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masterghandalf) wrote2025-07-08 08:13 am
masterghandalf) wrote2025-07-08 08:13 am
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MG Reads Dark Empire #4
Dark Empire #4
In Han’s Nar Shaddaa apartment, Boba Fett says hello while holding Han and Leia at gunpoint. They’re both stunned, since they thought Fett was dead, but it turns out the Sarlacc couldn’t digest him. Fett’s fellow bounty hunter Dengar is here too, and so is Han’s friend Mako, who sold him out – the price Fett offered was too good. The Hutts are willing to pay a great deal for Han dead, but more for him alive – and even more for Leia, who is wanted for killing Jabba. Han and Leia manage to flee as the bounty hunters open fire, catching the old droid ZZ in the crossfire; Han and Leia snark to each other about how romantic it is they’re wanted by the Hutts together. They flee through Nar Shaddaa’s rundown streets, periodically shooting at the bounty hunters pursuing them, while Han thinks Ninx will have to make do with the lower-quality power converters he already has.
They flee through the spaceport and end up at a dead end – Han protests it’s not his fault, there used to be a bridge here! The bounty hunters catch up to them, and Fett accidentally shoots a floating sled on which a Hutt is riding; the sled goes wild and pitches the Hutt over the side of the building, but Han and Leia are able to hop on it and escape. Suddenly, Han spots Salla’s ship, Starlight Intruder, with the Falcon clinging to its side. They manage to get on board – Han feeling lucky for having old girlfriends still willing to help out in a pinch – with Chewie covering them. Fett and Dengar, in Fett’s new ship Slave II, watch them go, and calculate that the Intruder is jumping to the Deep Core. Fett thinks Slave II is fast enough they can beat them there. On board the Intruder, Salla confirms they’re cleared for Byss, though Ninx is still worried about their hyperdrive. Leia opens Vima’s package, to find it contains an old lightsaber – Han is unimpressed, but Leia reminds him he just doesn’t understand the Jedi. Suddenly Leia has a vision of Luke commanding the Empire’s forces, just like their father. She fears they’ve already lost.
At Mon Cal, Emancipator is slowly being deconstructed by Silencer 7 as the Rebels flee in escape pods, Lando and Wedge Antilles in the last one out. Suddenly, reinforcements from Pinnacle Base arrive, including the new E-wings. They provide cover for the escape pods and engage the World Devastators to protect the Mon Cal refugees. As one of the E-wings goes down, Commander Klev watches from the bridge of his Devastator and muses on the Rebels’ stupidity for thinking they can win this. Suddenly, the Devastator receives a corrupted transmission from the central computer system on Byss that starts shutting down its systems and locking out the crew from overriding it. Now on board Antares Six, Lando watches the Devastator plunge into the ocean; Wedge thinks the E-wings took it down, but Lando knows better – it looks like the Devastator just randomly self-destructed. It's almost like whoever is in command of this fleet wants to lose…
On board Starlight Intruder, Salla announces they’re coming out of hyperspace above Byss (Threepio hopes they’re in time to save Artoo). The whole planet is protected by massive shields, like the Death Star II at Endor, but she has clearance. Suddenly, Slave II drops out of hyperspace right on their tail and pursues them, but the Empire’s security doesn’t take kindly to the presence of the unauthorized ship. As soon as the Intruder is through, the shield slams shut again and Slave II bounces off. Dengar bitterly complains he’ll never work with Fett again; Fett’s fine with that, since then he won’t have to split the bounty with him. On the surface, the Intruder lands at a spaceport outside the capital city. Leia sense that this planet is filled with the dark side, but also that Luke is here – she wants to pilot the Falcon and can lead them to him. Han isn’t happy about it, but gives in. Leia senses Luke’s presence in an ominous-looking control tower, but the Falcon isn’t authorized to be here, and Imperial patrol ships move to intercept. Leia manages to cloud the pilots’ minds and they escape; the Imperials can’t believe they lost the intruder, and think they’ll be executed for this.
The Falcon arrives at the control tower, where a guard gives the orders to let them land and then escort them to “Lord Skywalker.” Han, Leia, Chewie and Threepio come out, but the guards’ scanners reveal more humanoids on board and prepare to drag them out by force. Before they can, Salla takes control of the Falcon and flies off, blasting everyone in their way, to Han’s approval. Suddenly, Leia is confronted by a vision of Luke, who tells her she shouldn’t have come here. He tells her his master, the Emperor, wishes to speak with her – and then confirms that yes, Palpatine lives!
Towering Imperial Guards escort the new arrivals to the Emperor’s private cloning labs deep below the tower, where Luke and Artoo await them. Luke again tells them they shouldn’t have come; Han says Luke’s clearly gone off the deep end, but Luke tells him to be quiet. There are things at work here he’ll never understand. Han can tell that Luke has changed… for the worse, while Threepio says that Artoo’s core programming has been erased and can’t believe Luke would have permitted that. One of the guards says the Emperor is coming, and Luke asks for Han and Leia’s weapons, including Vima’s lightsaber. Han refuses – they’re leaving now, and Luke is coming with them! But Luke tears the blaster from his hand with the Force, revealing his own prosthetic hand is missing. He claims the Emperor’s scientists are making him a better one. Leia draws her lightsaber, but at that moment the Emperor arrives and laughs, clearly amused. He urges Leia to attack her brother – so she can see the new powers the dark side has granted him! Instead she attacks the guard holding Han and then wheels on Palpatine, telling him they’re taking Luke. But he blasts the saber from her hands casually. He gloats that the two of them are the last of the Jedi – and now he has them both!
Palpatine explains that Luke has learned his lessons now, but it is Leia who truly represents the future of the Force. He promises her he won’t harm her – instead, he’ll teach her things she can barely even imagine! He turns towards his clone tanks, telling Luke – who he addresses as “my son” – to bring his friends over with him. The Emperor begins to monologue, explaining how he discovered long ago that his power was too much for his body to contain – the great Emperor Palpatine was dying, consumed by the dark forces he himself had unleashed! But he found a way to cheat death… While he’s speaking, Leia slowly levitates a heavy container over his head, but when she drops it he casually bats it aside, pleased that she’s taken her first step towards the dark side. Now he has something to show her… as he blasts her with lightning until she collapses, begging Luke to help her. Han cries out that he killed her, but Palpatine corrects him that it was just a little discipline and tells his guards to take Leia to his quarters to begin her training. Han calls Luke a traitor and tries to attack him in a rage, but Luke grabs him and tells him to control himself, for Leia’s sake. Han says Luke has become just like Vader, or worse, and Han will kill him if he gets a chance. Luke admits he may have to die for what he’s done… but it won’t be Han who does the deed.
MG’s Thoughts
We start the issue off with a bang with Fett’s return (teased at the end of the last issue and shown in full here). I’ll be honest… I’ve never been a big Fett fan. He’s fine for what he is, as a cool supporting antagonist, but I’ve never really understood how and why a certain subset of the fandom (and certain creators, hint, hint…) latch onto him the way they do and try to make him a much bigger deal than he is. And, let’s be honest, his appearance here doesn’t particularly cover him in glory (and I don’t understand the logic of replacing the distinctive and iconic Slave I with the, IMO, much more generic looking Slave II), though he does facilitate an exciting chase sequence to start the issue with. That said, some elements here – Fett’s survival is almost hilariously handwaved, it’s hard to care too much about Mako’s betrayal when we barely know the guy – are clearly pretty rushed.
On the other hand, the battle at Mon Cal continues to be fun, as we start to get some more hints about what Luke is really up to. The Byss scenes, as usual, are a highlight of the comic, where it gets to use its brooding, sinister atmosphere and the unsettling elements of the art to their fullest, especially in the cloning chamber scene. Despite my continuing reservations about the overall plotline, I do like that Veitch manages to make Luke’s dialogue genuinely ominous and disquieting while still sounding like something I can clearly hear in Mark Hamill’s voice, and Palpatine’s arrival really underscores just how in over their heads our heroes are and how much he’s in control (though I do have to wonder if it might have been better to save the reveal of Luke’s apparent heel turn and Palpatine’s survival for here instead of having it earlier – it might have been more effective to end the throne room scene in #2 with Luke having a shocked reaction to who he meets there, and then draw out the mystery of just what is going on a bit more, especially as Palpatine does end up largely repeating some of his exposition about why he needs clone bodies here; maybe it’s just me). And it’s kind of hard to swallow that Luke, no matter how far gone he is, or is pretending to be, would be able to just stand there so calmly as Palpatine blasts Leia. Also… why did Salla and Ninx come with the Falcon instead of staying with Starlight Intruder? In any case, my issues around the context of everything aside, in terms of atmosphere and tone this issue represents a very effective “darkest hour” for our heroes.
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That cover is... kind of a mess. A bit busy. I think I would like it a bit more if Leia and Han had the same prominence instead of it kind of looking like she's using him as a meatshield.
Oooo, Vima from last issue passed on a lightsaber! That's interesting indeed. And I don't think she has one of her own so this can only be useful. I'd be very interested to see Vima's backstory honestly, going from a proud Jedi to a tired old woman who appeared to be homeless and suffering immense PTSD.
I love that Lando is still the kind of man to be the first man in, last man out, crew before self guy that The Empire Strikes Back made him out to be. He's always been one of my favourite Star Wars characters, honestly.
That panel of Leia in front of the weird, shimmery Luke projection is another very strong image. I like how Luke looks very tired and resigned, like he knows whatever he was planning just went tits up but he could never bring himself to be angry at her.
Aaaaaaaaand it all goes to shit, because I simply cannot see any version of Luke 'My Friends Are In Danger!' Skywalker letting Leia get electrocuted like that. It's completely against everything he's ever been.
Still, things are looking genuinely bad and I'm deeply curious to see how this all plays out.
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Congratulations! I'm so glad to hear it!
Aaaaaaaaand it all goes to shit, because I simply cannot see any version of Luke 'My Friends Are In Danger!' Skywalker letting Leia get electrocuted like that. It's completely against everything he's ever been.
So, I'm saving my really detailed thoughts on the Luke plotline until after #6 (the end of the first series). But... basically, I think that Luke's handling, in particular in the context of how he'd be characterized in both the movies and other EU works, is the comic's single biggest issue and stumbling block.
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Okay, that was a good one.
Huh. I was imagining it as about the size of the Millennium Falcon. I guess it's more based on a kind of bulk freighter design?
Where'd she get that? Last issue, they said her ship was modified to navigate the deep core, but I don't remember them saying it had specific clearance to enter the Emperor's super-secret Sith headquarters. How did she even know about the Emperor's super-secret Sith headquarters?
Guards which look quite different from the ones in the movie. Not sure why - the ones in the movie were decently intimidating. Although, I joked earlier about Atha Prime, Genetics Master, with his star destroyers stacked on top of each other, but these guys actually look like they took inspiration from his design. Wonder what the connection there is...
This is a nitpick, but "core programming" just sounds like what lets him do the basic functions of an astromech droid. Wouldn't it make more sense to say "memory" or "ethical subroutines" or something?
True enough, but again, we don't know why. He's already being sinister and Dark-Side coded at the beginning of the comic, we don't see any of what led him to this decision. And again, not seeing him as his canon self means we don't have anything to contrast this with. Yes, we remember the movies, but if we don't see it in the comic, he might as well be a different person, so it's not as tragic as it's apparently supposed to be. And of course, even if it was properly built up, Luke becoming like Vader would still be a slap in the face to his character, given his whole character arc was about not becoming like Vader, and yes, I know I keep bringing this up, but it's such bad character work!
Agreed. In the movies, he's cool in a superficial kind of way, but I think everyone got a little too fixated on that "coolness" and tried to justify their fixation by going back and retroactively making him a more interesting character than he was ever supposed to be. And some expanded universe stories do succeed in making him an interesting character, but they mostly do it from the ground up, making you wonder why it was necessary in the first place (Not to mention, making you wonder why this supposedly honorable and sympathetic anti-villain is willing to work for both slave traders and genocidal fascists).
Especially since there's no reason he wouldn't still have the first one. It was never destroyed in the movies, heck, it was probably still on Tatooine, and thus, still available to be reclaimed when he escaped the Sarlacc.
Which Vader himself was unable to do, thus pushing him into redeeming himself. Han wasn't exaggerating when he said Luke was worse. And on that note, Luke knows from experience that Palpatine doesn't check his peripheral vision when he's blasting someone with lightning! If his plan really is to pretend to be Palpatine's apprentice in order to overthrow him, this would be the time to do it! Just stab him in the back, grab everyone, and run! Even if he's worried about Palpatine coming back as a clone again, they're in Palpatine's secret cloning lab, aren't they? They can just blow it up on their way out, problem solved!
no subject
We clearly see it in the art for the first time in this issue, actually; it's not a huge ship but is definitely larger than the Falcon and can transport it.
Where'd she get that? Last issue, they said her ship was modified to navigate the deep core, but I don't remember them saying it had specific clearance to enter the Emperor's super-secret Sith headquarters. How did she even know about the Emperor's super-secret Sith headquarters?
I think the implication is that she was one of the smugglers who signed on when the Empire started recruiting them en masse to run supplies and troops to and from Byss as alluded to in the previous issue. Unfortunately, because of the pacing there are a lot of elements in the story that probably should be explained outright that aren't and you kind of just have to infer; this is one of them, and we'll talk about more before we're through.
Guards which look quite different from the ones in the movie. Not sure why - the ones in the movie were decently intimidating. Although, I joked earlier about Atha Prime, Genetics Master, with his star destroyers stacked on top of each other, but these guys actually look like they took inspiration from his design. Wonder what the connection there is...
The Byss guards are supposed to be different from the regular guards; I double-checked, and it looks like their canonical name is Imperial Sentinels and they're genetically engineered super soldiers (explaining, among other things, why they're so big). Double checking, it looks like that the Sentinels and Atha Prime were inspired by some of the same sets of unused concept art, though I can't tell from Wookieepedia alone if there was an in-universe connection.
This is a nitpick, but "core programming" just sounds like what lets him do the basic functions of an astromech droid. Wouldn't it make more sense to say "memory" or "ethical subroutines" or something?
In any case, next issue will make it obvious Threepio is completely wrong about what's going on with Artoo here (which raises a whole 'nother can of worms, namely that Threepio really ought to know better!).
Agreed. In the movies, he's cool in a superficial kind of way, but I think everyone got a little too fixated on that "coolness" and tried to justify their fixation by going back and retroactively making him a more interesting character than he was ever supposed to be. And some expanded universe stories do succeed in making him an interesting character, but they mostly do it from the ground up, making you wonder why it was necessary in the first place (Not to mention, making you wonder why this supposedly honorable and sympathetic anti-villain is willing to work for both slave traders and genocidal fascists).
I once read that Fett's code of personal honor was actually originally intended to be hypocritical - it's hard to take it seriously when he does things like always honor his word or refuse to have sex outside of marriage or the like when he has zero problem doing far worse things like work for the fascist Empire or the corrupt Hutts! But certain later authors took it at face value and, well...
Which Vader himself was unable to do, thus pushing him into redeeming himself. Han wasn't exaggerating when he said Luke was worse. And on that note, Luke knows from experience that Palpatine doesn't check his peripheral vision when he's blasting someone with lightning! If his plan really is to pretend to be Palpatine's apprentice in order to overthrow him, this would be the time to do it! Just stab him in the back, grab everyone, and run! Even if he's worried about Palpatine coming back as a clone again, they're in Palpatine's secret cloning lab, aren't they? They can just blow it up on their way out, problem solved!
Hmmm... you may want to keep all this in mind for next time...