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EXPANDED UNIVERSE LEGENDS: BEYOND THE SAGA

References may be incomplete, misfiled, out of order or simply wrong. I am not much for the EU and many of these come strictly by hearsay. Feel free to contact me to suggest new relevant information, correct a problem on these pages or tell me the average number of times “snap-hiss” appears per novel.

THE GLOVE OF DARTH VADER

When Vader’s hand and lightsaber were flung far and wide after being chopped off, they somehow became encased in metal and survived the deadly blast of the exploding second Death Star. (Don’t ask, just smile and nod.)

The hand floated to Calamari (it’s a trap!) along with lots of other space debris, where it all landed in the ocean.

Trioculus, a three-eyed evildoer, son of Palpatine and father of Palpatine’s grandson Ken (is this canon?!), found it. He remembered an old prophecy that he who had Darth Vader’s glove would become a mighty ruler. It was like the Excalibur of the Dark Side.

So Trioculus attempted to retake the throne of Palpatine…

… and failed miserably. The glove was apparently not magical at all, just a stinky old glove.

The whereabouts of the glove after Trioculus’ failed coup are unknown. So are the reasons of why this book is so terrible. It even violates continuity by messing with the dates of Han and Leia’s marriage. *sigh* Oh those wacky ‘70s books…

THRAWN TRILOGY

Those of you paying attention during The Empire Strikes Back, and not just arguing over what color Yoda’s tongue might be, will recall that Luke lost his hand at Cloud City.

In Heir to the Empire, Vader decides to look for the hand as a souvenir to put over his fireplace next to his ship-in-a-bottle collection. He finds it in Smelting Core D, where an Ugnaught named Groggin is examining it.

(This, as you may note below, takes place at a point in this Webmaster's life before he learned to use Photoshop.)

Vader slays the Ugnaught violently (no word as to whether any hands were lost) and takes the hand and lightsaber home. It becomes specimen B-2332-54.

Much later, the mad Jedi renegade Joruus C’Baoth takes the hand and lightsaber and brings it to the Spaarti cloning facilities, making a clone called (get ready for this) Luuke Skywalker.

It’s the same as Luke Skywalker but with an extra U.

Let’s say it together: “Loooooooooooooooke Skywalker”.

Luuke chases after Luke (with lightsaber) to kill him. Mara Jade kills Luuke (not Luke but Luuke). That’s about it.

As noted elsewhere on this sad excuse for a coherent Web site, I am told that in some other book in this here Thrawn trilogy, Dark Force Rising, it says that Palpatine chops off Vader’s hand as punishment for letting Luke blow up the Death Star. I wish that all this had something to do with Mal’ary’ush, because that’s a cool word to say. It sounds like ‘malaria’.

X-WING

In Book 3, The Krytos Trap (I am told—it is against my religion to read books with ‘Krytos’ in the title), Corran Horn chops off some people’s hands. I was not told which. Clearly someone wishes me to violate my strict Akrytonian code. My God. Or, should I say, my Great Magnafoosh the Illustrious.

Corran Horn is apparently a busy little bee, for in chapter 13 of Book 4, The Bacta War, he chops off a stormtrooper’s hand. Doesn’t that armor defend against anything?

I wish I owned an X-wing. I’d put wheels on it and drive it around town and take up, like, six lanes.

DARK EMPIRE

The thrust of this series concerns Palpatine cloning himself and raising the appropriate ruckus.

In Dark Empire 4, we learn that Luke’s old prosthetic has been removed so he can get a new one. The reasoning is deeply unclear. He’s just going around with no hand. When the new one comes, no one tells us how it differs from the old one. I choose to believe that these things just expire after a while, a nefarious feat of collusion by the prosthetic hand industry to milk even more credits out of the Jedi insurance with Mutual of Coruscant.

Anyway, Leia gets in on the greatest Star Wars tradition since incest by chopping off some guard who looks kind of like the robots in some other sci-fi series entirely but hell if I can place it. I confess that seeing Leia, my favorite of the human characters, get her shot at this nonsense brought genuine joy into my life.

Dark Empire 6 rolls around and Luke takes clone-Palpatine’s hand. The clone seems awfully surprised considering how often this sort of thing happens in this galaxy.

Hey, at least no one names the dang clones Paalpaatiine.

A version of this little moment even made it into this piece’s adaptation for radio drama. I didn’t know they still made radio dramas, and for all I know they don’t, because this goes back to the ‘90s, when I was first making this page and had some hope for my future. I quote this exactly and without error from the transcript I’m reading…

“NNAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!! MY HANDD!!! YOU’VE CUT OFF MY HANNNDDDD!!!!!!”

Doesn’t get any clearer than that, does it? Beyond that, you want radio drama, make a call to the handwringing liberal commentariat at NPR, tell them you found Hamilton overrated.

Empire’s End 2 sees Rayf Ysanna do the traditional work on T’iaz, either a Dark Side Adept or a cover band for T’Pau. Remember “Heart and Soul”? Not the piano song designed for two elementary school kids to play at once. The other one. I like that song. Anyway, both usages of onomotopeia in the resulting panel tickle me. And don’t you make me beg for more.

My ever-crucial source Ricky solemnly informs me: “This is the last we see of T’iaz. Wookieepedia says he died.” Maybe I’m just in a dark mood, but I feel as an experienced humor writer that this pair of sentences cannot be improved upon, so there they stand.

CRIMSON EMPIRE

It’s always darkest before the crimson.

Vader meets Burr Danid, who dresses sort of like Firefly from G.I. Joe, and cuts off his hand before kicking him down a deep hole in the manner of 300, which I remember really enjoying in theaters but can’t bring myself to care for again after watching Zack Snyder fuck up Superman. But that kick-down-a-hole maneuver is something we could see a little more of Star Wars, I think. It would have worked well on Tatooine: THIS! IS! SARLACC!

I bet you’re wondering what Vader is doing in Crimson Empire 1, a comic that takes place years after Jedi. It’s a flashback; Kir Kanos uses Danid’s name as an alias on Dathomir. Why we needed to see Vader kill the dude I could not say, but I suppose fans enjoy that kind of thing. What the heck. You’ve earned it.

YOUNG JEDI KNIGHTS

In the aptly named Lightsabers book of this jolly series, we learn of the importance of proper lightsaber construction from a chick named Tenel Ka. Yeah, seems that she didn’t build hers properly, being hasty and all, so when she’s in a training duel at the Jedi Academy with Jacen Solo, it turns off abruptly and he accidentally slices her arm off.

You know, nowadays there are waivers about this kind of thing at schools.

She refuses to get a synthetic arm for a while. Then Jaina finally convinces her to get a cloned arm. Man, I’d love to discuss arm issues with people. Better conversation than I usually get.

JEDI ACADEMY

Somewhere in the plot of his video game, I am told, the Padawan Rosh Penin has a run-in with one of the Disciplines of Ragnos named Alora. Alora chops off Penin’s arm. But don’t worry, boys and girls, they grow it back.

You know what video game I miss? Mega Man.

CRUCIBLE

Arthur Miller’s stirring allegory for the McCarthy blacklist is brilliantly transposed to the space opera setting… wait, that’s not what this is about? No, apparently this takes place forty-five Godforsaken years after A New Hope and yet we are expected to believe that our favorite characters are still physically attractive.

There is a cantina scene. A Nargon called Qizak decides to be a buttmunch to Han and Leia. Leia cuts off Qizak’s arms. Han notices that Qizak is part robot or something. This is probably important. One chapter down. I fell asleep shortly thereafter.

LEGACY

This is a comic series that takes place a hundred and forty years after the Battle of Yavin, and yet this gimmick is still going on.

In Volume One, Kol and Cade Skywalker and Master Sazen are battling a crapload of Sith and stormtroopers. Cade chops off a stormtrooper’s arm, which seems fair I suppose.

Then a Sith Lord called Nihl (it’s supposed to sound like Nil I guess, which isn't exactly frightening, unless you really have problems with nihilism) gets into a big climactic fight with Master Sazen (say that name really fast and it sounds dirty). Nihl chops off Sazen’s arm. I presume he attends a Marilyn Manson concert later on.

Eventually Cade uses the Force to very conveniently bring Sazen back to life, presumably because they need him to deliver exposition later on. Sazen never ends up fixing his arm, probably because he figures it’ll just get chopped off again what with all these darn Sith around. Pragmatism, people.

YOJIMBO

Only a Star Wars movie in the sense that it inspired Lucas, but this is where it all began, folks.

Look, it’s either this or I end on some comic that no one ever heard of. Thanks for reading!