a Dark Empire: Collector's Edition CD set was released that collected the two Dark Empire audio dramas as well as an exclusive adaptation of Empire's End. Impact Along with Timothy Zahn's books, Dark Empire has been credited with sustaining the profitability of Star Wars during the 1990s. By the end of the decade, it had sold over 100,000 copies. Kenner released four action figures based on the series in 1998: Luke, Leia, Palpatine, and an Imperial sentinel (originally intended to be a new character called 'Atha Prime' for Kenner's aborted 1984 'Power of the Force' line of toys); the cases for each of the figures folded out into backdrops based on the comic. In 2008, figures of Luke and Palpatine from Dark Empire II were released. Dark Empire has appeared on a number of lists of best Expanded Universe works. In a review for The Sci-Fi Block, Robert Ring called the series "an essential Star Wars classic" but commented that the ending was rushed. Writing for Tor.com, Ryan Britt stated that the first Dark Empire miniseries was superior to its sequels and praised it for taking stylistic departures from other works. The later Dark Horse comic Crimson Empire trilogy takes place after and references events from the Dark Empire trilogy. Following its 2012 acquisition by Disney, in April 2014 Lucasfilm branded most of the licensed Star Wars novels and comics produced since the originating 1977 film as non-canonical 'Legends' to create a clean slate for the sequel trilogy. Following the release of the final sequel trilogy film, The Rise of Skywalker (2019), several critics interpreted the circumstances of Palpatine's return as amounting to a tribute to Dark Empire. The film's novelization reveals that Palpatine returned using a clone body, much like his return in the comic. Additionally, both the comic and film invoke the spirits of past Jedi to defeat Palpatine permanently. Although first glimpsed prior to Dark Empire in Marvel's Star Wars comic, Boba Fett's survival was canonically depicted in the second season of The Mandalorian (2020) and its spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett (2022). References Footnotes Citations Sources External links Dark Empire at Wookieepedia 1994 audio plays 1994 comics debuts 1995 audio plays 1995 comics debuts Comics based on Star Wars Comics about cloning