Today saw the release of the second issue in Marvel Comics’ Star Wars: Dark Droids – D-Squad spinoff miniseries, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment, which was written by Marc Guggenheim and illustrated by Salva Espin with colorist Israel Silva.
Dark Droids – D-Squad #2 begins on the planet Gallios, where R2-D2 has pursued rumors of a murderous protocol droid, believing it to be his companion C-3PO, who has recently become infected with the virus-like consciousness of the evil artificial intelligence known as the Scourge. But instead of his golden friend, Artoo finds the other evil protocol droid we know about– Triple-Zero (introduced way back in the 2015 Star Wars: Darth Vader comic series– who has not been possessed by the Scourge, but is still uncontrollably murderous all the same. So it turns out that Triple-Zero’s counterpart BT-1 has also been corrupted much like C-3PO, so Artoo and Trip are forced to form an uneasy alliance in the interest of bringing both of their trusty companions back to their usual selves. This process begins by tracking down BT-1 on Gallios, which as Trip suggests is simply a matter of following the screams.
Once they’ve found the astromech– who is acting much in the same chaotic way as he usually does despite being controlled by the Scourge, they have to figure out a way to awaken him from his possession. So Artoo uses his suction-cup doohickey to drag Beetee into an abandoned podracer shop (abandoned because of the homicidal rampage), where Trip uses one of the vehicles to electrocute the astromech into unconsciousness. But as they’re waiting for the knocked-out droid to reboot, in walks bounty hunter IG-88 (also not yet corrupted by the Scourge) to collect the bounties on Triple-Zero and BT-1’s heads. One scuffle later and IG-88 walks away with his prize, only to enter into a standoff with 4-LOM and another cyborg bounty hunter, the latter of which does happen to be under the Scourge’s control.
That’s the cliffhanger ending this month, and I love how Guggenheim is very quickly bringing this situation to a head, with all these familiar droids on a collision course for confrontation. I also think it’s quite appropriate that Artoo might actually be the one to have figured out how to wake droids up from their Scourge possession, and I’m looking forward to that plotline progressing in future issues. My one minor complaint here is that Guggenheim writes Triple-Zero even broader than usual, and the psychotic droid is already a pretty broad character. That said, I enjoyed his unlikely team-up with R2-D2, and it’s usual to find myself rooting for characters that have proven themselves pretty despicable in other situations. The art by Espin and Silva is colorful and energetic, and all of the action is well-choreographed. I can’t wait to see how the three-way showdown between IG-88, 4-LOM, and this new Scourge-possessed cyborg bounty hunter plays out next month.
Star Wars: Dark Droids – D-Squad #2 is available now wherever comic books are sold.