Star Wars Empire: Empire (Empire)

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Mediocre!
Review: I have been singing the praises of dark horse for their run of excellently done Star wars based comics. That is why I was stunned at how poorly done this one was. The story is a mediocre telling rated at 2.5. Pencils are a 3, but coloring is just plain dull. There is not one page that makes you say WOW. I will certainly be more careful in my purchases of comics colored by Curtis Arnold and Dave Stewart in the future as they rate a 2.5 for this rush job. The best part of the comic is the pencil work of Ryan Benjamin, he gets a 4. Hopefully he gets teamed with a better group next time out.

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Mediocre!
Review: I have been singing the praises of dark horse for their run of excellently done Star wars based comics. That is why I was stunned at how poorly done this one was. The story is a mediocre telling rated at 2.5. Pencils are a 3, but coloring is just plain dull. There is not one page that makes you say WOW. I will certainly be more careful in my purchases of comics colored by Curtis Arnold and Dave Stewart in the future as they rate a 2.5 for this rush job. The best part of the comic is the pencil work of Ryan Benjamin, he gets a 4. Hopefully he gets teamed with a better group next time out.

Rating:
Summary: Buy out of desperation, and for nothing less
Review: Simple observation cannot deny the cold truth of Empire: Betrayal. This is mediocre meat, a comic so laudably bland as to be purchased only for the determined collector or just curious buyer. And with so many peculiarities and problems here, preferably not at all.

The art is a mixed meal that incites disappointment. You have page after page of lacklustre illustration and dull colouring, interspersed with these intermittent panels of admirable artwork. The Star Destroyer shot, a familiar and faithful rendition from a movie screenshot, is one that certainly stands out. Strangely, I thought background scenery was actually rendered better and with more creativity than the foreground activity that is the primary focus of a reader.

Apparently there was some difficulty drawing the Padme character. Her hairline was so far back from forehead it brought reminders of Nomi Sunrider, a character from another comic whose half-bald head was most prominent. We also get that blasted face again you'll recognise it from the Mara Jade comic and the Imperial officer's face used for most Imperial officer faces there. Character poses were too often puerile and didn't parallel that character's speech. Like Vader trying to explain something to his Emperor, reaching out to him with one had; like his combat posture that too often just depicts him awkwardly bent. And of course, the Jedi girl was boobed up big, rather conspicuous when the rest if her attire is very covered.

Adding itch to scratch was the dialogue. Just as bad as the lines from Tales of the Jedi, the depth of character dialogue can be summed up as food without flavour, not just flavour missing from food. So many one-sentence lines, so many simple worded conversations as to render speech bubbles a waste of time. The Emperor had some damn good lines in Dark Empire; here he was as stale as the storyline.

That is, if you desire to call a cadre of top Imperial execs plotting the coup of the Sith themselves, as though such reality was possible. This comic lacked a cast readers could identify with. No exploration of the Imperial schemers, no insight to cybernetic Trachta, who was on comradely terms to Palpatine for three decades. They are just there, double-dealing each other, unknown other than name.

Scenes apparently flow they swift here, and without starting them with a new page they can get a bit too fast. You'll be reading the schemers, then abruptly a Vader scene, which is repeated over. Boba Fett was thrown in at the end for no other reason than to have an excuse to feature him for a few pages. His exclusion would have made little difference. And why now, after a couple decades, would Vader ponder his loyalty to his master, that he should flashback to his apprentice childhood?

What is the master plan for ridding themselves of the galaxy's two deadliest individuals? Lure Vader away, as though a contingent of troopers and riffraff would actually succeed where countless Jedi failed. Then---and the part I thought I had misread---march into the throne room and arrest Palpatine! But don't jump for the escape pods just yet, it gets better. You can't say the spastic-brained officer had no idea Palpatine has elite Royal Guardsmen or that he's a Sith, the plotters do say they want to end the Sith reign. And when Palpatine lets loose that lightning, what did that officer think was going to happen?

Overall, this is by far a comic better borrowed than bought, if these aspects are of concern for you. The art is far below par than what it can be these days, character dialogue way to simple and short, and a storyline with no surprises thrown in make this comic lacking behind better peers.

Rating:
Summary: Too short but well-written; this is a good story arc.
Review: While the artistic depictions of some characters may be a bit dodgy, this first story arc of the Empire comic was well "storyboarded" and well-written.
Vader fighting cloned stormtroopers on Coruscant. What can I say? This was a good way to grab the reader's attention right at the start.
One weakness of Betrayal is that we don't get much story surrounding new characters such as Trachta and Gauer; also, things move rather quickly at one point, and the comic probably could have been better if the progress of the conspiracy had been fleshed out for two more issues. The design of Trachta is nice because it shows another example of Imperial use of cyborging via a breathing apparatus. I would like to see some of the new characters from this story arc in later material.
It should be mentioned here that the plot of some Imperial generals trying to assassinate Vader is ultimately derived from the incident with Hitler's generals, and it's already been used in the Marvel comic series. In fact, both versions ( Marvel and Dark Horse ) involve an airlock, but the scenes are played differently. The drama of the Marvel scene is all about the generals thinking Vader's been blown out into space, and then Vader's hand appears on the edge of the airlock and he hauls himself back into the ship. In Betrayal's version we get to see Vader "flying" around in the breached airlock with lightsaber on, slicing through huge chunks of metallic debris.