‘Star Wars’ #3 Review: More Characters Make For A Pleasant Return to Form

It’s Lando! Lando is back! As the last of the “Star Warriors” to make his debut in this new post-Return of the Jedi volume of the Star Wars comic book series, his return isn’t just a big deal because I like the character — it also makes for a refreshing “widening” of the narrative after last issue’s deep dive into ancient Jedi artifacts.

Thus, even though Star Wars #3 is, in its way, as narratively-focused as the preceding issue, devoting most of its page time to just one of the series’ ongoing plotlines — and by teaming up Lando, Han and Valance the Hunter — this issue feels less insular than the previous one, returning the book to the kind of sweeping plotting it does best.

It also helps that where Luke got caught up in a hunt for a (relatively) random MacGuffin last issue, the trio of Han, Lando and Valance are making larger contributions to the overarching plot of the series, revealing a past between Han, Lando and Garlev, the Nagai rebel leader Luke previously learned about (“Garlev” has to be a Tuckerism, right?). In the process, the story here paints the Nagai in a whole new light (especially for those of us who remember their earlier — now non-canonical — appearances in the original Marvel Star Wars comic).

Whereas the initial portrayal of the Nagai in issue #1 hewed to the more traditional depiction of them as sinister outsiders working against our heroes, this issue picks up on seeds planted in the last issue to present them as more complex (a trait all too rare in the oft-monolithic depiction of Star Wars alien cultures).

Garlev, it turns out, is more or less a Nagai Han (at least, post-New Hope Han), a criminal using his criminal expertise with smuggling in an effort to help save his people from the entrenched Nagai order. It immediately casts this version of the Nagai in a new, more complex light, while drawing direct parallels to the established characters, all of which adds to the “bigger” feeling of the issue.

Artist Phil Noto also deploys a neat visual trick to differentiate the present day action from Han, Lando and Chewbacca’s flashback adventures: using rounded-edge panels without a heavy outline to depict the “past” action and deploying traditional sharp-edged panels with thick black borders for the “present” action. He is also unafraid to unleash both panel styles on the same page — sometimes in succession — rather than clustering all the action in one time period or another. It’s a cool effect that makes the time jumps easy to follow while underscoring the narrative and thematic parallels between the two time periods.

And while I’m growing increasing annoyed with Lucasfilm’s apparent insistence on putting Lando in his Solo-era yellow shirt across every era/medium, Noto’s decision here to render Han, Lando and Chewbacca in the flashbacks in their Solo: A Star Wars Story attire further helps keep the time jumps clear (in other art notes, I love the Easter Egg of Garlev’s ship being the spitting image of Dash Rendar’s Outrider).

Ultimately, Star Wars #3 shows how to use the “focus on one character’s actions within the larger plot” approach to showcase the character without losing an eye on the bigger picture. The introduction of Garlev adds a new wrinkle to the “new” Nagai, while the oft-unheralded Noto gets to have a little fun. All in all, a strong issue.