Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Vol. 1 [New Printing]

Let the dark times begin! In the tumultuous aftermath of Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, the Clone Wars have ended, the Republic has fallen...and Palpatine exerts his ruthless grip on his new Galactic Empire. Now, the few Jedi who remain must decide whether to hold true to their faith or abandon it completely in the face of a brutal purge - one carried out by the new Dark Lord of the Sith: Darth Vader! Collecting STAR WARS: REPUBLIC #78-80, STAR WARS: PURGE, STAR WARS: PURGE - SECONDS TO DIE, STAR WARS: PURGE - THE HIDDEN BLADE, STAR WARS: PURGE - THE TYRANT’S FIST #1-2, STAR WARS: DARTH VADER AND THE LOST COMMAND #1-5 and STAR WARS: DARK TIMES #1-5.

W. Haden Blackman is a writer and creative director who has worked across a wide range of media. He has been a director and producer at LucasArts, where he led multiple teams of designers, engineers and artists in telling new interactive stories, and won numerous awards for outstanding video-game writing from both the WGA and Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for his work on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. His comic-book credits include Darth Vader & the Lost Command, The Field Guide to North American Monsters, The Field Guide to North American Hauntings, The Irons, the New York Times Best-Selling Batwoman for DC Comics and Marvel’s Elektra.

Brazilian artist Luke Ross has been drawing comics since the early ’90s, proving himself an able stylist of super hero action on titles such as X-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, Green Lantern and JSA. Ross stepped in for Mike Perkins as foil to Steve Epting on writer Ed Brubaker’s Captain America and joined a rotation of Marvel’s top artists on the thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man. His other Marvel credits include Secret Avengers, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger -- The Little Sisters of Eluria, Star Wars: Darth Maul and Star Wars: Thrawn.

A self-taught comic artist, Doug Wheatley set his sights high as a child with dreams of working on the Star Wars franchise. After breaking into comics in 1994 with Marvel Comics’ Midnight Sons and Blade: The Vampire Hunter, he enjoyed work at Dark Horse on high profile adaptations and tie-ins for properties like the video game series Myst, and movie super-series Aliens. He would get his first taste of working on Star Wars comics in 1999, and by 2005 was selected as the artist to illustrate the adaptation of Revenge of the Sith, continuing with a variety of related titles for the next 10 years. Recently, he has penciled and inked for Dark Horse’s King Tiger and the Hellboy 100 Project.

Three different incarnations of Cloak and Dagger were only a few of Rick Leonardi’s artistic achievements for Marvel. His other credits include Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and Spider-Man 2099. At DC, he drew Batman family titles Batgirl and Nightwing, as well as comic/film crossover Green Lantern vs. Aliens. At Event Comics, he penciled Painkiller Jane.