Review: ‘Star Wars’ #44 – ‘Star Wars’ Turns Into a Fun Law Procedural in ‘The Trial of Lando Calrissian’
There’s not a lot of action in the 44th issue of the main Star Wars comic, but that’s to be expected in a story titled “The Trial of Lando Calrissian”. As you might have guessed when a man who likes to talk as much as Lando Calrissian is put on trial, there is a lot of dialogue in this issue but it never feels slow or exposition-heavy.
Writer Charles Soule keeps the story moving at a brisk pace even when there is a lot of ground to cover — the decision to call a trial, the pre-amble leading up to it and then the trial itself — resulting in a fascinating turn of events that has implications not just for Lando, but for the Rebellion as a whole when it comes to their eventual decision-making as a Galactic Republic.
Soule manages to keep the process fun and engaging when it would have been easy to get bogged down in legal drama and exposition. He manages to insert some action at the end in a pretty shocking development, though we know everything will be okay in the end.
Spoilers ahead…
Things aren’t looking good for Lando. He’s locked up in a cell talking to Lobot while the Rebel leadership discusses his fate. It turns out Generals Madine and Ackbar are quite happy to execute him by pushing him out an airlock, which is surprising considering we know that Lando ends up becoming a general himself before Return of the Jedi.
Thankfully, Leia and Mon Mothma caution restraint. They are worried about how morale would be effected if the rank and file rebels discovered that Lando was a traitor and had been executed, expecting that some members would be demoralized or leave entirely if they felt the Rebellion was this cutthroat to those in need of a second chance. Leia’s right — holding a fair trial gives Lando a chance to prove himself and shows the other rebels that they are willing to give second chances to those who deserve it.
This is fascinating to me as it appears to form the basis of the Republic’s reasoning for pardoning former Imperial scientists and soldiers in the years after the Republic’s formation, which we see in The Mandalorian‘s third season. A lot of fans pointed out the folly of the Republic integrating Imperial personnel, but making it so that this process came from a desire to save Lando is a genius idea. It makes the whole thing so much more complicated, which it should be. It’s harder to criticize the system for letting these Imperials back in when the same system is responsible for giving a beloved character a second chance, which we know turns out for the best.
Lando, for his part, is willing to give up. He knows his charges are pretty bad but he’s content that he managed to save Lobot and is resigned to going out on a high. Thankfully, Lobot convinces him to fight out of obligation to their friendship, so Lando calls in some legal council.
That council arrives in the form of Salli Georgio, a shady Saul-Goodman-esque lawyer who is willing to try every dirty tactic in the book to free her client. She gives off a shady vibe as soon as she arrives with her droid aid (who looks suspiciously like a High Republic era Jedi droid as seen in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor), but it’s pretty clear in the courtroom that she doesn’t intend to play by the rules. She points out that there’s no way Lando can prove his innocence, so her goal is wear the Rebel leadership down to the point where they don’t care about the charges levelled against Lando.
As the trial plays out, she tries every trick in the book to stall proceedings and we see a group of bounty hunters planning to kidnap Mon Mothma simultaneously. Georgio seemingly arranged the whole thing to stall the trial and possibly give Lando the opportunity to do something heroic to win everyone over. The moment where Mon Mothma is seized on holo is wonderfully overdramatic and throws a spanner into the works, sewing chaos and panic to take the spotlight away from Calrissian.
I can’t wait to see how this all plays out, but presumably Lando’s pardon will have something to do with saving Mon Mothma.
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.
