This deadly weapon is never reffered to by name in Crimson Empire or Crimson Empire 2 - although at one point a rebel bimbo refers to it as a "fancy spear". When I first created this webpage, I dubbed it a "Force-Glaive" ("Forcepike, Force-Gliave, get it?) I chose the term "glaive", which refers to a sword-like blade on a pole, because of how Kir Kanos and Carnor Jax wield the weapon in the book - less like a sword, more like a pole-arm.
A couple of years ago, a fellow 501st Legion member once told me that the creators of the book referred to it as a "Naginata" when he spoke to them at Celebration 2 - this does not surprise me since the Naginata is essentially a Japanese version of the Glaive. Upon further research, I found that there is another Japanese weapon, called a "Nagimaki" which is even more similar to the weapon in Crimson Empire. The Nagimaki is, in effect, a Katana sword with a hilt as long as the blade - very similar to the "High Elven Sword" depicted in Lord of the Rings movies.
The weapon depicted in Crimson Empire consists of a long hilt concealing twin single-edged blades - which are nearly always shown to be surrounded by wavy lines - an effect long used in comics to show that something is vibrating. This vibration effect, coupled with the fact that the blades can block blaster fire and slice through Stormtrooper armor with ease, suggest that this weapon is in fact a vibro-blade.
Vibro-blades are a highly advanced type of edged weapon, found in a myriad of science-fiction universes. The weapon typically consists of a blade made from extremely resilient materials, connected to a hilt containing the working mechanism, and a power source. When activated, the blade vibrates thousands of times per second, or in some cases becomes surrounded by a "high frequency energy field", which allows the blade to cut through almost anything - including the hulls of starships. In the Star Wars universe, these types of weapons are used by everyone from petty criminals to ceremonial guards - with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The hilt itself has a knurled "diamond" pattern surface, and has two emitter heads each with four fins. There is at least one activation button near one of the emitter heads. In the interior art of the books, the Glaive appears be made of a bronze-colored metal. In the cover art the hilt is a much darker, almost black color, with the emitters sometimes having a stainless-steel color.. The depictions of this weapon vary wildly from issue to issue of the comic, and sometimes from frame to frame in the same issue!
Image 1 Image 2
More images in the Crimson Empire Gallery
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