A few days ago, Disney revealed plans to launch a Bantha-sized load of books, comics and other media to plug some of the** Star Wars narrative gaps between Return Of The Jedi and this year’s The Force Awakens**. With Marvel a key part of the Mouse House’s sprawling franchise tent, the comics company was naturally involved. Now it has launched the cover for one of the titles aimed for later this year, Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens – Shattered Empire.
Naturally, a lot is still being kept in a lockbox buried on Tatooine, but at least we are starting to see little elements such as this. Shattered Empire should help plot out some of the moments between the two films, though with 30 plus years of history to cover, it won’t get to everything. And given how secretive J.J. Abrams likes to be, there’s no chance it’ll spoil anything major for The Force Awakens.
But it will be fun to see where Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando, the droids and others go after they defeat the Empire and then have to figure out the rest of their lives. According to Marvel, this initial event series is due in September, which hopefully means worldwide and not just the US. Star Wars: The Force Awakens follows, of course, on December 18.