History ComicBook / DarkEmpire

* CanonDiscontinuity: Despite praising the series and been the one who suggested Palpatine's cloning, Creator/GeorgeLucas disregards ''Dark Empire'' especially as part of the ''Star Wars'' story. When asked in 2008 about possible further ''Star Wars'' films, Lucas stated that the story of ''Star Wars'' is Darth Vader's tragedy and that once he dies in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', the Emperor never gets brought back to life because that's where the story ends. This is fairly believable, as the Prequel Trilogy contradicted ''Dark Empire'' by establishing Anakin Skywalker as the Chosen One destined to bring balance to the Force by destroying the Sith, a revelation which caused many fans to criticize ''Dark Empire'' for making Darth Vader's HeroicSacrifice seem pointless and having the Sith surviving past the sixth film in spite that Tom Veitch could have hardly known what George Lucas was planning for the prequels, though Palpatine's desire for any means of immortatility in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' forced some fans to reexamine their positions. Anyway, with Disney's buyout of Lucasfilm in 2012 and subsequent canon reboot in 2014, ''Dark Empire'' never actually happened and most fans are happy now.

A series of ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' comic books (''Dark Empire'', ''Dark Empire II'' and ''Empire's End'' -- collectively called [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Empire Dark Empire]]) released between 1991 and 1997. It was also made into an [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Empire:_The_Collector%27s_Edition audio drama,]] which had a somewhat modified script. A sample can be heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_ARzFT6P9I here.]]

* BodyBackupDrive: It's mentioned that The Emperor kept a number of cloned bodies for the purpose of this trope.

* VillainousBSOD: Palpatine loses control of one of his Force storms, which tears his body apart.

* FalseUtopia: Byss, the Emperor's throneworld. It's beautiful and serene, with the billions of inhabitants (including a number of Alderaanian expatriates) living out their lives in [[LotusEaterMachine harmless bliss]]. Little do they know that they are the [[LivingBattery fuel]] that powers Palpatine's sorceries ...

Last but not least, this comic also brought back Boba Fett ("The Sarlacc found me [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth somewhat indigestible]]"), who made many further EU appearances post-''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' as a result.

** The rare but brilliant ''[[TabletopGame/StarWarsRoleplayingGame Dark Empire Sourcebook]]'' for the old RPG makes a world of difference in understanding the comic and appreciating its scope. It also [[FixFic tries to fix]] some of the ContinuitySnarl referred to below that the nigh-simultaneous release of Timothy Zahn's books caused.

* OrwellianRetcon: The cover of the second edition of ''Dark Empire II'' has the reborn Emperor looking like IanMcDiarmid's portrayal of Palpatine in the prequels.

** The rare but brilliant ''[[TabletopGame\StarWarsRoleplayingGame Dark Empire Sourcebook]]'' for the old RPG makes a world of difference in understanding the comic and appreciating its scope. It also [[FixFic tries to fix]] some of the ContinuitySnarl referred to below that the nigh-simultaneous release of Timothy Zahn's books caused.

** The rare but brilliant ''[[{{Star Wars Roleplaying Game}} Dark Empire Sourcebook]]'' for the old RPG makes a world of difference in understanding the comic and appreciating its scope. It also [[FixFic tries to fix]] some of the ContinuitySnarl referred to below that the nigh-simultaneous release of Timothy Zahn's books caused.

Six years after the Battle of Endor -- that's one year after [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn's return]], retaking of much of the Empire, and death -- Luke hears rumors of a new Emperor taking the reins. Enter Palpatine, having drifted his way to a clone body in a hidden place at the center of the galaxy. And boy, does he have a revenge plan. It involves turning Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side, {{Body Surf}}ing from clone to clone in order to be immortal, using a planet-destroying gun, sending out machines called World Devastators to chew up the Mon Calamari homeworld, and [[TakeOverTheWorld enslaving the universe]]. He's been plotting to enslave the universe since he was smacking other babies with his rattle, so of course he's not finding new goals now.

Star Wars' EU canon is more internally consistent than most, but this series tends to be [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored fairly often]], mostly due to all the [[ResetButton retrogressive]] things that happened during it. A few things are acknowledged: Han and Leia had a son that they named [[DeadGuyJunior Anakin]], who went on to be pretty important. The first ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'' game, mostly set between the movies, had a final level where the player was Wedge Antilles on Mon Calamari, trying to take down the World Devastators. In the Literature/HandOfThrawn duology, the subject of the Emperor's return comes up and Mara Jade - who was his Hand and could hear his instructions from across the galaxy - doubts that this Emperor was really Palpatine. Mara, having gone to the Dark Side herself for a while, also suggests that Luke has been slightly tainted by it ever since. ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'' has a {{Body Surf}}ing villain think about how Palpatine had a similar plan to his, but involving clones, and since the villain in question was never able-bodied, he's going a [[GrandTheftMe different route]]. Additionally, the E-wing starfighter makes its debut, and in later books and comics would become one of the most common go-to machines when a writer wanted to utilize a fighter other than the four Rebel fighters from the films.

However, with the release of the prequel trilogy, Palpatine's resurrection through cloning is made much more in-character to the point that it almost seems like a CallForward. He apparently never discovered the secret of eternal life, but settled for clones instead.

* CloningGambit: Sort of. It's the same Emperor {{Body Surf}}ing from one clone body to the next, and the same Emperor who died on the second Death Star.

* IdiotBall: Collectively, for all the Alderaanians who went to Byss because the guy who '''destroyed their planet''' wanted to make amends.

* ImmortalRuler: Turns out that the reason the Empire fell to squabbling petty warlords is that Palpatine intended to rule forever using his clones and never made plans for a peaceful transfer of power.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Palpatine finally dies after Han shoots him for trying to possess Anakin, and a Jedi who survived Order 66 drags him into the afterlife.]]

* OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: One of the biggest points of notoriety to the series; after the first and second Death Star were massive undertakings that took years for the Galactic Empire at its height to get together, a faction of the severely weakened Imperial Remnant managed to put together at least four weapons of the Death Star's calibre in what couldn't be more than a year.

* SequelEscalation: Compared to the ending of the original trilogy. The Empire is now fully mobilized for war, and shooing out their humane Army troops in favor of rampaging von Neumann robots. And Palpatine himself is a far greater threat than before, both in terms of raw power and the reach of [[AssimilationPlot his ambitions]].

* TheStarscream: The head physician who orchestrated the cloning process is pretty much this, as he was implied to have engineered the shortened life-span of the clones since at least the Emperor's first death. Carnor Jax is definitely one, since he's the one who got the physician to do this in the first place.

* TitleDrop: The name of Palpatine's faction is the exact same as the title of the overall series as well as the first two parts of the three part series. Unlike most examples, though, the Empire in question was never given a specific name until several years later, when the events of the series were covered in the Essential Atlas. Something similar would exist with the sequel series, Crimson Empire (not to be confused with the [[VideoGame/CrimsonEmpire unrelated video game]] of the same name).

* GambitRoulette: Also the whole clone plot. Luke loses to Palpatine, pretends to fall to the dark side, and thus gets close to him where he can sabotage the clones, but of course he [[BecomingTheMask becomes the mask]]. But it's Palpatine and Luke, so its to be expected.

** It's hinted that this power was actually the result of his returning from the dead, so its more of a case of "MyDeathIsOnlyTheBeginning". The fact that he was also extremely powerful even before his death and revival, which was implied in ''Literature/DarthPlagueis'' to be due to his being literally conceived by the Dark Side of the Force, might also have been a contributing factor as well.

* CloneDegeneration: Palpatine's clones have progressively shorter lifespans due to their genetic material becomes increasingly unstable, and thus not as resistant to the corrosive effects of his Dark Side powers.

** Debatable. Even at his worst, he's no more obviously crazy than [[LargeHam his portrayal]] in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''.

** Debatable. Even at his worst, he's no more obviously crazy than [[LargeHam his portrayal]] in RevengeOfTheSith.

* AGodAmI: Palpatine's final plan is either this or an AssimilationPlot.

Star Wars' EU canon is more internally consistent than most, but this series tends to be [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored fairly often]], mostly due to all the [[ResetButton retrogressive]] things that happened during it. A few things are acknowledged: Han and Leia had a son that they named [[DeadGuyJunior Anakin]], who went on to be pretty important. The first ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'' game, mostly set between the movies, had a final level where the player was Wedge Antilles on Mon Calamari, trying to take down the World Devastators. In the HandOfThrawn duology, the subject of the Emperor's return comes up and Mara Jade - who was his Hand and could hear his instructions from across the galaxy - doubts that this Emperor was really Palpatine. Mara, having gone to the Dark Side herself for a while, also suggests that Luke has been slightly tainted by it ever since. ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'' has a {{Body Surf}}ing villain think about how Palpatine had a similar plan to his, but involving clones, and since the villain in question was never able-bodied, he's going a [[GrandTheftMe different route]]. Additionally, the E-wing starfighter makes its debut, and in later books and comics would become one of the most common go-to machines when a writer wanted to utilize a fighter other than the four Rebel fighters from the films.

** And the original series itself included a prose supplement that explained and elaborated on various aspects of the plot and its background, up to and including notional quotes from the Emperor's philosophical tractates and other fluff gold. Regrettably, most of the reprint editions have consistently omitted these.

Star Wars' EU canon is more internally consistent than most, but this series tends to be [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored fairly often]], mostly due to all the [[ResetButton retrogressive]] things that happened during it. A few things are acknowledged: Han and Leia had a son that they named [[DeadGuyJunior Anakin]], who went on to be pretty important. The first RogueSquadron game, mostly set between the movies, had a final level where the player was Wedge Antilles on Mon Calamari, trying to take down the World Devastators. In the HandOfThrawn duology, the subject of the Emperor's return comes up and Mara Jade - who was his Hand and could hear his instructions from across the galaxy - doubts that this Emperor was really Palpatine. Mara, having gone to the Dark Side herself for a while, also suggests that Luke has been slightly tainted by it ever since. ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'' has a {{Body Surf}}ing villain think about how Palpatine had a similar plan to his, but involving clones, and since the villain in question was never able-bodied, he's going a [[GrandTheftMe different route]]. Additionally, the E-wing starfighter makes its debut, and in later books and comics would become one of the most common go-to machines when a writer wanted to utilize a fighter other than the four Rebel fighters from the films.

* BackFromTheDead: Palpatine, natch, but also Boba Fett; this was the first 'canon' EU source to {{Retcon}} Fett's death-by-Sarlacc in ReturnOfTheJedi.

A series of ''StarWarsLegends'' comic books (''Dark Empire'', ''Dark Empire II'' and ''Empire's End'' -- collectively called [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Empire Dark Empire]]) released between 1991 and 1997. It was also made into an [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Empire:_The_Collector%27s_Edition audio drama,]] which had a somewhat modified script. A sample can be heard [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_ARzFT6P9I here.]]