Review: ‘Star Wars’ #37 – ‘Lobot Lost’ Puts Lando Front and Centre
I must say that after the first issue of Dark Droids, I expected this installment of the main Star Wars comic run to deal far more with the fallout of the Spark Eternal/Ajax Sigma virus reaching the Rebel fleet, but it seems that development is going to be more of a slow burn. Instead, this issue puts the focus squarely upon Lando and Lobot as the latter gets into more trouble again and Lando has to reckon with past mistakes in order to fix him.
While the issue focuses on Lobot first, causing chaos throughout the Home One cruiser as his cybernetics go haywire, the rest of the issue is all about Lando. The story digs deep into their strong friendship as he desperately tries to figure out how he can save his best friend. He realizes that he’ll have to deceive the Rebel Alliance once more in order to do that, and the realization weighs heavy on his conscience.
Lobot Lost does a very good job of showing how far Lando has come since this comic run started in 2020, and while he knows that he’ll have to go behind his new friends’ backs, he doesn’t do it lightly and only because it’s the only way he can save his oldest friend.
Though there are signs of the Dark Droids crossover in this issue, they remain very much in the background. I was expecting a full-on droid uprising in the Rebel fleet, but there’s nothing close to that here. Perhaps that’s being saved for the second Dark Droids issue, but the story we do get with Lando and Lobot is urgent and heartbreaking. I’m eager to see what becomes of Lobot, and if Lando can get away with saving him without sacrificing his new standing in the Rebel Alliance.
Spoilers ahead…
I’ve had a theory going ever since Dark Droids was announced that Lobot might hold the key to defeating the virus sweeping through the galaxy’s droids, on account of him being an organic being with a brain equivalent to a droid. Which is why I was surprised that the Spark/Sigma virus had nothing to do with his cybernetics going haywire.
Everything Lobot does is something you’d expect from the malevolent droid consciousness, hijacking the Home One‘s weapons systems and firing indiscriminately in the middle of the fleet. But it turns out that his cybernetics are failing him because it’s been too long since his last software update out of the Imperial system. They’re malfunctioning because they’re old.
I like how the art shows the toll this takes on Lobot, with his bloodshot eyes as his body goes rigid and the headset’s wires glowing yellow as electricity flows through them. Lando is forced to bash his friend on the head, damaging the implant and knocking him unconscious to return the ship to normal.
He discretely brings him to the medbay and the medical droid gets us up to speed. I really thought the droid was lying at first, working on behalf of Spark/Sigma, but we know now that any droid under its possession has purple photoreceptors, whereas the medical droid’s were still glowing yellow.
I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy as Lando clinically wiped the droid’s memory without a second thought. It didn’t deserve such treatment. I know Lando’s in a dark place and time is of the essence, but if it wasn’t for the malevolent nature of Spark/Sigma then I’d almost be behind a droid revolution.
We get treated to a flashback between Lando and Lobot on Castell, before the latter’s implants took over. It was a joyful moment between them as they rejoiced winning a game of sabacc (I assume, they didn’t say which game they were playing) after Lobot helped Lando count cards. They finally had enough credits to pay off the local crime boss, but Lando wanted more. He suggested entering a high stakes game with Castell’s Imperial Moff to earn enough money to pay off the criminal and still have funds to buy a ship of their own.
Lobot despairs that Lando has another scheme lined up when they could just solve their actual problem easily, and we snap to the present day where Lando reads a voice message from Lobot, recorded shortly before his implants took over. It’s heartbreaking to watch Lobot appeal to his best friend to find something to believe in other than himself. He’s done that now with the Rebellion, and that he has to risk all that to save the man who implored him to do it in the first place puts a tremendously tragic focus on the stakes involved.
Unfortunately, Lando’s right that the Rebels would immediately suspect Lobot of working for the Empire so it’s understandable that he’d risk not telling them what’s happening. If they knew, they’d lock him up and Lando wouldn’t be able to save him in time. That said, you do wonder if the writer is trying to tell us that Lando is sacrificing the easy option in asking the Rebels to help in order to embark on another scheme of his own.
Lando does tell Leia that he’s taking the Millennium Falcon on a mission, and though Leia is initially suspicious, we discover she actually trusts him enough to let him go, no questions asked. The development really hits Lando hard; he feels very guilty about omitting the truth after his friends have finally let him into their inner circle.
I’d forgotten that he’d sold the ancient protocol droid to Jabba The Hutt in an earlier issue, back before he started believing in the Rebellion. He regrets that now, and not just because the droid holds the key to freeing Lobot from his cybernetics. He has to reckon with the fact that he put the Rebellion at risk by handing a droid with Rebel comms encryptions over to one of the biggest crime bosses in the galaxy.
Meanwhile, we see that Jabba has gotten fed up with the protocol droid and sends him to the droid torture chambers. This handily explains why he is in need of a new protocol droid by Return of the Jedi in a concise and natural manner. Unfortunately, once the droid is tortured it’s due to have its memory wiped, presumably losing all those ancient languages and the key to saving Lobot once and for all. We can see that Spark/Sigma has already infected one of the droids in Jabba’s Palace, so I wonder if it will intervene to save the droid even before Lando arrives. Perhaps Ajax Sigma recognizes it from a long time ago.
I really hope that Lando can get there in time to save the droid from Jabba and Spark/Sigma. Lobot’s story has always been a tragic one, but this issue really broke my heart. I need Lobot to have a happy ending now, which wasn’t the case when this Star Wars comic run began.
Rating: 8/10
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
