This article contains minor spoilers for "Star Wars: Reign of the Empire -- The Mask of Fear" by Alexander Freed.

Since its very beginning in 1977, "Star Wars" has always been a franchise about how we resist imperialism, colonialism, and fascism. George Lucas has talked extensively about the roots of the property as a metaphor for protest against the Vietnam War and how Richard Nixon was as much a direct inspiration for Emperor Palpatine as any of the other fascist dictators in history that he drew his stories from.

In keeping with that idea, the prequel trilogy provided a look at the fall of a democracy and how it's given away in an election to a monster who uses it to take over completely, cloaking himself in the trappings of his office and turning it into a vehicle of absolute power. But what happens to those who resist in the wake...