Of the three character miniseries Marvel ran in 2015 — Leia, Lando, Chewbacca — this is the one that understood what a miniseries is for. It has a job, a crew, a complication and an ending, and it gets out in five issues without gesturing at a sequel.
A heist that goes wrong properly
Charles Soule builds the story on a single elegant reversal. Lando and Lobot take a contract to steal a luxury yacht; the yacht belongs to the Emperor; and its cargo hold is full of Sith artefacts that begin working on the crew before anyone realises what they are. The genre slides from caper to haunted-house story without ever announcing that it has, which is a harder trick than it looks.
It is also the best Lobot has ever been written. In The Empire Strikes Back he is a prop with headgear. Here his implants are a slow catastrophe he agreed to, and the book's emotional weight rests on what Lando is willing to spend of his friend to get out alive. That is a real answer to the question the character has always posed — is Calrissian a charming rogue or a man who sells people? — and the answer is not flattering.
Maleev
Alex Maleev draws it in heavy, smeared, photo-collaged blacks that look nothing like Star Wars and everything like a crime comic, which is exactly right for a story about professional thieves. The design work on the yacht's interior — gilt, red, obscene — sells the Emperor's taste better than any throne room has.
Verdict
Small, complete and genuinely stylish. If someone tells you the canon comics are all house-style product, hand them this and Gillen's Darth Vader and let them argue with the art.
