Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Just in case you finished up the 5 (!) Journey to The Force Awakens novels that came out last Friday, this Wednesday Marvel’s entry, Shattered Empire #1, will be waiting at the comic shops, along with Darth Vader #9.
And if you’re sick of all that serious(ish) storytelling, in stores Tuesday is William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge by Ian Doescher.
→ A new image banner, has been spotted – it’s made up of two fairly familiar pieces, though: The First Order images we saw on Empire and the First Order assembled. (via)
→ An analyst estimates that The Force Awakens “could generate $5 billion in consumer merchandise sales in its first year of release,” per The Hollywood Reporter. In $150 increments, I expect.
→ Speaking of merchandise, there have been a handful of reviews of the Cover Girl line poping up. Today’s is from Tracy and Amanda at Making Star Wars, and another of a couple of the lipsticks from Love for Lacquer.
→ Five questions with John Boyega.
→ ComicBook.com has a preview of Shattered Empire #1
→ Spoiler(ish) corner: Indie Revolver has some luggabeast concept art.
In an interview with StarWars.com, Shattered Empire writer Greg Rucka reveals a few thing about the series. Mainly, that it stars a pair of married Rebels, Shara and Kes Bey.
“Shara flies, Kes is a ground-pounder, and a very experienced one,” says Rucka. “So, they have spent more time apart than together, and they’re in the Outer Rim world where the Imperial presence is felt, and they’re hoping that they can bring an end to this. But they’re both very tired veterans, and they come out of [the Battle of] Endor with the elation that we see in [Return of the Jedi]. ‘We’ve won. It’s over.’ — only to discover that, no it’s not. The Empire was huge.” Despite the fireworks, despite the funeral pyre of Darth Vader, despite the joy on Endor, the Empire is far from broken.
Luke, Leia Han and company are present in the series, though:
They’re all key figures in the Alliance, and will be represented. Just not in starring roles. “This is important,” Rucka says. “This could never be, as much as I wish I could’ve written, and would’ve loved to have written, the story of, ‘We’re gonna follow Luke for four issues after Return of the Jedi.’ That was never what my mandate here was. But, with that in mind, we see Luke, we see Leia, we see Lando, we see Han, we see Chewie. We see what they are doing, and while the stories are not about them — they’re about Shara Bey — the stories link. Issue 1 sort of stands alone. Issues 2 and 3 follow the same story path; they’re like a two-parter, and they lead into the fourth. As it stands, we meet Shara in [issue] 1 during the Battle of Endor, and we come out of the Battle of Endor, and then we cover about three to six months total in the series following the Battle of Endor. In that time, Shara and her husband find themselves in some situations only incidentally in the path of the principles, and in other situations, working quite closely with them.”
The four-issue series will start in September.
Yakface discovered two variant covers for Marvel’s first entry into Journey to the Force Awakens, Shattered Empire, on eBay this morning. The Palpatine/Vader one is exclusive to Comic Pop Collectibles, while Luke and the Falcon will only be available from Third Eye. We knew there’d be variants – they’ve already revealed one, and Marvel editor Heather Antos tweeted about them last week – but the final number is a mystery. I expect there will be quite a few, though.
Jedi-Bibliothek was first to spot the blurb for Shattered Empire, Marvel’s first foray into the post-Legends, post-Return of the Jedi galaxy, on Previews. Here’s the relevant bit:
Emperor Palpatine’s twenty-year reign of terror came to an abrupt and fiery end in the skies above the forest moon of Endor. A decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, to be sure, but even with the loss of its leadership, the Empire’s Moffs and regional governors retained their hold on important systems from the Core to the Outer Rim, thanks to the might of the Imperial Starfleet. Now, with a power vacuum atop the Empire, those Moffs will jockey for position and control, and the heroes of the Rebel Alliance will soon discover that a wounded and fractious Empire may be more dangerous than any threat they faced before!
…We’ve been here before. I recognize that tree. Sounds like the differences at this point will be in the details, but then, this is a blurb: The most sanitized, spoiler-free form of story there is, painted in the broadest strokes possible because they know how we analyze them. And it’s not like the old Legends version of this didn’t leave plenty of room for improvement.
Marvel’s September solicitations are out, and that means Shattered Empire, their first entry on pile of the Journey to The Force Awakens. We still don’t learn a whole lot about the storyline, but there is a variant cover. Only one? Time will tell… Issue #2 should also come out that month, but no cover yet.
However it does look like Kanan takes a bit of a time leap…
Naturally, it was Florian of Jedi Bibliothek who discovered the writer of Marvel’s first entry in Journey to The Force Awakens, Shattered Empire. A catalog lists Greg Rucka, who had an influential run writing Batman (among many others.)
Rucka was already on the JTFA slate with the Han-centric YA novel Smuggler’s Run.
We don’t know much about Shattered Empire overall; though the series was announced with a Phil Noto cover image, the catalog lists the book’s artist as TBD. It also lists it will be a trade paperback, not individual issues, though the original announcement calls it ‘an event series.’ A series of trades? At this point, I fully expect we won’t get a formal announcement until Marvel’s panel at Celebration Anaheim.
StarWars.com gives us our first look at Marvel’s first The Force Awakens tie-in, Shattered Empire #1. PHIL NOTO!
The series will start in September, and I’m certain that none of us are having trouble figuring out the time period.