If DICE and EA’s Star Wars Battlefront is the pixelated appetizer in November, then J.J. Abrams’ hotly-anticipated The Force Awakens is irrefutably the main course the following month. Yes, December is shaping to be a magical period for long-time fans of a galaxy far, far away, though given that there is a thirty-year interlude between the events that occur in Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, there’s still plenty of stories to be told in this most beloved universe.
Bundled under Disney’s Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens – a shotgun blast of novels, comics and YA fiction all releasing in December – is Star Wars: Shattered Empire, and today we bring you a synopsis for the upcoming prequel comic book that sheds some light on the hitherto-mysterious plot.
[zerg]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!
Exactly what happened in the fallout of Darth Vader’s demise? Indeed, does the Force and Jedis in general retreat from the fray? Well, not exactly. Adopting tactics similar to guerrilla warfare, the malevolent Empire still very much poses a threat to the Rebel Alliance and the denizens of the galaxy, and it’s up to the interstellar faction to dismantle this newfound threat from the ground up.
Star Wars: Shattered Empire will be released as a four-part miniseries, with the first installment hitting news shelves on September 2, 2015. A complete, paperback copy of the entire comic will be released on November 17 – the same date that DICE will debut Battlefront, in fact.
