Star Wars: Dark Times (Issues 8 & 9).
May 2nd 2008 23:09
Category: Graphic Novels/Comics
“Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66.”
Darth Sidious to Clone Commander Cody, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
“Now the Jedi are all but extinct…”
Obi Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics.
Production Team: Mick Harrison – script, Dave Ross & Lui Antonio – art, Alex Wald – colours, Michael Heisler – lettering, Zach Howard – cover art, Brad Anderson – cover art colouring.
Cost: AU $7.95/US $2.99
Anyone ever remember a little work called Splinter of the Minds Eye? It was a novel by world renowned author Alan Dean Foster and it was pretty much released a year or two after Star Wars first hit the big screen and had such a significant impact on film going audiences around the world. When this novel hit bookstands and bookstores all over the place their were many, including yours truly, who thought that this was the shape of things to come that Splinter of the Mind’s Eye would be the next Star Wars film and that it would be coming out very very soon, such was the anticipation for another Star Wars movie. As we all know though that was not the case, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye never became the next film, that role was reserved for The Empire Strikes Back and Alan Dean Foster’s work remained purely a well written tale in the larger corpus of what would become the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
No doubt you’re sitting there looking at your computer screen and reading this and wondering well what the heck do Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Alan Dean Foster have to do with a comic brought out by Dark Horse? It’s all about the expanded universe, when ADF wrote that story years and years ago it became part of the Star Wars corpus of works, in fact you could very well say it was the first expanded universe work, the one that began it all. In that tale much of the drama occurred on a remote planet in the Mid Rim known as Mimban. Mimban was a relatively isolated world on which the Empire had begun to establish some kind of presence mainly through a mining colony. It was also home to a local legend concerning a crystal, the Kaiburr crystal, which could be used by those sensitive in the force to achieve various feats and wonders. Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia crash-land on this world whilst en route to a Rebel Alliance conference and naturally a whole wackiness ensues as they encounter strange aliens, an old charlatan, stormtroopers and their nemesis Darth Vader.
Fast forward from the late nineteen seventies and into the twenty first century, the now as it were, and Dark Horse’s comic Dark Times returns to Mimban, the world of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and naturally as this is years before the rise of both the Rebel Alliance and that significant battle around the fourth moon of Yavin it is a very different place. What we have here in the Dark Time’s comic is a world where one of the numerous crime lords who have managed to establish themselves in the chaotic times after the advent of the Clone Wars has his base on Mimban, a suitable hideout for a criminal mastermind.
In this particular troubled time the Empire has not yet fully cemented its hold on the multitude of systems that were once part of the Galactic Republic, that monolithic entity that for over a thousand years had managed to rule things peacefully with the aid of the Jedi Order after the last great war against the Sith. As a result criminals, pirates and slavers are rife in the areas beyond Imperial control and also smuggler and freelancers are able to turn a lucrative profit provided they don’t run afoul of the Empire or double crosses between parties involved in a deal. It is this latter situation with which the drama of these issues of Dark Times opens. A deal between the crew of the starship Uhumele and the crimelord Haka has gone terribly sour.
Naturally rather than sitting around like reasonable beings and sorting things out over some blue milk the whole situation descends to one of carnage and blaster fire as the crew of the Uhumele fight the gangsters and minions of Haka at his base on Mimban. Of course things don’t remain purely this simple, it seems that a third party decides to take matters into its own hands, Lumbra, one of Haka’s minions has double crossed his boss and taken the contraband that the crew of the Uhumele were trying to sell to Haka. Lumbra and his gang get away and make the jump to hyperspace only what they have stowed away in the hold of their vessel is not what they were expecting. It seems the captain of the Uhumele, Schurk-Heren, expected some kind of treachery on behalf of Haka and had taken measures. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to prevent both himself and his crews falling into Haka’s clutches.
As the vicious Ishi Tib tortures Schurk-Heren his erstwhile former lackey Lumbra and his comrades are hurtling through hyperspace to better climes and a substantial fortune. All is naturally not as it seems, the crate Lumbra and his cronies invested so much time in snatching is a booby trap, one inadvertently sit off by a crew member who just had to satisfy his curiosity. Suddenly the cargo snatches and their ship has dropped out of hyperspace and they find themselves forced to crash land on a small moon, and yes it really is a small moon capable of supporting life. What they don’t realise is that there is somebody else on that moon, a group of Jedi younglings, an adult Jedi knight and a Whiphid Jedi Master by the name of K’kruhk. If you followed the Clone Wars series of graphic novels by Dark Horse then K’kruhk is probably a familiar character, if not don’t worry suffice it to say that he managed to survive Order 66 and rescued others from the clones eventually taking them to this small moon to hide.
Such a situation naturally is only going to lead to confrontation, one that could possibly only end in grief for someone. From this point on when Lumbra and his crew crash-land the story begins to alternate between the various locales, giving us vignettes of the unfolding drama that is taking place at different locales yet concurrently in time. It seems that in both cases though the primary antagonist has under estimated the situation that they have found themselves in, both Haka and Lumbra feel that they have the upper hand in affairs only it looks as if they are about to be seriously disabused of this particular stance.
Once again Dark Horse has shown the talent of its various artists and writers in bringing to life the Star Wars universe as well as a cast of new characters upon which to base a host of stories and adventures. The interesting thing about Dark Times to consider, is it possibly the hint of things to come? Granted all those years ago Splinter of the Mind’s Eye caused much excitement that admittedly never came to fruition, but with the possibility of a Star Wars TV series and the rumours that it will be a Post Order 66 storyline perhaps Dark Times is a hint of things to come? Who can tell, as a wise ancient Jedi Master once said on the swampy remote world of Dagobah “Hmmm hard to see the future is, always in motion things are.”
Darth Sidious to Clone Commander Cody, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
“Now the Jedi are all but extinct…”
Obi Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics.
Production Team: Mick Harrison – script, Dave Ross & Lui Antonio – art, Alex Wald – colours, Michael Heisler – lettering, Zach Howard – cover art, Brad Anderson – cover art colouring.
Cost: AU $7.95/US $2.99
Anyone ever remember a little work called Splinter of the Minds Eye? It was a novel by world renowned author Alan Dean Foster and it was pretty much released a year or two after Star Wars first hit the big screen and had such a significant impact on film going audiences around the world. When this novel hit bookstands and bookstores all over the place their were many, including yours truly, who thought that this was the shape of things to come that Splinter of the Mind’s Eye would be the next Star Wars film and that it would be coming out very very soon, such was the anticipation for another Star Wars movie. As we all know though that was not the case, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye never became the next film, that role was reserved for The Empire Strikes Back and Alan Dean Foster’s work remained purely a well written tale in the larger corpus of what would become the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
In this particular troubled time the Empire has not yet fully cemented its hold on the multitude of systems that were once part of the Galactic Republic, that monolithic entity that for over a thousand years had managed to rule things peacefully with the aid of the Jedi Order after the last great war against the Sith. As a result criminals, pirates and slavers are rife in the areas beyond Imperial control and also smuggler and freelancers are able to turn a lucrative profit provided they don’t run afoul of the Empire or double crosses between parties involved in a deal. It is this latter situation with which the drama of these issues of Dark Times opens. A deal between the crew of the starship Uhumele and the crimelord Haka has gone terribly sour.
Naturally rather than sitting around like reasonable beings and sorting things out over some blue milk the whole situation descends to one of carnage and blaster fire as the crew of the Uhumele fight the gangsters and minions of Haka at his base on Mimban. Of course things don’t remain purely this simple, it seems that a third party decides to take matters into its own hands, Lumbra, one of Haka’s minions has double crossed his boss and taken the contraband that the crew of the Uhumele were trying to sell to Haka. Lumbra and his gang get away and make the jump to hyperspace only what they have stowed away in the hold of their vessel is not what they were expecting. It seems the captain of the Uhumele, Schurk-Heren, expected some kind of treachery on behalf of Haka and had taken measures. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to prevent both himself and his crews falling into Haka’s clutches.
As the vicious Ishi Tib tortures Schurk-Heren his erstwhile former lackey Lumbra and his comrades are hurtling through hyperspace to better climes and a substantial fortune. All is naturally not as it seems, the crate Lumbra and his cronies invested so much time in snatching is a booby trap, one inadvertently sit off by a crew member who just had to satisfy his curiosity. Suddenly the cargo snatches and their ship has dropped out of hyperspace and they find themselves forced to crash land on a small moon, and yes it really is a small moon capable of supporting life. What they don’t realise is that there is somebody else on that moon, a group of Jedi younglings, an adult Jedi knight and a Whiphid Jedi Master by the name of K’kruhk. If you followed the Clone Wars series of graphic novels by Dark Horse then K’kruhk is probably a familiar character, if not don’t worry suffice it to say that he managed to survive Order 66 and rescued others from the clones eventually taking them to this small moon to hide.
Such a situation naturally is only going to lead to confrontation, one that could possibly only end in grief for someone. From this point on when Lumbra and his crew crash-land the story begins to alternate between the various locales, giving us vignettes of the unfolding drama that is taking place at different locales yet concurrently in time. It seems that in both cases though the primary antagonist has under estimated the situation that they have found themselves in, both Haka and Lumbra feel that they have the upper hand in affairs only it looks as if they are about to be seriously disabused of this particular stance.
Once again Dark Horse has shown the talent of its various artists and writers in bringing to life the Star Wars universe as well as a cast of new characters upon which to base a host of stories and adventures. The interesting thing about Dark Times to consider, is it possibly the hint of things to come? Granted all those years ago Splinter of the Mind’s Eye caused much excitement that admittedly never came to fruition, but with the possibility of a Star Wars TV series and the rumours that it will be a Post Order 66 storyline perhaps Dark Times is a hint of things to come? Who can tell, as a wise ancient Jedi Master once said on the swampy remote world of Dagobah “Hmmm hard to see the future is, always in motion things are.”
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