Although Star Wars: The High Republic may have been the most high-profile Marvel Comics release from A Galaxy Far, Far Away this week, we also got a fun new issue of the company’s main Star Wars title written by Charles Soule (somewhat ironically the author of yesterday’s new Star Wars: The High Republic – Light of the Jedi novel) with art by Jan Bazaldua (X-Force).
Star Wars #10 picks up where the story left off in December, with Princess Leia’s Rebel Alliance cell having stolen an ancient droid from the Imperial Museum on Coruscant, and C-3PO left in charge of hacking into its brain to recover a long-dead language the rebels can utilize as a new code (think WWII’s use of Navajo). Unfortunately, upon being awakened, this “Talky” droid doesn’t quite want to participate, flinging Threepio and R2-D2 around the room in an aggressive panic.
But thankfully, Lando Calrissian’s cyborg buddy Lobot is willing to step in and use his electronic implants to get the Talky under control. After a bit of an uneasy negotiation, the droid agrees to help translate the code in exchange for his own continued existence– the evidence for robotic sentience in the Star Wars universe just keeps building and building. Meanwhile, Leia sends a group of pilots branded Starlight Squadron (not-so-coincidentally named after the space station introduced in The High Republic) out to search for other rebel cells. This gaggle of cockpit jockeys includes good ol’ Wedge Antilles, Poe Dameron’s mom Shara Bey, and even the eight-years-older version of a character created as an homage to Lucasfilm Story Group in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. On the first leg of their mission, the group encounters a flock of information-hungry Imperial Probe Droids and must figure out how to evade them while keeping the various locations of their friends secure.
The wild card present in the rebel fleet at this point is Lando himself, who seems to be torn between his newfound home among the Alliance and his previous life as a scoundrel and gambler. In a tense communicator exchange with Jabba the Hutt’s majordomo Bib Fortuna, the former Baron Administrator of Cloud City has to decide whether to ally himself with the fight against the Empire or follow through on a promise he made to the Tatooine crime lord. Can Leia and company trust Lando going forward? Anyone who’s seen Return of the Jedi knows the answer to that, but it’ll still be interesting to see how these characters evolve as the story progresses to that junction. My only major complaint about this issue of Star Wars is the cover, which prominently features Luke Skywalker, though the young Jedi hopeful doesn’t appear anywhere on the inside. I’m a big proponent of truth in marketing when it comes to promoting these releases, and making Luke the main draw of an issue he doesn’t appear in feels quite a bit like false advertising to me. Otherwise, Soule and Bazaldua continue their strong work in filling in the narrative gap after the galaxy-shattering events of The Empire Strikes Back.
Star Wars #10 is available now wherever comic books are sold.