YMMV / Dark Empire

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Usually, this is the point at which "Luke's really a Sith!" begins.
  • Was Palpatine here the real deal or a series of delusional clones? Muddling this is the fact that Mara Jade who proposed the later idea wasn't around for the story, so it's largely second-hand speculation on her part.
• Ass Pull: The entire Rebellion leadership suddenly revealed to be alive at the end of the second series. An obvious example of Executive Meddling in order to make the comic agree with novels that took place after it, but were written before it.
• Broken Base:
  • Zahn and his fans loathed this series because it brought the Emperor back from the dead. Since then the fandom of the Expanded Universe has been split in two: Zahn Fans and Veitch Fans.
  • The artwork. Do the sketchy line work and bright watercolors add an ominous mood, or do they look like a paint by numbers set gone horribly wrong? Even fans of Dark Empire fight over this one.
• Complete Monster: Palpatine, coming Back from the Dead through one of his clones, decided to rebuild his Empire and once again rule the Galaxy. Tricking Luke Skywalker into believing that Dark Side is the only way to save his friends, Palpatine manages to turn him into his apprentice (though Luke was mainly playing along in order to sabotage him). After that, Palpatine launched his new superweapons, the "World Devastators", to destroy the Mon Calamari's homeworld as a punishment for their support of the New Republic. Due to the rapid aging of his new body, Palpatine repeatedly tries to capture the pregnant Leia, in order to use her child as his new vessel. When Luke escapes his dark influence with the help of his sister, the furious Palpatine starts hunting him down, killing hundreds of thousands of rebels and destroying Pinnacle Moon in the Da Soocha system, where a Rebel base is located.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Eclipse got a much better reception than the other superweapons introduced here and of the giant Star Destroyers it's probably the most popular one besides the Executor.
  • The E-wing starfighter has also become immensely popular, and is one of the most enduring elements introduced by the series in later EU works.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Even some of the fans who view Legends as the true continuation of the franchise sometimes prefer to ignore Dark Empire, or else treat it as its own continuity, due to being a Reset Button, having poor synergy with the concurrently released Thrawn books, and bringing Palpatine Back from the Dead, which is felt to cheapen the ending of Return of the Jedi, let alone the Balance of the Force and Chosen One stuff introduced years later by the Prequels.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Wankatine" for the overpowered Palpatine featured in this series.
  • "Bowie-peror" for young clone Palpatine's resemblence to David Bowie.
• Fridge Brilliance: Some fans have pointed-out how this storyline can still accommodate the Chosen One angle: Who caused Empatojayos Brand to be there in the first place? Darth Vader. Meaning that Anakin Skywalker (inadvertently) screwed-over Palpatine twice.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Go here.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • "The Sarlacc found me somewhat indigestible."
  • Empatojayos Brand. At the climax of Empire's End, Palpatine's spirit departs his dying final clone body and attempts to possess Han's son Anakin. However, Brand (who was mortally wounded by Palpatine moments earlier) throws himself in the way, causing Palpatine to possess him instead. The result is that Palpatine is DRAGGED INTO THE FORCE BY BRAND'S SPIRIT, KILLING HIM. And unlike all of Palpatine's other deaths, this death is PERMANENT and FINAL. Did we mention Brand was a Jedi Purge survivor?
• Narm:
  • Declarative statements against dramatic backdrops, bold, italics and exclamation marks all over the place.
  • The Galaxy Weapon, subsequently often known as the Galaxy Gun. Many fans disliked it as gratuitous Sequel Escalation (compared to the Death Stars in the films), and the goofy name it quickly got saddled with didn't help either.
• Older Than They Think: This isn't the first Star Wars comic that depicts Boba Fett as having escaped the Sarlacc pit: the Marvel Comics series first introduced the idea, although it also showed him getting swallowed by the Sarlacc all over again.
• Popularity Polynomial: At the time it came out it was extremely popular. A decade later, it was widely regarded as absolute garbage, and admitting to liking it was seen as pretty much akin to saying that Greedo shooting first was a great idea. Nowadays, while it hasn't exactly swung back to being universally beloved, it tends to be regarded as, if nothing else, a decently entertaining story that at least doesn't suffer the various issues that the later Star Wars Legends works tended to suffer from. In the wake of The Rise of Skywalker recycling several of the series' plot points, some fans felt that Dark Empire, regardless of its flaws, handled Palpatine's return better in general.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The idea of Luke flirting with the Dark Side of the Force was something that fans had been curious about, and even became the series's selling point. Unfortunately, most of the story puts Luke Out of Focus during his temporary Face–Heel Turn, and the plight of his struggle is thereby undermined.

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