Lit dark empire

Sarcasm, sir.

 

Or:

He's not the DigitalMessiah, he's a very naughty boy!

 

Palpatine was an old man in ROTJ. He was still very powerful, but without the ability to resurrect himself, he would be dead in a relatively short time. His ability to cheat death was what made him truly terrifying to me. That's one of the reasons I love Dark Empire. Still, Endor was a huge loss for Palpatine. It gave the Alliance a chance to survive, regroup, and consolidate its power.

 

Dark Empire was outstanding. It's only flaw was that Solo was a tad weak through the whole thing, as was Fett though Fett's re-intro was decent.

 

Well, I like the idea of Luke having no choice but to ally himself with the death-defying Emperor to perhaps learn of a way to put him down for good while being chipped away at by the dark side in the process. Ultimately, however, I prefer the premise over the execution.

 

Is the intent to pick every piece of published material and ask, without punctuation, if people like it?

 

yes

 

glove of darth vader what do people think

 

Discovering someone that powerful who had cheated death would demoralize anyone. Especially after seeing the guy die in person. And besides, you make it seem like Luke became exactly like his father and that the whole thing wasn't temporary. The fact that he joined the Emperor to learn his secrets was his true agenda, anyway. Overcoming the temptations of the Dark Side was something he managed to do a second time, and it proved to him that he was a Jedi Master — one strong enough to train Leia's children and all of the rest of the Jedi to come.

Other than the Emperor's way of cheating death, and Fett's for that matter, I found the series sort of weak. Very weak, in fact. Here Veitch had the perfect opportunity to showcase not only the Emperor but Boba Fett as well. Introducing the new Jedi (that were always around, anyway) hurt the series in my opinion. They felt contrived and squeezed in somewhat — like Veitch was forced to write these characters in or something. The books' storyline felt rushed, too. Especially in the third series, which was horribly scripted, even for comic book standards.

In addition to what I listed above, here are the other things that I liked about the trilogy.

Luke had trained Leia in the Force before the series started.
Coruscant was devastated by war and the remnants of the Empire had been split in two.
New worlds that included Byss and Nar Shadaa were very appealing.
More of Han's friends from the past.
The Jedi Holocron.
The Emperor's Star Destroyer, The Eclipse.


Things I didn't like.

Ridiculous new Dark Side powers exhibited by the Emperor, such as Force Storms and empowering others with the Dark Side.
The World Devastators. Enough said.
The Emperor's dark side adepts...all of them.
Any of the newly discovered Jedi, and Empatojayos Brand being the worst of them.
Fett and Dengar teaming up was stupid.
Slave II.
The lightsaber battles were poorly depicted.
Ewoks fighting alongside Rebels on Coruscant? What the hell?

There's more but I'm not going to bother posting it.

 

I liked the Force storms, the World Devastators, and the Eclipse. Also the Slave II.

The thing about the new Jedi is they all suck. Brand is worse off than Vader. Kam Solusar and the rest are all trainees.

The only thing that Dark Empire suffered was from brevity, so the Battle of Mon Calamari didn't really get enough attention, but given the focal point is Luke and Leia's arcs through the story in which Leia is the hero for once while Luke's ego puts him firmly in the middle is refreshing.

The Ewoks were fighting alongside Rebels on Coruscant because Dark Empire was originally supposed to be about a year after Return of the Jedi. It was literally written and drawn that way, and had to be altered at the last minute through some dialogue changes.

 

Dark Empire works for me. Luke and Leia combat Palpatine without Anakin's help. Still need to think about DEII and EE.

 

was that a question

 

I liked Dark Empire, but didn't really enjoy DE II and EE.

 

YES

 

SI

 

HAI !!!

 

Cloning the Emperor is so stupid that its my go to example of stupid things in the EU for people who don't know who Jacen Solo is.

 

I love Dark Empire. The last two issues should have been 4 or 5 to wrap it up properly but despite the weak ending it's great SW. Veitch really understood what makes SW tick and how to tell an epic mythological war story. Cam Kennedy was an amazing artist. Great stuff.

 

I find DE very cool in all it's connection to ROTS. The Emperor brags to Luke about how all the other "so-called Jedi Masters" failed to vanquish him, relating back to how Luke is trying to accomplish what both Yoda and Mace Windu failed to do. I will agree with others in saying that DEII doesn't live up to the first, and in EE Palpatine basically becomes a non-sensical madman and doesn's resemble the maniacal genius we know him to be at all.

 

I remember getting DE I #1 in very early 1992 and being amazed. Really liked the plot, the superb water color-like artwork, etc. It was tough waiting two months between issues, and with no Internet at the time, we didn't know anything about the comics prior to their release.

I liked the literal & figurative darkness in the story, and also enjoyed the return of Boba Fett, which I felt was almost a continuation to Marvel SW #81 (when he escaped from the Sarlaac Pit the first time). Also liked the Emperor's non-human guards in DE I, which I later realized were concept drawings of the Royal Guards from ROTJ (based on the artwork in the Art of Return of the Jedi book from 1983). For what it's worth, a POTF2 figure was made of these guards ("Imperial Sentinel") way back in '98, as one of Hasbro's first EU wave of figures.

 

Yeah I feel like the art design in Dark Empire really did a good job of continuing that tradition in SW with all the new starships, the planets, the sentinels, etc.

 

Really? Wow. I never knew that. That's really cool.

 

it is true that he did not fall, despite what the NJO series said. But i will say this..... Luke was lost.... almost to the point of falling. Only Leia broke through it. I thought it was somewhat entertaining but i really wished it would have been in novel form, with more specifics in what Luke learned. Also I would have liked to see Luke in a better state in the end. I don't know if anyone else felt this while reading JAT or I'Jedi, but you could feel this dark pall over that series and it was caused somehow by DE. It felt like Luke was haunted by what happened with the Emperor and never recovered. This might be why Zahn had Mara say what she said in VOTF, even though it was wrong more than right

 

I think it started with Kevin J. Anderson's Character Guide - which, in the Palpatine section, portrays Palpatine as having partially corrupted, and almost turned, Luke by the time Leia arrives on Byss for the first time (with her bringing him back a bit) and then Palpatine turning Luke during their first lightsaber duel.

Maybe he hadn't listened to the audio drama, and was taking Luke's comment:

"It's good that you came to Byss ... your Jedi power, added to my own, has helped me break the grip of the Dark Side."

a bit too literally.

 

My one complaint about these comics is how the dark and light sides, along with the Jedi, are talked about. It's hard to explain why, but this -- I guess it's the same in TOJ -- is the only place where these topics are talked about in this way. It doesn't fit with the rest of Star Wars. My problems mostly lie with the word choice, so my complaint is pretty superficial.