Written by: Charles Soule
Art by: Alex Maleev, Paul Mounts (colours)
Published by: Marvel
How would you feel about a heist film set in the Star Wars universe? Well that’s what this is and it’s one hell of a ride! Because of a deal gone bad with a crime-boss, Lando has to steal an imperial space-yacht belonging to none other than The Emperor and to do this he has amassed a crack-team of specialists to help him including his trusted friend, Lobot. Lando is, of course, smooth and charismatic at all times while Lobot, due to his implants, can’t help but predict the risk of every action and prefers to play more on the safe side that Lando’s cavalier attitude wouldn’t ever allow. In issue two we see the gang having just stolen the ship when three Star Destroyers appear.
What’s so cool about this is that the heist itself doesn’t even matter (it was done in like two pages) and for about half the book it turns into an old submarine movie where Lando tries to outmaneuver his opponents with vastly superior weaponry. And that’s what I love about this series, Lando doesn’t solve his problems with a gun or lightsaber, noooo he uses words and subtle actions to manipulate his enemies and I love that so much as the crux of this series that I fear that if Lando does raise a blaster it’ll end the series for me.
As for the other members of Lando’s crew, they don’t bear much mentioning as they mostly stick to their roles of straight man, muscle and cynic pretty well. Although I must admit a fondness for Sava Korin (the cynic) due to his snarky attitude that has made me laugh in the short time he’s been present. The reason I like him so much is that Lando is wayyyy too sure of himself and so far everything’s paid off, but at some point someone’s going to call him out on this and it’s either going to be Lobot, Lando, or Sava and frankly I think that, although it may not be the most meaningful route for Lando’s character, it will definitely be the most entertaining. It’s for this reason that I wish characters other than Lando were given a bit of the spotlight but given that it is just a 5 part mini-series this is just nit-picking and is excusable.
The Empire is shown off brilliantly in this issue for sure. You really get the feeling of how cruel and unforgiving Palpitine is, rarely for what he does but more for what other people do in his name or do out of fear of his actions no matter how small their transgression against him was; and with no buffer of Vader between The Emperor and these actions to carry them out, they comes across as fresh. The Emperor also hires a bounty hunter with the name Canath Cha to hunt down his ship and that will be interesting in later issues but their introduction does kind of kill the flow of the story and didn’t really feel the need to be there at all. It could have been cut out and they could have just been introduced when they actually started hunting Lando et al.
The art of the book is pretty cool and definitely above average. It didn’t exactly take my breath away but I think any other style would have likely detracted from the book. I thought scenes from inside the stolen ship’s cockpit were particularly impressive in their use of colour and aggressive shading to really bring that feeling of a tightly-packed environment across.
If you’re a fan of Star Wars but wanted to see a more smooth operator than Han or Luke at the helm than look no further than Lando. This series is fast becoming everything I hoped it would be and think that it works well in tone alongside books like Dead Letters. I do wonder if the series might have possibly worked better as a TV drama but then I feel it wouldn’t be able to have great scenes such as the ‘dog fight’ between the three Star Destroyers and Lando’s stolen craft. If you’re looking for a little something a bit different than most series out right now, among the big two and independents, then give Lando a try by picking up either #2 (which isn’t a bad jumping on point) or #1 if you can.
