Best of 2025 :: Published/Unpublished Comic Book Splashes, Title Pages

Star Wars - Mara Jade - By the Emperor’s Hand #2 p. 1

Owner: Michael McIsaac
Artist: Carlos Ezquerra (All)

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Artwork Details

Title:	Star Wars - Mara Jade - By the Emperor’s Hand #2 p. 1
Artist:	Carlos Ezquerra (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Splash Page
Views:	828
Likes on CAF:	17 18
Favorited on CAF:	1
Added to Site:	6/12/2025

Description

Cover dated September 1998.

It may be hard to believe today, but there was a time when Star Wars had largely fallen out of the public consciousness. After Return of the Jedi left theaters, we still had the Marvel comics, the toys, a couple of cartoon series and two terrible made-for-TV Ewoks movies. But those were gone within a couple of years, leaving the latter half of the 1980s into the 1990s a mostly Star Wars-free affair. That changed in 1991 with the publication of Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. It was a direct sequel to the movie trilogy, featuring the characters that nearly every boy I knew from my generation loved. I was in high school when all three of Zahn’s sequel trilogy novels came out, and it was a frequent topic of conversation among my friends and acquaintances. All of us agreed that what helped make the new books so enjoyable were the new antagonists introduced by Zahn, particularly Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Emperor’s force-wielding assassin, Mara Jade. The latter survived Zahn’s sequel trilogy to appear in further novels and comic books that were the primary source of new Star Wars material through the 1990s and continuing through the age of the prequel movie trilogy and beyond.

Unfortunately, when Disney purchased Lucasfilm one of the first things they did was declare that all of the novels and comic books published prior to the acquisition were no longer canon. While certain elements that Disney initially wiped away have made their way back including Thrawn, Mara Jade remains consigned to “Legends”, which is what Disney calls the Star Wars material that they won’t acknowledge as being within continuity.

So, this page is therefore from a miniseries that is no longer canon, which is too bad because it was quite enjoyable. The late Carlos Ezquerra did a wonderful job with this book, bringing his well-established talent for science fiction to the Star Wars universe.

Will Mara Jade ever be back? I would never completely count a good character down, but at the same time, I don’t want her coming back if Disney can’t do it properly. I’m the meantime, go read this miniseries if you’re a fan of Zahn’s sequel trilogy, which in my head is the only real sequel trilogy.

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About the Owner

	Michael McIsaac ( 42 ) Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	February 2020
Last Login:	January 2026
Ebay Id:	proty_ii
Country:	UNITED STATES
On CAF:	Premium Member Q&A Artworks Commented On Liked Art Site Activity on CAF

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