Shattered Empire Details Reveal New Groundwork for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: Shattered Empire is the first of the “Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens” [...]

By ComicBook.com Staff

Star Wars: Shattered Empire is the first of the "Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens" products coming form Marvel Comics in September 2015. With a feature slot in Diamond Distributors' Previews comes new information about the comic, which takes place in the time shortly after Return of the Jedi and about 30 years prior to the events of December's Episode VII. The story is fully canon, as are all of Marvel's releases, having been conceived in conjunction with the Lucasfilm Story Group.

In the feature preview, Diamond expanded considerably on the small amount of information previously revealed in the solicitations.

"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," they tease. "Now, with a power vacuum atop the Empire, those Moffs will jockey for position and control."

This is the third indication that in the new canon, when the Emperor dies and the second Death Star explodes, that does not signal the end of the war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. In the initial promotional material for the upcoming mobile RPG Star Wars: Uprising, it was revealed that some of the Moffs and regional governors are flat out lying to their constituents, and attempting to keep the fall of the Emperor a secret. The novel Star Wars: Aftermath, also under the "Journey to…" banner, bears the tagline, "The War is Not Over."

The comic Shattered Empire, then, will see the Rebel Alliance suddenly faced with multiple high-powered opponents, instead of one united force (no pun intended). The new synopsis promises that this series will also "lay the groundwork" for The Force Awakens. The first issue of the new series by writer Greg Rucka and artist Marco Checchetto is due in stores September 2, 2015, with the novel Aftermath, by Chuck Wendig and covering the same era, in stores just two days later on September 4.

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