Lit Star Wars: Dark Times thoughts?

More of my thoughts:

I didn't like Ember. I don't what Dass saw in her.

Also I wish we could have more of Coruscant and the Senators. Even that whole short scene with Ameeda and Pestage where they're collecting artifacts, I think that would have made a great arc.

 

I'm not sure I'm getting 100% of this, but now I've got "When do I get to sing My Way" stuck in my head.

 

"Ember"...spark... in the darkness... blah blah schmaltzy symbolic stuff.

Dass's hope was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

I agree with the general opinion: a fantastic series, but the ending could have been handled better and Ember was the worst.

 

OK, maybe I had 100% after all. The thing that's confusing me is that the title was probably set in stone when Ember probably was the only character supposed to survive the arc. Probably she'd been pregnant at that time, too. Wait, was she pregnant in the actual series? Can't remember at all. Anyway, this Mick Harrison guy probably said to himself, "If Ostrander's Jedi Purge era Jedi character gets an unrealistic happy end with his girl by his side, so does mine!"

 

The difference being that we actually cared about Khaleen.

 

Did we? Can't remember at all. I admit that I mostly remember her Duurseemian physiology and garments, and I'm not even ashamed of that. Every time I would feel ashamed, I blame Duurseema.

 

Well, I guess it's more like "Khaleen had a lot longer to grow on the reader."

 

Okay, this made me laugh.

 

Biting back the "there's always hope so long as the hero gets the girl preggers" comment here...........

 

Great thread - I collected & own all of the Dark Times comics (including the later mini-series), but have honestly not read all of the issues. I need to go back & re-read (or read for the first time) the entire series, from the beginning.

I will say that the series was innovative & interesting, in that it focused on one of the "last of the Jedi" who had survived the Jedi Purge in Episode III; IIRC, it was one of the few EU (at least at the time) that focused on the 20 years between E3 & E4; of course now we have Rebels, and probably other novels/comics (I will admit to being hazy on what's come out in the EU from a novel standpoint, at least from the past 15 years...)

 

Save for stuff set in the aftermath of ROTS and perhaps up to a year later, there's really not much in this particular era surprisingly.

 

In the "new" continuity, it's basically Tarkin, A New Dawn, and Rebels out so far. Plus the forthcoming Kanan comic and the Lords of the Sith novel.

 

Back when Ep3 was out the EU only got the first year after ROTS and the first year before ANH (although I'm not sure on the latter since previous EU had already claimed 5 years before ANH, plus background stuff like the Han Solo trilogy). That way, the coming intertrilogy projects (which never came) wouldn't have had to stomp on ill-prepared EU. You know, kind of the situation we got with TFU and the birth of the Rebellion. And which we would have now with Rebels and the birth of the Rebellion if it were still one canon.

Therefore, the last Jedi from Dark Times as well as the last Jedi from The Last of the Jedi and the last Jedi from Coruscant Nights and The Last Jedi can all basically be crammed into a six-month period after ROTS or something like that. Plus the several last Jedi we see in the Purge comics. And that's probably also where Corsucant Night's problems regarding "how long ago was that again" came from - references that would only have made sense if the CN trilogy had been given a lot more air to breathe of those 20 years.

 

Yep, pretty much. CN suffers I think from a change of plans on where it was supposed to be and failure to communicate or edit it to fit. I like the series, but the sense I get is it started off much later in the dark years than it ended up.

 

Do it!

I'm not exactly certain when the Coruscant Nights trilogy and the Last of the Jedi novel fit (I believe it's around 18 BBY, but I'm not sure), but Dark Times starts 36 hours after the end of ROTS/Mustafar duel and the last arc (A Spark Remains) ends 6 months after ROTS. So you're spot on about the 6 month period. The Purge comics take place during the first 3-4 months after ROTS.

 

Re: Lflm./Disney, I am completely ignoring their SW continuity/canon. As I've said before in other threads, my own personal "canon" are the 6 films, the HTTE Zahn books, DE, Dark Times, and any other EU books/comics I like...

In fact, I will completely ignore the continuity in the forthcoming ST/spin-off films in favor of the '90's & 200X's novels, comics, etc.....

 

I'm going to say it: Dark Times's long life bothered me. Truly excellent series like Legacy and KOTOR that were delivering great issues every month got canned when they still had tons of story left to tell, while Randy kept his pet series alive until the bitter end.

Wheatley's delays were a joke. When it takes more than twelve months for five issues to be released, you have to struggle to keep caring about the story. Wheatley's art may be breathtaking, but when the delays are consistently that bad, why not look elsewhere? Dave Ross's art in Parallels was great. Not as good as Wheatley's, but I'll disagree that Wheatley's art made up for the delays. As a non-trade-waiter, I can't get behind that.

Did any of us care all that much about this series during its first few arcs? I feel like someone here would have figured out the Mick Harrison/Welles Hartley thing if we did.

 

I did (surprise!). I didn't start reading Dark Times until Parallels was nearing it's end, but once I started I was hooked. I was very disappointed and even angry at times about the delays between issues, but despite that, even after months since the previous issue was published I couldn't wait to get get my hands on the new one. I fell in love with the series so much, that apparently no delay was long enough to make me lose interest even a bit. But that's just me.

I wasn't a member of these forums back then, but I did visit the Dark Horse boards from time to time, and I found it a little suspicious when Randy always answered the questions regarding Dark Times, while writers for other series like JJM, Ostrander, etc answered questions for their series every now and then. But then again I didn't give too much thought about it, so...

 

The delays were annoying. For a series that started in 06 or so we should have had 50 plus issues no problem.

 

I don't follow most of the names involved in the comic world, which is why the Marvel announcements didn't make me care for anything - I simply don't know the people in spite of their importance. With DH, a few names kept popping up, and KOTOR and Legacy obviously got everyone invested. With Dark Times, I probably couldn't have told you whether everything had been written by the same person, let alone how that person was called, until "the big reveal".

How about the timing for the reveal? Could that have been meant to boost the series' importance? Making it the boss' series so it would get more attention, possibly more readers and more security for the coming arcs?

 

I am curious about this as well. I wasn't a member back when that was revealed, so what were the reactions? And why was Randy using aliases in the first place?

 

It's all a long time ago!

Nonetheless, that DT evaded the axe that fell on Knight Errant (I know JJM decided to axe it, but that series was bloody brilliant!), Agent of the Empire, Invasion (it could have gotten better), due to who was writing it did become pretty obvious.

Wheatley is, for me, the SW equivalent of the likes of Frank Quitely - they'll do great work but you need to stockpile the issues before you even solicit #1 of the series!

 

I'll start reading Dark Times etc with the release of the first Epic Collection, and plan on following it this way.