Shattered Empire (whose full title is the mouthful Star Wars: The Journey to The Force Awakens - Shattered Empire) is series that, like the novel Aftermath (which we'll look at next week) suffers under the weight of expectations. Billed as the new story of what really happened after Return of the Jedi (with all the old stories that did the same now rendered non-canonical legends in the wake of Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm), anyone picking up this series expecting a sweeping overview of galactic history that tells exactly what Luke, Leia, Han and their friends were up in the thirty odd years between Jedi and the upcoming Force Awakens will be disappointed. But put aside those expectations, and what remains is an effective and entertaining little story, even if it is a bit sparse on those "historical" details.
Rather than focus on the Star Wars Big Three, the central character of Shattered Empire is Shara Bey, a Rebel pilot who flew in the Battle of Endor, and is the mother of Poe Dameron, the character played by Oscar Isaacs in the new movie (his father, Kes Dameron, appears briefly in the first and last issues). Through a variety of different circumstances, Shara ends up working alongside the Big Three in various capacities (she volunteers for the task force assembled by Han to hunt down Imperial remnants in the wake of Endor, ends up serving as a pilot/bodyguard for Leia on a trip to Naboo, and joins Luke on an important mission in the series finale), but she remains the central POV character, with the Big Three slotted in as supporting characters, at best.
