Review: ‘Star Wars’ #46 Succeeds By Doing The Expected … Unexpectedly

There is very little which happens in Star Wars #46 which is surprising. Plot points set in motion at the start of the Trial of Lando Calrissian story come to fruition, more or less in exactly the ways we’d expect. Yet, despite that, Star Wars #46 is deeply entertaining issue, thanks to the way the creative team executes those very expected ideas.

Star Wars #46 opens with the clock ticking. Mon Mothma has been kidnapped, and the Rebellion has one day to come up with a crap-ton (technical term) of money to ransom her before her captors will make the same offer to the vastly more cash flush Empire. Lando, recognizing Mothma’s captors, has passed along intel to the Alliance high command via Chewbacca, which allows Kes Dameron’s special forces Pathfinder Squad to conduct a breakneck search-and-rescue mission for the Rebel leader.

From there, we follow two narrative tracks: the Pathfinders search for Mon Mothma, and a conversation between Mothma and Hachi, the leader of the Scarabi kidnappers (or, at least, their designated representative). Both unfold as expected, but in ways that still make them engaging. From the beginning of Lando’s trial — and particularly once Mon Mothma got kidnapped — it seemed pretty obvious that Lando was going to curry favor via some big action (like rescuing Mothma). Sure enough, that’s basically what happens here.

Yet there’s ambiguity to whether or not this was Lando’s plan when he had Chewbacca pass along his insider knowledge of the Scarabi last issue, or whether Lando was simply trying to do right by the Alliance. When Lando ultimately comes face-to-face with Mon Mothma by the end of Star Wars #46 in a way that suggests he may try to kill her and escape, anyone who’s seen Return of the Jedi knows he won’t. But Chewbacca hasn’t seen the movie, so the fact that he’s not sure and draws his bowcaster on Lando makes the scene intense and intriguing.

To his credit, writer Charles Soule doesn’t spend a lot of time on the Pathfinders’ search, bouncing from location to location, setting an action sequence at each before moving on to the next. At times, the two narratives unfold in side-by-side, on the same page, each indirectly buoying the other, making them feel bigger. Soule is aided here by artist Madibek Musabekov, who uses dynamic layouts to both energize the sequences, and make each stop on the journey feel like a satisfying snapshot. In one stop, the action unfolds across a double page spread in a series of panels like a film reel. In another, the Pathfinders are perched on the corner of a building, positioned above the reader eye line, in classic superhero staging.

The conclusion of their journey is, in its way, expected in an unexpected way as well. Lando’s trial and Mon Mothma’s kidnapping starting in parallel suggested they would end in parallel as well. That also further linked Lando’s exoneration with Mothma’s rescue. Yet Star Wars #46 concludes with Mon Mothma back in the fold of the Alliance, and Lando’s trial set to resume. She’s been rescued, with Lando’s help, but he’s still on trial.

Meanwhile, Mon Mothma’s thread finds herself doing her best Rebel recruitment pitch to Hachi. Just like the plot to rescue Mon Mothma, their discussion hits familiar beats, but does so in unexpected ways. Hachi asks Mon Mothma why she threw away a life a luxury for the Rebellion. After Hachi calls BS on Mon Mothma’s initial canned philosophical rationales, Mon Mothma does. Eschewing big ideas for specific, personal ones, Mon Mothma tells a tale of her past that explains how she came to realize the Empire needed to be stopped. Along the way, she underscores the point that eventually, the Empire will come for everyone. Even Hachi. It’s just a matter of time.

It’s not exactly Luthen Rael’s “what is my sacrifice?” monologue from Andor‘s “One Way Out“, but Soule — a lawyer — smartly builds out her arguments. The destruction of Alderaan — the go-to example of Imperial evil — isn’t Mothma’s opening salvo, but rather, it’s quiet exclamation point. She starts small, and personal, and builds to the grand guignol of tyranny. In the end, an expected plot — Mon Mothma extolls the evils of the Empire — once again unfolds in entertainingly unexpected ways.

That is ultimately the key to Star Wars #46’s success, and it’s a blueprint for how the series itself can succeed. Just as readers know the immediate fate of Lando and Mon Mothma despite whatever may happen in this issue, this entire series comes with a well-known endpoint for most of its characters baked in. Yet the ways Soule, Musabekov and their collaborators manage to hit the expected beats in unexpected ways makes Star Wars #46 enjoyable despite the known outcomes. If they can apply that same approach to every issue going forward, it’ll help the series on the whole remain entertaining even as it draws ever closer to its prescribed endpoint.