This column normally takes a
look at obscure comics. For every every sixth month, instead of
taking a look at a comic that nobody talks about, this special
edition will take a look at a comic I feel not enough people
talk about.
Star Wars: Crimson Empire by
Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley and Paul Gulacy – 1998 – 2012
Contains Massive Spoilers
What's cooler than the
Emperor’s Imperial Guard?
Crimson Empire was a
mid-nineties Star Wars Expanded Universe comic following the exploits
of Kir Kanos, last of the Imperial Guard. It was followed by a sequel
in 1999, Council of Blood and after nearly a decade and a half,
finally concluded in 2012 with Empire Lost. Crimson Empire is an all
time classic, and Council of Blood, in my opinion anyway, manages to
outdo even that. Empire Lost? Not so much. I'm going to take a look
back at all three books, talk about what makes the first two so great
in the face of their weaknesses, and why Empire Lost failed to escape
it's own.
But first, a little history.
Crimson Empire was a follow
up to Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy's Dark Empire, one of Dark Horses'
Star Wars mainstays at the time. Dark Empire was framed as the
official continuation of the Skywalker saga, with a plot that saw the
resurrection of the Emperor in a clone body, and Luke's flirtation
with the Dark Side. It was well revived at the time, but fans clashed
over Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, which also framed itself as the
official continuation of the Skywalker saga, albeit in a different
way.
While Dark Empire and the
Thrawn Trilogy don't directly contradict each other, and supposedly
both slip into the EU time-line seamlessly, they do feel like they're
from alternative universes. Dark Empire drew heavily from
science-fantasy, with an anything-goes kind of attitude to the force
that brought us talking trees and ancient tribes. Thrawn on the other
hand was much more interested in the military aspect of the setting,
exploring the politics of a post Return of the Jedi universe.
This was even reflected in
the artwork, where Empire had a fantastical, almost concept-art
inspired style to it, Thrawn's artwork was crisp and detailed, with
every character, ship and blaster drawn like you were almost looking
at stills from the films.
To put it bluntly, Dark
Empire was interested in the Stars, and the Thrawn Trilogy more
interested in the Wars.
I still prefer Dark Empire,
but only by a very slim margin. In the end, it was Zahn's approach
that won out, and the EU would embrace more detailed and coherent
world-building instead of the kitchen sink approach, and do away with
the more 'Space-fantasy' inspired aesthetics.
Out of this came Crimson
Empire. While obstensively a follow up to Dark Empire, it has more in
common with the Thrawn books. The artwork is crisp and brand loyal,
and the story is concerned with the minutiae of the Imperial Guard's
back-story.
And from this approach comes
Crimson Empire's two most prominent characters, Kir Kanos and Mirith
Sinn. Kanos is a gruff, brooding, reluctant anti-hero, Mirith is a
smoking hot, red-headed femme-fatale with a dark past and a penchant
for latex catsuits.
If you're a fan of the Star
Wars EU, you'll probably notice those descriptions not only match
that of Kyle Katarn and Mara Jade, but also a dozen other EU
characters I could name. Despite feeling cool and expansive at the
time, the Star Wars Expanded universe really suffered from a lot of
it's writers having similar tastes, and as such is rotten with
brooding badasses and sexy seductresses. Heck, if you only had a
passing familiarity with the characters, you'd be mistaken for
thinking that it is Mara Jade on the front cover of Council of
Blood.
Now this didn't bother me at
the time of course, but going by today standards it's easy to see
Crimson Empire starting on the back-foot, with a bunch of character
archetypes that are far too common even now. That Crimson Empire is
still a classic, though, is because it shines through in spite of
these limitations.
Crimson Empire's story is a
fairly straightforward one, Carnor Jax, one of the Empire's last
Imperial Guard, has manipulated his way to the throne by conspiring
against the clone Emperor and killing off his compatriots. He didn't
reckon, however, on his old sparring buddy Kir Kanos surviving. So
Kanos teams up with the rebels in an 'enemy-of-my-enemy' alliance to
finally bring Jax to justice.
It's a standard revenge plot
used to info-dump some back-story about the Imperial Guard through
flashback. Nothing particularly complex or new. Ultimately, it's safe
to say that Crimson Empire has more style than substance.
But what style it has. From
Jax's dark-lord design, to General Antilles Super Star Destroyer
emblazoned with Rebel Alliance sigils, to the Emperor being overly
polite to his prospective trainees while Vader berates them in a
wonderful good-cop/bad-cop routine, to Jax and Kanos' final,
issue-long duel, and Dave Dorman's amazing, amazing covers, there
isn't a moment when pure style isn't just bleeding out of the page.
Stradely's artwork is just
incredible, where even just a close up on some leather gloves can
become visceral and vivid. If it wasn't for some incredibly
unfortunate moments with Sinn's boobs I'd say the book had some of
the best artwork of all time.
With a grim and
uncompromising ending, Crimson Empire may not be the most original of
stories, but the writing and artwork have such style that it burns
itself into your memory like the burning Empire sigil on the cover.
It's a book as cool and badass as the legendary Imperial Guard long
deserved.
Of course there was no way a
story as badass and memorable as Crimson Empire wouldn't be
commissioned for a sequel. While Jax had been brought to justice, his
conspirators on the Imperial Council still lived, and it would be up
to Kanos to track them down and bring them to justice too.
It would have been easy for
Council of Blood to simply repeat the revenge plot of Crimson Empire,
but Richardson and Stradley had more loftier ambitions in mind.
Council of Blood instead focuses more on showing us an Empire in
decline, with the major villains of the Star Wars films now long gone
and the rest slowly being undone by backstabbing and bureaucracy.
The whole experience has a
great feeling to it. The Imperial's situation is reminiscent of a
receding Eastern Roman Empire slowly becoming Byzantium. The story is
chock full of characters with ulterior motives and goals, including
the self appointed 'Emperor' Xandel Carivus, sleazy Hutt Grappa, the
sympathetic ally Baron D'Asta and the first appearance of Nom Anor,
herald of the Yuuzhan Vong.
Despite the story having a
sharp focus along a closely nit series of plot-lines, the Star Wars
world has never felt bigger, drawing inspiration from both the same
hard science-fiction and pulp fantasies that the original films did.
The Vong's presence here is particularity interesting, since Anor's
intentions are never revealed within the comic itself, surrounding
the character with an air of mystery and dread.
With this expanded focus,
Council of Blood brings with it the depth that Crimson Empire lacked.
The titular council is made up of believable and well rounded
individuals with their own goals and motivations on display. Plus
there are a lot of cool little details in how it serves as a
companion piece to Crimson Empire, like how in the original Carnor
Jax's elite guard were simply black armoured stormtroopers, exposing
Jax's arrogance and pride at being that last of the 'true' Imperial
Guard. Come Council of Blood, the fact that Carivus' own men do
wear the red of the Imperial Guard slyly hints at his attempts to
subvert the Imperial pecking order.
But if you thought that all
these wider themes would mean that style would take a back seat you'd
be sorely mistaken. This really shines through when it comes to the
characters. Grappa is spiteful, petty and melodramatic in ways Jabba
never was, and his Zanibar allies feel genuinely fucked-up
frightening. Gulacy's art is even better this time around, and the
space battles and combat really sing with intensity. It's everything
you could possible want in a Star Wars comic and it fits nicely into
six solid issues.
You might have noticed that
I haven't mentioned either Kanos or Sinn in my praises for Council of
Blood, and that's mainly due to the story being more of an ensemble
piece. This is no bad thing though, Kanos and Sinn spend most of the
plot being manipulated into place by other characters, and Kanos is
at his best when he's just getting out his blade and cutting folks up
as his bounty hunter alter-ego Kenix Kil.
Council of Blood wraps up
nicely, if less spectacularly than Crimson Empire with Kanos flying
off into the stars, still loyal to the dead Emperor. It would be a
bittersweet and fine ending for most stories, but seeds were sown for
a third in the trilogy, and the EU's tendency to reference and
interconnect everything leaves the story in an odd place, with no
mention of Kanos in the EU after his vow to kill Luke Skywalker.
I suspect Richardson and
Stradley asked writers to hold off using Kanos in other stories, with
the intent of concluding his story on their own terms. Kanos would
show up, however, in a couple of short comics, though I've only read
one, which deals with Kanos' time as a bounty hunter, and it doesn't
really add anything to the main canon of the trilogy.
So Kanos would hang around
in continuity limbo until 2012, and I was ecstatic to find out we'd
get to see the end of his journey in Empire Lost. The hype only
increased when I looked at the back of the book and saw what appeared
to be him tussling with New Republic versions of the Senate Guard
from the Prequel Trilogy.
“Cool,” I thought, “It
looks like Kanos is going to be doing battle with his metaphorical
successors. That's interesting, resonant and a symbolic way to round
off the trilogy.”
As it turns out, these guys
never actually show up in the comic.
The moment you open the book
something just feels... off. Gulacy's art, once the shining star of
the series, looks awful here. I'm not sure if the problem is Gulacy
doing his own inks this time around or if Michael Bartolo's digital
colours are a bad fit for his style, but the whole thing is a mess.
The characters look wooden, stiff and uncanny. There are some
seriously questionable panel compositions that look melodramatic and
comical, but overall the art is just bad, bad, bad.
The disappointments wouldn't
stop there though, because the problems of the 90's era EU would
finally be coming home to roost.
A few pages in we're finally
reunited with Kanos, who looks more like Commander Shepard from Mass
Effect here, and this only cements my lack of enthusiasm.
See, I could go on an
extremely long rant about how the default male option from a sci-fi
RPG saga represents everything wrong with the diversity of character
we have in storytelling today, but it'd take me too long. So let me
put it like this:
When I started reading
Empire Lost, I expected seeing Kanos again would be like coming home
to an old friend. Like slipping on a comfortable old jacket. But
after years of characters like John Shepard, Marcus Fenix, Kyle
Katarn, Alex Mason, Christian Walker, latter day John McClain, Bill
Roenick and many, many other gruff, brooding white guys, Kanos just
didn't hold any appeal for me any more. It's like going back to the
old café you used to get breakfasts from as a kid and realising that
the breakfasts don't taste all that different from the millions
you've eaten at Denny's.
This wouldn't be too bad if
Empire Lost handled Kanos like Council of Blood did, but this is the
character's swan song, so it's got to give an emotionally satisfying
ending to what feels more like a collection of tropes in armour than
an actual character.
Empire Lost's biggest
problem of all is the weird intersection it sits between the original
Star Wars Trilogy, the Prequel Trilogy, the 90's EU and the 00's EU,
all of which have their own themes and aesthetics that struggle
against each other.
This is most prominently
seen in the use of Luke, Leia and Han. In Crimson Empire and Council
of Blood, the Skywalker clan never appear, spoken only of in hushed
whispers. This gave them a mythical sort of status that loomed large
over Kanos' street-level adventures. Seeing Kanos and Sinn interact
face to face with Luke and Leia just kind of feels at odds with the
story Crimson Empire wants to tell. Mirith Sinn dressed in a leather
fetish catsuit standing next to Carrie Fisher as classic Leia can't
really get any weirder.
There's loads of other
issues like this. Prolonged foreshadowing to the New Jedi Order
series sits awkwardly in the plot. Boba Fett shows up to confront
Kanos, which should have led to an awesome showdown, but instead only
serves as a pointless cameo. Having a rogue Imperial fleet using
Prequel-Era ships sounds like a cool idea, but seems to serve no more
purpose than the Fett cameo. Finally, all references to the Dark
Empire series have been dropped in favour of nods to the Thrawn saga
instead.
All this clutter leads to
Empire Lost lacking an identity of its own, when it's preceding books
both had a strong unity of vision. It's a shame too, because Empire
Lost is filled with good ideas. The main villain, Devin was a former
assassin for the Emperor, and his back-story is a mirror to Kanos'.
However, Devin is just kind of pulled out of nowhere with little
foreshadowing, and fails to serve as the 'Evil Kanos' that the plot
needs him to be.
Still, there are moments
where that familiar style still shines through. The first panel we
see Kanos back in full regalia sent a shiver down my spine, and the
final battle between the classic Imperials and Devin's prequel-era
splinter group is a great thing to behold. Another nice detail I like
is Han and Leia's war weariness and their optimistic relief that an
end to the conflict is finally in sight. This is kind of sad in light
of where the Star Wars galaxy was to go after the story's conclusion.
Even so, the whole book
fails as a satisfying ending for Kanos. The original Crimson Empire
was framed as a tragedy. A story of a good man bound by a code of
honour that drives him to acts of violence in the name of an evil
regime. If ever there was to be a fitting end to Kanos' tale, it
should have been his own death, by his own hand, or in a final
misguided confrontation with Luke.
Instead, we get Kanos'
redemption. Now don't get me wrong, I would still have been happy
with Kanos turning from the Emperor and renouncing his original vows
if it was written well, but in Empire Lost this all happens far too
quickly and easily. Where the previous books hinted at Kanos' doubts,
he still had a ways to go at the end of Council of Blood. Here
though? It just takes one conversation with Devin for Kanos to throw
down his arms and turn to the New Republic. It doesn't feel earned,
and smacks more of a reluctance to tell a more daring tale.
In the end, Empire Lost just
sleepwalks along to a conclusion. While it is interesting to see the
Republic win the battle that finally closes the book on Palpatine's
Empire, it could have been so much more solid than this. The demands
of Empire Lost to serve as a satisfying conclusion were much higher
than that of both Crimson Empire and Council of Blood, and it misses
the mark horribly. I can't even say that the art saves it.
I don't know if I'd have
been happier without Empire Lost. On the one hand it's nice to
finally find out just what happened to Kir Kanos and Mirith Sinn, but
soon enough the new mandate from Disney hitting the continuity reboot
button would render that little titbit mostly irrelevant anyway.
Still, in the words of
Meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad. The entire Crimson Empire saga
has been re-released by Marvel now, and it's well worth the entire
package. So what if Empire Lost is a disappointing ending? Crimson
Empire and Council of Blood still stand up well today, and that's
worth any trade off in my opinion.
Crimson Empire is a mixed
bag in every respect, but the good outweighs the negatives so much
that I still think they're some of the best Star Wars comics ever
written. Maybe one day we'll see a retelling of the saga in the new
Marvel continuity (now there's an idea to play around with), but
until then, if you want to see a gripping tale where the legendary
Imperial Guard are rendered as power-armoured space-ninjas, then
Crimson Empire's got your back.
Jack Harvey 2017. Star Wars:
Crimson Empire is (c) Disney/Marvel/Dark Horse where appropriate. Images used under fair use.
