drawings of the Millennium Falcon, hunter-killer probes, and robotic TIE-fighters seem to leap directly from the movie screen, while his human figures (especially of Han and Luke) can appear generic. Also, his style of coloring, using washes of similar colors on each page, is good for capturing moods but tends to obscure details. Despite these occasional shortcoming, this comic is recommended for one simple reason: once you start reading it, you won't be able to put it down. The other two parts of the Dark Empire trilogy include: Dark Empire II and Empire's End.--Patrick O'Kelley |
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Dark Empire I (Star Wars) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Overwritten and stuporous
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This book may have been well received in 1992, when the only thing you could compare it with was Marvel Comics nine year oeuvre. Fifteen years and several excellent Star Wars comic series later, Dark Empire holds up rather poorly. With a story structure nearly identical to Return of the Jedi, the book is over long on subplot, anemic in its main narrative, and soporifically overwritten. It also commits the worst sin of the comic book convention - reviving dead villains.
Back in 1992 this graphic novel was something of a major publishing event, one of the first wave of new novels and comic books after a decade when it seemed Star Wars was a dead and forgotten property. It was Darkhorse Comics first project on taking over the comic book license from Marvel, which stopped publishing Star Wars in 1986.
To make a big a splash as possible in marketing their new series, Darkhorse and writer Tom Veitch came up with the idea of turning Luke Skywalker into a villain. Or at least that's what they would like you to believe.
As the story unfolds, we find that Palpatine didn't really die at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. He simply shifted his consciousness into a clone. And now he's back to threaten the galaxy with yet another giant super weapon. Actually, a whole fleet of superweapons, huge pulverizers and vacuum cleaners that scour the surface of planets and suck up their minerals, metals, and other valuable resources. (Which seems rather silly as then you'd have to take those resources and build new factories to produce new manufactured goods. It would be a much better use of the resources to simply control the planets and labor in situ and be able to confiscate their output.)
Not realizing that the Emperor is still alive, Luke follows a pulse in the Force that leads him to Palpatine's lair, where we have a complete rehash of the throne-room scene from Return of the Jedi. This time the Emperor holds out the possibility that the only way Luke can possibly defeat him is through the use of powers of the Dark side. And in one of the many examples of Veitch's purple exposition, we read:
"The Emperor's words blaze like lightening across Luke's mind . . The Dark side has spoken . . . And for once it speaks the truth. A moment of greatest peril has arrived . . But it is the moment for which Luke was born . . .He must challenge the Dark side from within . . . He must penetrate the power of the Dark side, and he must learn its secrets . . There is no other way."
Exactly _why_ Luke believes using Dark powers is the _only_ way to defeat Palpatine is left to the reader to imagine. His sudden capitulation smacks of nothing more than a cheap contrivance, a way to make a cool story with lots of menacing-Luke drawings without having to write a real story. The climax is equally vapid, with Luke having learned from his dalliance with the Dark side, "powers of control and destruction, . . . feelings of great isolation and sadness . . . [and] fear." How these powers differ from a Jedi's power to control and destroy, how these feelings differ from a Jedi's feelings of isolation, sadness and fear - Veitch obviously has no idea.
As in Return of the Jedi, there is an overlong and tiring subplot in which Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, and Generals Calrissian, Madine, and Dodonna plan and execute massive space battles against the Imperials. There's also a completely fatuous and improbable sublpot involving Han and Leia visiting the Hutt world of Nar Shaddaa so that Veitch could work into the book Boba Fett, miraculously revived from the stomach of the Sarlacc into which he fell in Return of the Jedi.
About the only redeeming feature of Dark Empire is Cam Kennedy's art, done in a color style not typically associated with Star Wars. Using a pastel pallete, he paints in water colors outlined by black inks. Many pages are done in various shades and hues of one main color, with perhaps just a touch or two of a contrasting color for effect. (See sample images.)
Altogether this is a book worth missing. And if you want to not waste more of your time and money, you'll also skip the sequel, Dark Empire II, which unimaginably worse. For a much better Star Wars comic experience, try the more intelligently written Republic (published in book form under the Clone Wars) or Legacy series.
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