Star Wars: Lando

So how did Lando Calrissian go from being a charming rogue to a respectable city administrator?  According to writer Charles Soule, all it took was one last job… that goes bad in a way that he couldn’t have anticipated.  Deeply in debt to a local crimelord, Lando is offered a chance to have it squared away by stealing a ship from the Imperial shipyards.  Recruiting the humanoid/panther fighting team of Aleksin and Pavol for muscle, the ungaanaut scholar Korin for intelligence, along with his buddy Lobot for strategy/logistics, Lando feels he has the right team to pull off this heist without a hitch.  In what shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone:  They do!  However, once it’s revealed who the ship belongs to, it’s clear to the reader that these thieves are in way over their head.  Lando’s charm and charisma may be good enough to sweep an Imperial Moff off of her feet, but they are nothing compared to the Dark Side of the Force.

As you can see, the arc of this story is fairly predictable.  What saves it from being forgettable are the characters.  It’s easy to see how Lando ropes the people on his crew into this heist, as he’s capable of making something potentially dangerous sound incredibly fun as well.  When it turns out that this is more than he can handle, our protagonist shows that he’s not above getting his own hands dirty as well.  We also get to see a more human side of his sidekick, Lobot, and Soule managed to wring a surprising amount of sympathy out of me towards the character through his plight in this story.  It was also nice to see that there was more to bounty hunter Chanath Cha than simply being a Boba Fett wannabe.  Alex Maleev handles the art and, even though it’s a bit more dark and shadowy than it needs to be, it still captures the “Star Wars” look and Lando’s swagger quite well.  All in all, “Lando” isn’t an exceptional miniseries.  It’s still a fun one and if this is going to be the kind of baseline quality we can expect from Marvel’s “Star Wars” miniseries, then I’ll keep buying them for the forseeable future.