– Spoiler Review –
With Scourged droids on one side and the deadly rancor on the other, has Lando’s luck finally run out? Find out how it’s not quite gone, but certainly takes some big hits, in Star Wars #39 (Vol. 2).
There’s no easy way to put this, but writer Charles Soule jabs readers, and Lando, in the heart with a knife in Star Wars #39 (Vol. 2), then proceeds to twist it, again and again, until it seems like one can’t take it anymore, but then does it all over again. As a sequel to Soule’s Lando miniseries, this issue matches some of the previous series’ shocking heights with its frequent knife jabs of pain, accentuated by Madibek Musabekov and team’s best work yet, and maintains the unending roller coaster of Lando and Lobot’s lives together in this mini saga within the Saga. When getting out of what looks like the worst of situations relatively easy, as the Talky droid renders the rancor unconscious via a shrieking noise and they all manage to climb out, readers should know the worst is yet to come, but even I got caught up in the hope as they scurry around the Palace, trying to escape from the Scourged droids hounding them. Talky keeps them moving through secret passageways, but the Scourged droids know these as well, which leads to them swarming Lobot at one point and carrying him away, just as the group thinks they are in the clear. If you’ve read Soule’s Dark Droids #3, the main miniseries for this crossover event, then it’s no surprise what comes next, but how Soule and team unfolds the reveal is where it really strikes deep.
Lando stages a rage-filled rescue of Lobot, taking his frustrations out on Talky to ensure the droid takes him to where Lobot likely is, but when he gets there, it’s too late: Lobot’s lost to the Scourge! Due to his implants, and the Scourge’s many hasty experiments to jump from the metal to the meat, aka organics, Lobot is very susceptible to the entity’s machinations and it now owns him, controlling him and accessing his memories across its great collective. Musabekov, colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, and letterer Clayton Cowles’ work certainly is dark and somewhat spooky before this moment, but once Lando opens the door to find Lobot, the art takes a hard turn to horror, from the droids with organic parts to Lobot’s very demeanor, providing an unsettling, terrifying feeling to the already sad events of Lando losing his friend anew to the Scourge. The Scourge and Soule twist the knife here quite a bit, starting with the entity telling Lando how Lobot believed in his friend right up until his final moments and also when it uses words Lobot said to Lando in the past to mock him now, with Soule making the issue dive into a flashback when he said it to ensure the knife in our hearts is in good and deep. The righteous fury Lando feels over losing his friend to some technology, again, doesn’t abate and rather the Scourge has made a direct enemy of one Landonis Balthazar Calrissian, who promises to save his friend at all costs. But he’s abandoned the Rebellion for this personal mission, with no heads up…how will they react upon his return, without Lobot? Has all his hard work for the Rebellion been enough for them to trust him and come to his aide or will it be a tougher fight to gain their help? I can’t wait to see how it all plays out, as I suspect he’ll go in assuming he needs to be defensive and he might just find himself surprised, while who knows, Talky might step up and support him in the process too.
Lando’s sins were to blame in Lobot’s original loss and in a way his sins continue to haunt him and bring such pain down on his friend again here. After their climb out of the rancor’s pit, Lando decides to approach what I’ve been calling the Hansicle aka Han Solo frozen in carbonite, hanging on Jabba’s walls. He apologies to Han, even if he can’t hear him, saying despite their past, he didn’t deserve such a fate, making a promise to come back to rescue him the next chance he gets. By turning them in on Cloud City, he made the Hansicle possible, and by stopping to focus on the sins of his past, visiting with Han briefly, he scuttles their lead on the pursuing droids, resulting in Lobot’s capture. If he can keep on the path he has been, helping others and not doing things only for himself, he could prevent harm to his friends and will avoid having failures to address, which in this case, lead to more failures. Lando and the Scourged Lobot go separate ways when Jabba the Hutt returns from his monthly trip to the Dune Seas on the sail barge after learning of the Palace’s infestation, with both parties fleeing so they’re gone before the Hutt’s people start cleaning it out.
As I mentioned earlier, Musabekov and team really make the punches hit when they flip the switch with the horrific reveal of what’s going down with the droids and Lobot. All issue long, scenes in Jabba’s Palace have ranged from dark blues and purples, light reds and oranges, and even yellowish browns, but the moment we get a panel where we see what has Lando in utter disbelief, there’s a menacing red due to the environment, with deep, dark shadows and plenty of the Scourge’s trademarked purple eyes. The final panel of Scourged Lobot reminded me of a scene in a horror movie where the possessed person stands awkwardly, like whatever is inside them is getting used to the new body, as Lobot here has his head hung down, but looking up at Lando, shoulders slumped and arms hanging at his sides, with a wide, somewhat awkward stance, surrounded by dirty machinery and various parts of droids laying about, with Rosenberg’s reds saturating the space behind him, its reach stopping just before his feet, encompassing him whole, while seeing the Scourge’s word bubbles, normally from droids, now being his only makes it feel even more unnatural. The absolutely creepy, menacing smile the Scourge attempts on Lobot’s face, the little diodes swirling out of his implants and purple flaming out from his eyes, gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I love how the flashback, only a few pages later, shows the two at a happier time of their lives, gives us what a natural, normal smile looks like from Lobot, a stark comparison to the unnatural attempt by the Scourge when controlling him. Lando when he gets angry is such a good turn thanks to the team here, as we really see it mainly through Talky’s reactions, not Lando’s face in the first few panels, beginning with Lando putting his blaster in the droid’s face, it’s hands immediately going up in deference, and then when Lando shoots off one of its hands, the blaster’s energy bolt can be seen slicing through the droid, making the limb being shot off look bloody when it really isn’t, and then the perspective on the final panel has us looking up at the calm, yet fierce Lando, blaster barrel still burning from the shot, much like Talky is, to feel the weight of how much he means what he says and what he’s doing at the moment. On the flip side of Lando’s anger is Jabba the Hutt’s apathy, as he looks mostly asleep in the panels he’s seen in, despite learning the news about the Scourge droids taking over the palace or considering Malakili’s plea to save the rancor in their purge of the palace.
Here are a few other things:
- Starting in January, both this series and Darth Vader (Vol. 3) will feature Star Wars Rebels characters on variant covers to celebrate the show’s 10th (!!!) Anniversary. Which means…the Manor turns 10 next year as well!
- At NYCC, they covered the Dark Droids crossover briefly, yet didn’t dive into what’s next for the Star Wars (Vol. 2) series, while revealing some surprising things, from Jango Fett and Mace Windu miniseries to Bounty Hunters ending at issue #42. I’ve been assuming and hoping this era would close out at #50 for all the main on-goings at this point, as it feels like we’re running dry on what else can happen before the events of Return of the Jedi, but to hear one closing out prior to such a milestone was very unexpected.
Star Wars #39 (Vol. 2) sinks the knife in and twists it for the ever-growing drama of Lobot and Lando’s friendship, making for a horrifically good time in the series’ latest Dark Droids storyline.
+ Twisting the knife on Lando and Lobot
+ The suddenness of the art’s horror is a chilling moment
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
STAR WARS (Vol. 2)
The Destiny Path: #1-6 — Operation Starlight: #7-11 — War of the Bounty Hunters: #12-18 — Crimson Reign: #19-24 — Special Issue: #25 — The Path to Victory: #26-30 — Quests of the Force: #31 | #32 | #33 | #34 | #35 | #36 — Dark Droids: #37 | #38