Really, really dumb names for characters. ( )

As I delve into the Expanded Universe/Legends series of Star Wars media, one of the things that I've come to appreciate is just how interconnected are all of the various works. This isn't like the Star Trek franchise, in which novels, comic books, and other creations exist as stand-alone material unrelated to one another outside of the occasional author-driven character: the works that were created as part of the Expanded Universe were meant to fit together to build exactly what the title implies. I discovered this by reading Timothy Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology, which references not just his earlier Thrawn trilogy, but subsequent events in the Dark Horse Comics series of Star Wars comics. Intrigued, I decided to do some research, which led me to the highly praised Dark Empire series that was Dark Horse's inaugural publication for the franchise.

After reading it, though, it's hard to see how it earned its hype. Set six years after the battle of Endor and a year after the events in Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, it depicts that New Republic's struggle against a revived Emperor Palpatine, who survived his seeming demise at the hands of Darth Vader through a contingency plan involving cloned versions of himself. Now restored to the leadership of the remnants of the Empire, he launches a renewed series of assaults on the New Republic involving mobile automated factories known as "World Devastators" that attack their targets by consuming them and using their resources to produce yet more forces for the Empire. Yet Palpatine's greatest weapon is the New Republic's best hope: the Jedi knight Luke Skywalker, who accepts the Emperor's offer to join him in wielding the power of the dark side against his former friends.

Skywalker's turn to the dark side is easily the freshest thing about the series, and while it plays out in predictable ways it's not without its moments of suspense. The problem is that, having resolved the storyline (and given all that followed I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the whole Luke-as the-Emperor's-apprentice thing doesn't stick), the company had to figure out something else when the popularity of the comic led to the commissioning of the sequels that make up the other two-thirds of the collection. Here the quality falls off quickly, as the World Devastators are succeeded by yet another planet-killing weapon (an early example of how the franchise gets stuck on this concept) while Luke discovers scattered Jedi that he recruits to build a new force of knights. The action quickly degenerates into melodrama, as Luke and his friends in the New Republic fight off a series of gambits thrown at them by an increasingly desperate Palpatine, who by the end of the series is little more than a cartoonish villain appearing up in a lame disguise so he can kidnap an infant.

Yes, you read that correctly: by the end of the series, the shadowy leader who dominated a galaxy-spanning empire with Sith apprentices, fleets of Star Destroyers, and millions of stormtroopers is reduced to abducting babies in person in order to realize his schemes. It's a silly use of a character so fearsome that J. J. Abrams felt it necessary to bring him back for Episode IX of the series, and one that raises the question of how these comics came to enjoy the stature they did among Star Wars fans. For while they're necessary reading for anyone seeking to understand the canon of the Expanded Universe, the stories themselves really don't measure up to the best the franchise has to offer. ( )

Star Wars merchandising in the 90s was all about the trilogies. As well as the Special Edition re-release of the original trilogy and the start of the prequel trilogy, there was the Thrawn trilogy (which took place after all that), the Dark Empire trilogy (which took place after that) and the Crimson Empire trilogy (which took place after that). There was also a Hand of Thrawn 'duology' in there somewhere, but don't ask me where.

Unfortunately, sometimes those trilogies ended up as a structural gimmick - a way of signifying importance without necessarily working out an arc to fill it. And so it is with the Dark Empire trilogy.

The first instalment, Dark Empire itself, is actually quite good. It's full of the high concepts and grandiose imagery Star Wars needs in order to be Star Wars: Luke bringing down AT-ATs with the Force, Imperial dungeon ships (and now I want every franchise to have dungeon ships), and a vast machine vacuuming up a Star Destroyer.

The full-page splashes – so often in 90s comics a sign of artists wanting to maximise the amounts they can make from selling on the original artwork – are used intelligently to show the scale on which the conflict is occurring. When the World Devastators make their first appearance, it is with all the weight and might with which that first Star Destroyer rumbled overhead in 1977.

Even what should be the story's most gimmicky element – the return of Palpatine – is handled very well. Resurrected, he is no longer a man, but the ultimate expression of the power of the dark side, existing largely without form, moving from clone body to clone body as each one dies. The sadomasochistic overtones and violation of the body are classic signifiers of perverted villainy, but no less effective for that. Now he's back, he's even less real than he was before, hiding in a city of light, deep within the galaxy's hellish core.

I guess he's a bit like Sauron, but there are all sorts of horror influences in there (Dracula, Hellraiser, Rosemary's Baby), and it all fits beautifully with Revenge of the Sith later revealed about his master, Darth Plagueis, and his quest for life eternal. The hive mind of the Star Wars Expanded Universe gave Palpatine a rather brilliant character arc.

But the problems are in the second and third instalments: Dark Empire II and Empire's End. There's just too much that is familiar: from the start, characters are heading back to places they left in Dark Empire, repeating the same cons and making similar threats.

As with many a trilogy, the first part stands on its own, but the latter two are interdependent. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi got around that by stuffing each with new locations and characters equal to or superseding those introduced in A New Hope: they may be telling two halves of the same story, but it's difficult to argue they feel like two halves of the same film.

The structure of Star Wars is built around recurrent leitmotifs, but sometimes they can swamp the song. It was one solid criticism of The Force Awakens and it's even worse here. Not so much a trilogy as a great news story followed by an extended re-run. ( )

I had hoped that a storyline with the Emperor returning from the dead and Luke Skywalker turning to the dark side of the Force would have a narrative to match the epic scope. The tale feels rushed, though, with very little buildup for what ought to be important dramatic points. With it comes art whose lines are seldom recognizable as the characters from the movies and whose colors are simply baffling. More recent work like Knights of the Old Republic and Legacy is much better. ( )