A star destroyer run by fanatics.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Jesus Saiz
Colors: Arif Prianto
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
RETURN TO CLOUD CITY! The end of the war and the final defeat of the REBEL ALLIANCE are inevitable as the cunning IMPERIAL COMMANDER ZAHRA unleashes her fury against the splintered and scattered survivors. But where have the Rebellion’s greatest heroes gone when their cause needs them the most? LUKE SKYWALKER’S only hope at becoming a JEDI KNIGHT was lost during his battle with DARTH VADER…and so he, PRINCESS LEIA and LANDO CALRISSIAN must return to CLOUD CITY to find it! But Leia has her own covert mission to accomplish there…and Lando’s mysterious reason for returning could very well ruin their only chance at success!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As much fun as I had with the first couple of issues of this post-Empire series, it’s this issue that it feels like things are clicking and writer Charles Soule is settling in nicely. One of the things I liked the most about his past works, particularly the original Lando miniseries, was how well it fits into things. This issue digs into some neat areas that I like a lot and that helps to make it feel like it all flows smartly. Jesus Saiz is also easing into the art as well as you can see the areas of confidence, amusingly with Lando, while others like Luke are going to take a little time yet. But he has the larger feel and flow of the book down right so that it feels like a Star Wars book and is a lot of fun because of it.
Initially, we get some Imperial time as the newly introduced Commander Zahra is continuing her hunt for Rebel transport ships that escaped Hoth. The interesting part we learn is through her second-in-command that’s scheduled repair time for their star destroyer only to get grief for it. The large gash along it came from the battle at the Death Star and it’s why she chose this ship as hers and handpicked a crew of people who had losses because of the Death Star. She’s intent on taking out Leia and I’m curious if they’re going to connect her directly with Tarkin since that’s been unexplored in the books if he had any family of his own. But what we get is that the crew that’s running this ship are pretty much full of fanatics and that’s pretty frightening.
The rest of the book focuses on Luke, Leia, and Lando along with R2 heading back to Cloud City for different reasons. All of them make sense and it works really well – for the most part. For Luke, he’s hunting down his lightsaber as Lando has told him where it likely got collected. That has him and R2 going down into the ugnaught levels to look for it and being taken aback by the scale of things. Leia’s mission really makes sense as she’s looking to figure out how to de-carbonize things and wants to know from the source of what Han was put in. It’s a small plot point but her being captured and frozen herself is something I’m not sure works but also provides explanations for her helping Han in Return of the Jedi. But really, Lando’s story is the one I’m excited for the most as he’s here to repay his debt to Lobot, who has been wired directly into the city that’s now under Imperial control. It doesn’t get far here but Soule really did a fantastic job in showcasing these two in his original miniseries that I’m hopeful for some magic here.
In Summary:
While I’m really looking forward to the whole High Republic era of books coming out and all the new things that they’ll be introducing separate from the Skywalker Saga, I’m also loving what Soule is doing here in tying small pieces together from the films and giving us that look in-between the frames, so to speak. I’m definitely curious to see what Zahra’s story is and hope that it’s not one that’s told too quickly and I’m really curious to find out Lobot’s fate since we never saw him again in the film side. That’s a completely open area to work with and one that, as weird as it seems, I’m invested in after the bits that Soule put into the character previously. Looking forward to what’s next.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: February 26th, 2020
MSRP: $4.99
