Everyone knows that George Lucas ruins things. Most of the more…embarrassing parts of Star Wars and the Indiana Jones movies come from him. Who knows what he was thinking when he thought it would be a good idea to put Return of the Jedi on the moon of Endor instead of Kashyyk, or that it would be bad ass to have Shia LaBoeuf spontaneously swing with monkeys in the Amazonian jungle. One thing’s for sure; however they got to be multi-billion dollar franchises, Star Wars and Indy exploded in spite of Lucas, not necessarily because of him.

Maybe it’s because his universes inspire such rabid fanaticism from people who actually know how to tell a story. Star Wars, especially, has benefited from the collaborative efforts of dozens of people who wanted to dig through the awkward Lucas crap and lift the space opera to its highest potential. The expanded universe has blossomed into an immensely rich storytelling opportunity, something that novelists and comic writers have been taking advantage of for years. Haven’t even heard of the Star Wars EU comics? Well, here, brother-geek, let me enlighten you.

Dark Horse comics got the rights to the Star Wars franchise in comic book form some time ago, and they’ve been pumping out solid stories ever since. There’s an incredibly large back catalogue of titles covering so many different eras of the universe, but a lot of those are only for the super-fans…you know, the dorks who can recite the entire military history of the Republic, or exactly which lightsaber crystal does what. (Full disclosure: I’m not one of those people, I promise.) For the more casual fan, like you and me, here are a few suggestions if you want to see what the Star Wars universe can be when guided by capable hands.

Let’s start with a setting you’re likely to be familiar with: the Old Republic. Bioware’s “Knights of the Old Republic” games are hugely successful, so naturally you’re going to want to explore that setting a bit. The comic starts a year or so before the game and follows a Jedi padawan, Zayne Carrick, as he tries to clear his name of a crime he didn’t commit. What’s the crime? Nothing less than killing his fellow Jedi students in cold blood. Now he’s public enemy number one to both the Jedi and the Empire, with only a Snivvian crime-lord for support. On the bright side, he’s technically now the valedictorian for his class.

The plot sounds pretty heavy, and Zayne meets a huge cast of characters through his trials and travels. Despite the sometimes complex narrative, the tone remains surprisingly light; Zayne’s a screw-up of the highest caliber, his Snivvian friend is an amusingly amoral street rat, and the rest of his crew have their own issues that bounce off each other in interesting ways. Overall the writer, John Jackson Miller, balances classic adventure with deeper, character-based story arcs really well. There are eight graphic novels in the series so far, including the Vector crossover event, and each novel pulls the action along to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion. Even after the first arching story is completed, there are enough loose ends that you’ll still want to see where Miller is going with the cast.

Stretching across the timeline is a totally different beast. Star Wars: Legacy explores the galaxy after the movies, about 140 years into the ‘future’. It follows Luke’s progeny, Cade Skywalker, through a galaxy that’s scarcely recognizable. The Sith are now an army instead of a duo of puppeteers pulling the strings of a politically powerful force. The Empire, once allied with the Sith, are now the galaxy’s last defense against complete domination. And what’s more, they have their own army of Force users — Imperial Knights with red battle armor and silver lightsabers. The few Jedi that are left hide and wait for the best opportunity to strike, and extra-dimensional aliens called the Yuuzhan Vong try to atone for the havoc they’ve wrought on the galaxy decades earlier. There are a lot of moving pieces to this story, and alliances, twists and reveals are pretty much common place.

What’s impressive about Legacy isn’t the way they’ve integrated the lore from the movies, the ensuing novels, Dark Horse’s other comics and all the other volumes of geek-myth out there seamlessly…even though that’s pretty neat. It’s the fact that they’ve taken a property almost aggressively marketed to children and turned into something adult. Cade, our protagonist for this setting, is an unrepentant asshole. He spurns both Light and Dark sides for his own path; it almost feels like his destiny is to run away from his family name. The Sith, now in charge of the galaxy without the help of the Empire, publically commit genocide and racial slavery. The Jedi and Imperial Knights are supposedly two sides of the same coin, but can barely be in the same room together. It’s fairly intense stuff, a big leap away from the classic heroes-and-villains space fables you’ve come to expect.

There are six graphic novels in the setting (including Vector), each one of them snappy action, twisty plots, and complex character studies. You might have a hard time rooting for anyone here; sometimes the only things that make the protagonists likable are the facts that there are even worse people out there doing some incredibly heinous things. Legacy strikes me as Star Wars through the lens of cyberpunk noir. If you ask me, it looks pretty damned good that way.

The best of the bunch is Dark Times. Set right after the issuance of Order 66 (in which most of the Jedi are slain), this comic is essentially the Battlestar Galactica of Star Wars. It follows a Jedi on the run from the Imperials with a comrade he served with during an unsuccessful rebellion as they simply try to survive. Most of the stories involve the heroes making a choice between a bad situation and an even worse one, and explores how good people deal with sacrificing their morals for the sake of survival. Even Darth Vader gets makes an appearance or two, reflecting on his choices and the path they’ve led him down.

Besides it’s characteristically bleak tone, it also boasts a near all-alien cast, which is a rarity in Star Wars fiction. You don’t get to see the universe from outside the lens of the dominant species, even if the minority status of most of the cast doesn’t come up that often. Still, haven’t you always wanted a Star Wars series that focused on something other than lame Ewoks or those damned Skywalkers? Well, here you go.

Dark Times is quite possibly the best thing I’ve seen in Star Wars, and the prime example of what it can be. It transcends the silly, Lucas-borne childishness and becomes a thoughtul, excitingly adult meditation on the toll loss and desperation takes on someone. It doesn’t shy away from the full weight of its material. Unfortunately, it’s one of the second-tier settings in the universe, so there are only three graphic novels so far, including the Vector crossover event that spans all time periods being explored right now. If there’s one complaint I have to make, it’s that there’s not enough of this series at all.

So there you have it. If your entire experience of Star Wars comprises the movies, there’s a lot you’re missing out on. Whether it’s the classic adventure of Knights of the Old Republic, the gritty dark future-punk of Legacy, or the heavy moral fable of Dark Times, there’s great storytelling for every sensibility.