– Spoiler Review –
Lando – Double or Nothing issue #1, written by Rodney Barnes, with art from Paolo Villanelli and Andres Mossa, is the beginning of a 5-issue miniseries focusing on a Lando and L3 adventure pre-Solo: A Star Wars Story. If the rest of the mini can keep the sense of fun and pitch-perfect Lando, readers could be in for quite the treat.
If you’ve enjoyed how a younger Lando has been portrayed as of late, from Last Shot to Solo: A Star Wars Story, the creative team of Lando – Double or Nothing continues the trend in a similar and exceptional manner. For starters, Rodney Barnes’ smooth-talking, style-obsessed Lando gels with Daniel José Older’s take and Donald Glover’s glowing performance. The potential to do good hides under plenty of layers of deceased animal cloaks and capes, and Barnes hides it pretty deep this issue, though it sneaks out in moments like Lando pretending not to care about the plight of Kristiss’ people despite asking a lot of questions. He even says to himself aloud at one point that he needs to patch his bleeding heart, betraying his earlier concerns solely about credits, though Kristiss certainly plays to Lando’s romantic weaknesses so he still not might completely care about her people’s problems. As for how the art sticks with the younger Lando look, Paolo Villanelli (art) and Andres Mossa (colors) bring his vibrant apparel to life, the go-to look of the yellow shirt, black and white tie, and cape, while their take on his face hits closer to Glover, has a hint of Billy Dee Williams, but remains its own thing that I really like, even if it makes him seem a tad older than Glover in the movie. Even if you’ve not really experienced the younger Lando in the novel or movie mediums, this would be a perfect place to start as well, considering how much all three takes seem to overlap.
L3-37, Lando’s partner and co-pilot, is one of my favorite droids already and Double or Nothing has already caused me to double-down on that feeling, while I’m happy this will let us spend more time with her and Lando together. Only the movie sold her short (check out the spoiler part of my review of Solo for more details) for a small part of it, but otherwise Last Shot is what made me love her, Solo kept it going regardless due to Pheobe Waller-Bridge’s performance, and Double or Nothing adds even more fun to her character. Her snarky remarks are even louder here and the banter between her and Lando adds a sense of history and friendship, even if he chides her more radical thoughts as only that. Last Shot focused on how she was slowly drawing out the good man hidden inside all his layers of smooth and DoN continues the trend here and I look forward to the miniseries focusing on that, while hopefully diving a little more into why she’s partners with Lando and more about what drives her rebellious spirit. My favorite line this issue from L3 had to be this one: “Please refrain from the use of ‘we’ and ‘use’ in regards to morally deplorable reasoning.”
So who is this Kristiss I mentioned earlier? She is a Petrusian, a humanoid species with strange, symmetrical facial grooves and pink skin, and she’s hoping to use Lando’s services to smuggle in weapons to her people so they can free themselves, as they are being held as slaves in an Imperial droid repair outpost. It seems Lando helped Petrusia before, some years ago, but he’s reluctant now due to Imperial heat and having to put his life on the line. When I initially read the issue, I felt like Kristiss gave up a little too easily in convincing Lando and, somewhat problematically, gave into Lando’s charms too quickly. Rereading it, and thinking on it a bit more, it feels more like Kristiss was taking advantage of Lando’s allure towards her, and I really hope it’s the case, as her tough, freedom fighter introduction would point to her not being so easily seduced.
Inevitably, I have to mention the previous and absolutely excellent Lando miniseries from 2015, written by Charles Soule with art from Alex Maleev and Paul Mounts, which focused on a surprise-filled, and surprisingly deep adventure with Lando between Ep. IV and V. I can’t really compare these two just yet because we’ve only got one issue of Double or Nothing, but so far this one hasn’t quite grabbed my attention like the first miniseries did, though that had a stellar cliffhanger in it’s first issue to help and it focused on Lando wiggling out of his own problems, while DoN is concerned with Lando getting roped into someone else’s problems. The onus is on Barnes and this series to make readers care for the new character’s problems, much like how Kristiss is trying to endure Lando to their cause, or at least make them interesting enough to draw parallels to later “lost causes” Lando helps out, while giving us a good bit of character development for the smoothest of all smooth smugglers. Already, I have a good feeling the creative team here will provide a memorable miniseries.
Speaking of creative teams, Joe Caramagna joins as letterer, while Heather Antos, Tom Groneman, & Emily Newcomen as Assistant Editors and Jordan D White, with Mark Paniccia, as Star Wars Group Editors.
Here are a few other things:
- I absolutely LOVED he mentions his Calrissian Chronicles, one of the funniest things from Solo, as they made direct references to his Legends novel trilogy.
- Joe Quinones did a variant cover, which I included above, and he shared some of the steps his artwork took to get to the final product, over on Twitter.
- The Twitter account for MegaCon Orlando shared an intriguing fact that Billy Dee Williams, who just turned 81 (!), has started a whole new diet. Sure, he could be just trying to stay healthy, but with Ep. IX shooting in July…this certainly smells like Lando’s finally going to grace the sequel trilogy! I expect he’ll come with a child (or two) in tow. There’s never enough Lando in our lives and I’ll damn happy if turns out to be the case!
Lando – Double or Nothing #1 develops a solid story and delivers some excellent characterization, putting just enough out there to get me interested in what lies ahead.
+ Lando, through both writing and art, hits all the right spots
+ More L3 in our lives
– Some worries for Kristiss
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
Lando – Double or Nothing
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