The cost of business.
Creative Staff:
Story: Greg Pak
Art: Matteo Buffagni
Colors: Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
CLOUD CITY BLUES! Former smuggler LANDO CALRISSIAN has a beautiful dream: a life of leisure and luxury as the totally legitimate BARON ADMINISTRATOR of CLOUD CITY. All he needs to do is take care of his money troubles with one last, big scam. But what will get in his way the most — his bad luck or this annoying sense of ethics he seems to be developing? Co-starring LOBOT!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a lot of fond memories of Lando from my youth thanks to some… interesting novels that were produced early on, the comics-form Lando has had a good run. With a pre-Cloud City miniseries before and then the Solo era version miniseries, we now get a one-shot that takes place before the Empire Strikes Back with Greg Pak giving us a pretty solid take on the man. Matteo Bufagni takes on the artwork for it and it’s definitely a great look for the book as it adheres to the general style of Star Wars books without trying to be photorealistic and we end up with something that feels pretty natural with great pacing and some fun layouts. There’s not a lot to really great creative here with settings but there are definitely some enjoyable ones.
What I like about this story is that does further cement that Lando is a good guy and that the pressure of the Empire is its biggest strength. He’s definitely a man of the people, though he has a greater view of himself, and he wants to do right by them even when it costs him. With Cloud City struggling with debts and payroll, he quietly pays the workers with his own stash – and even a round of drinks – all while things get direr for him as the administrator. Of course, young Lando is still in him and when he gets some incoming funds, hopping to a casino to try and increase what he has in order to pay off some of the debts makeStar Wars: Age Of Rebellion – Lando Calrissian #1 Reviews sense. Well, to him. It’s not a great idea but when you’re backed into a corner, you do stupid things. It’s no surprise that the idea goes poorly and he ends up losing everything but it does set him up for another offer.
Having Lando get caught up with a wealthy alien who wants to hire him for a job that will result in huge earnings is exactly what he needs. There are some amusing aspects answered to why the owners would let someone else reap the profits for twenty years, but that’s like a vacation to them when you’re long-lived. For Lando, it’s an easy job that deals with an administrator they want outed but can’t do fully for cultural reasons, hence bringing in “muscle” like Lando. It’s almost comical in how it unfolds but we also get exposed to the horror of what this race is doing in running the mining operation in how it handles the local population, such as essentially selling them out for slavery rather than causing problems there. It’s little surprise that Lando’s a no-go for it even at the expense of his own future but when you’ve started over so many times, doing so for the right reasons aren’t so so. And that feels very Lando.
In Summary:
I’ve long liked Lando as a character and I’ve been hopeful that through the Solo film that we’d start seeing more exposure for the character through both young and older tales. There are a lot of areas that he operates in that others do not and that leaves a lot of possibilities on the table to play with. Greg Pak captures his voice pretty well here for this stage in his life and shows how he’s handling problems as an administrator. Matteo Buffagni does a solid job in presenting the world while not having anything too radical to work with so it’s engaging and has all the right feels. I’m still hopeful for more Lando stories even if they’re one-shots since they can be a good bit of fun like this one.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 15th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
