‘Star Wars: Dark Empire’ Author Tom Veitch Has Passed Away
Tom Veitch, author of 1991’s Dark Empire comic, has passed away at the age of 80. In a Facebook post from his brother Rick, it’s been announced Tom passed away from a battle with coronavirus. Born on September 26th, 1941, he grew up in Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellow Falls, Vermont, as the oldest of six children. He went to Columbia University and went on to publish his first work, Literary Days, in 1964.
His 1988 Marvel comic, The Light and Darkness War, won him the eye of George Lucas. He hired Veitch to write for Dark Horse Comics, which at the time hadn’t published any Star Wars comics. In 1991, he wrote the first Dark Horse Star Wars comic, Dark Empire, which famously saw Luke Skywalker become a reborn Emperor Palpatine’s apprentice.
This, along with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, are considered to be few of the works that kept Star Wars alive before the prequel trilogy. He then would go on to create a Dark Empire trilogy with 1994’s Dark Empire II and 1995’s Empire’s End. Veitch was also a writer for the long-running Tales of the Jedi series.
We here at Star Wars News Net send our deepest condolences to Veitch’s family, and we thank him for giving us classic Star Wars storytelling for so many years.
Nate uses his love for Star Wars and movies in general as a way to cope with the pain of being a Minnesota sports fan. When he's not at the theater, you can usually find Nate reading a comic, listening to an audiobook, or playing a Mario video game for the 1,000th time.
