Written by Charles Soule
Art by Jan Bazaldua
Published by Marvel Comics
The Fourth Division of the Rebel fleet led by Princess Leia has acquired an ancient droid. The hope is to unite the rest of the scatted fleet with codes too old to be broken by the Empire.
The droid, however, has other ideas.
Charles Soule did an excellent job of creating a self-contained story with the droid as the central figure. Someone who woke up to a world at war without context wouldn’t know who to trust.
The droid decides to hedge its bets but doesn’t count on Lobot being the only one who can control its functions, to a point.
That point is what Soule uses beautifully to convey how much Lando and Lobot mean to each other.
Lando doesn’t want to risk anything bad happening to his friend, but the decision is taken out of his hands.
Kes Dameron makes the call for Lobot to interface with the droid to save his wife. Lando feels Lobot is easily considered expendable by Rebel command. Lando knows what the Empire did to Lobot and can see past his robotics. No one else can, which makes the trade for Kes’ wife an easy enough arrangement.
Later on, Soule reminds the reader that Lando is currently working for Jabba, which was last mentioned in the first issue. Due to recent events, he’s considering snitching on the Rebels to save Lobot.
Since the cannon story between Episodes V and VI is still mostly unexplored, Lando could turn on the Rebels, only to kiss and make up in time for his ROTJ starting position.
The questions Soule poses are interesting because, in some ways, the Rebels have become the Empire in turns of their low regard for Lobot. The droid is a little too self-aware and will undoubtedly cause more harm than good before it is all said and done. I highly enjoyed this nice departure from the main story as it humanized Lando even more than before. Underneath the smooth-talking bravado, Lando is a good guy.
Seeing him conflicted, much like he was at Cloud City paints him in a different light. Instead of worrying about thousands of people, he’s concerned for his only friend.
Grade: B+
