Smooth Criminal

Star Wars: Lando Volume 1 (2015).
Written by Charles Soule. Art by Alex Maleev.
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna.

With Solo: A Star Wars Story just around the corner, I wanted to take a look at a spin off interquel novel staring Lando Calrissian, another character from the original saga set to return in the Han Solo movie but this time played by a new actor (Donald Glover taking over for Billy Dee Williams).

First introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, Lando’s character, buoyed by the natural charisma of Billy Dee Williams, was an interesting contrast to Han as far as what a rogue or morally ambiguous character could look like in this universe. Whereas Han was drawn from the archetypes of the cinematic western, Lando, like his fly capes, was cut from the cloth of more recent hustler and blaxploitation hero archetypes.

While Han is scruffy, flying by the seat of his pants in an outdated ship, with a wild man-creature as co-pilot, Lando is a smooth and well kempt “legitimate” businessman accompanied by the professional and stoic cyborg aid de camp Lobot. Instead of eking out an existence as a smuggler, Lando has retired from the game and seemingly invested his ill-gotten gains towards becoming the head of the mining colony Cloud City. Whereas Han’s hesitation to officially join the rebellion was more selfish, Lando’s concerns are more selfless as he is trying to defend an entire community from the Empire.

The new movie won’t be the first piece of extended universe Star Wars fiction to wonder what Lando was like when he was a criminal contemporary of Han Solo. Which brings us to today’s review of Star Wars: Lando which, like Star Wars:Darth Vader, was a comic series created by Marvel when they were charged by Disney to take over the pen and ink side of the Star Wars galaxy.

Right off the bat we learn just how charismatic Lando is (here still looking like Billy Dee Williams) when we find that he has charmed his way into the bed of a beautiful, but notorious, Imperial Governor, with an aim to steal a valuable artifact from her personal collection. He accomplishes this...by telling her all this during pillow talk and asking politely if he can have it.

Lando’s con isn’t as quick as a Jedi mind trick but the rate of return is much better.

But there is no rest for the wicked. After turning in the artifact to his creditors, Lando is off to his next heist: stealing a luxury space yacht laden with treasure from an imperial shipyard. Since every good heist needs a team of eclectic characters, Lando is accompanied by the loyal Lobot (much more talkative here than in his non-speaking role in Empire), Korin Pers, a diminutive antiques expert, and to provide muscle, Aleskin and Pavel, a pair of panther-headed martial artists.

Unfortunately for Lando and his crew, their haul might be hotter than they can handle. The ship they steal turns out to belong to none other than Emperor Palpatine himself, who dispatches not just the Imperial Navy but also a Bobba Fett-style bounty hunter, Chantha Cha, to bring the ship back or blow it and the thieves out of the heavens.

From here the story becomes a game of cat and mouse as Lando must evade pursuit while also dealing with some of the nastier surprises hiding aboard Palpatine’s ship.

Like many examples of extended universe Star Wars fiction, there is a challenge in creating stakes when we the audience know that characters that appear in a story have to survive to make it into the movies. Like Star Wars: Darth Vader, the Lando series offsets the protagonists’ plot armor with a fast paced tale that also gets us invested with the mauve shirts around them. Putting Lando in the spotlight gives some much needed time to a character that was very intriguing in his introduction in Empire but was relegated to a C plot in Jedi.

The first volume, collecting issues 1-5 of the series, works as a standalone novella so if you, like me, are a bit ambivalent about the new Star Wars movie, maybe giving this a read and pouring yourself some Colt 45 will put you in a more positive frame of mind.

I mean what else are you going to drink before a Star Wars Movie? Blue Milk?

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival. Check it out at www.watchcityfestival.com.