Today saw the release of issue #41 in the current volume of Marvel Comics’ flagship Star Wars title, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
I want to start off this review by saying that I woke up this morning to an Instagram post by writer Charles Soule warning fans not to read this issue until after the release of Star Wars: Dark Droids #5, which doesn’t come out until the last week of December. But in the interest of doing my job I did read it and I will review it, though as per Mr. Soule’s wishes I will make my best effort to avoid the broader spoilers as to the outcome of the Dark Droids saga. That said, Star Wars (2020) #41 begins on the planet Epikonia, where Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca are battle swarms of droids possessed by the evil artificial intelligence known as the Scourge. Their goal is to rescue Lando’s loyal cyborg friend Lobot, who was recently taken over by the Scourge himself, and how they get out of this particular mess is what I’m going to avoid spoiling here– suffice it to say that I’ll have more thoughts once December 27th rolls around.
But get out of it they do, and the next step is to get Lobot back aboard the Millennium Falcon. In the meantime, Luke and Leia decide to stay behind on Epikonia to help the Scourge survivors, while Chewie helps Lando carry his pal to the ship. There, Lando warns the Wookiee that what he’s about to see will be damaging to Calrissian’s reputation among the Rebel Alliance, and then he reveals the stolen ancient “Talky” droid hidden in one of the Falcon’s compartments. Lando demands that the Talky repair Lobot’s cybernetic implants under the threat of an eternity of the droid equivalent of pain. That’s when Leia and Luke walk in, having discovered that there wasn’t much they could do to help on the planet– and, as good people, being concerned about Lobot. And this is where the Talky uses fairly impenetrable logic to deduce that Lando must confess his crimes against the Rebellion to Luke and Leia before the droid will be willing to save Lobot’s life.
He does so, and the Talky follows through, but these actions have larger consequences than I would have guessed, with Lando being arrested by Alliance security officers and charged with treason– under penalty of death– in this issue’s shocking cliffhanger ending. Naturally this opens up some very intriguing narrative possibilities in the months to come (though I still think Soule and company are stretching the boundaries of how many things could happen between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). But I also thought this issue offered some extremely interesting insight as to how droids work– and more specifically, feel pain. As for the conclusion of Dark Droids, it’ll be a few more weeks before I’m able to talk a whole lot more about that, but the tie-in issues of this title– especially #41– were indeed pretty exciting and sufficiently satisfying. Regular readers of these reviews will know that I’m an avowed admirer of Soule’s work, and his collaboration here with artist Madibek Musabekov has proven undeniably fruitful in my book.
Star Wars #41 is available now wherever comic books are sold.