Star Wars #79Cover dated: January 1984
Issue title:
The Big ConScript: Mary Jo Duffy
Artwork: Ronald Frenz (breakdowns)/Tom Palmer (finished art & inks)
Colours: Glynis Wein
Letters: Joe Rosen
Cover art: Ronald Frenz (pencils)/Tom Palmer (inks)
Overall rating: 9 out of 10
Plot summary: On a mission to Arcan IV to ascertain why Imperial intelligence might be interested in Han Solo, Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca, who are both in disguise, enter a seedy cantina and introduce themselves to a gang of criminals who were once acquainted with Solo. Lando introduces himself as Captain Drebble to Lemo and Sanda, the brother and sister duo in charge of the gang. He offers to help the siblings in their search for two valuable artefacts known as the Dancing Goddess and the Minstrel in exchange for a cut of their profits. "Drebble" convinces the gang that finding Han is of paramount importance to their mission, since the Corellian smuggler was actually a brilliant treasure hunter. In reality, this is a lie and Calrissian is simply interested in extracting information from the gang concerning Solo's current whereabouts.
The pair leave the gang to mull over their proposal and return to Lando's ship, the
Cobra, but before long, the mercenaries appear outside the craft and invite the two Rebels to dinner. During the meal, the gang ply Lando with alcohol in order to trick him into revealing his plans, but as the conversation progresses, Calrissian learns from the criminals that Solo has now been delivered to Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine. In his intoxicated state, Lando accidentally mentions Chewbacca's name and the gang draw their blasters, angry at having been lied to, since they recognise the Wookiee's name and his relationship to Solo. Chewbacca picks up a wooden table and throws it at the gang members, as he and Lando make a run for it.
Outside the restaurant, Lando and Chewie steal an aircar and steak away into the darkened streets, as the gang pursue them in airspeeders of their own. After a perilous chase through the city at breakneck speed, during which Chewbacca commandeers one of the gang's aircars, Lando and the Wookiee's vehicles collide with each other, but luckily the pair are thrown clear of the resulting explosion. As they lay crumpled on the street, a member of Lemo and Sanda's gang named Dafi advances towards them with her blaster drawn. As she prepares to fire, she notices that a small statue has fallen out of a box that was on Lando's person. Grabbing it, she realises that it is the Minstrel statuette that the gang had been searching for (it was secretly in Calrissian's possession all along). The rest of the gang arrive at the scene and a firefight erupts, as they begin to squabble over who should own the artefact. As the fracas continues, Lando and Chewbacca sneak off back to the
Cobra and depart the planet, pleased in the knowledge that they have finally learned Solo's whereabouts.
Comments:
Star Wars #79 is an absolute blast of an issue. The story zips along at a cracking pace, Jo Duffy's dialogue is snappy, well written and chock-full of humour, while the artwork of Ron Frenz and Tom Palmer is simply gorgeous. Of particular note is an exciting aircar chase sequence that takes up roughly the last half of the issue, which is absolutely marvellous. Sure, "The Big Con" isn't exactly the most important or consequential issue of the series – although the central characters do learn some vitally important information in it – but it's such a fun read! Little wonder that in 2011 Duffy told the Belgian
Star Wars fan club magazine
TeeKay-421 that this was one of her favourite stories of those that she wrote for the series because it turned out pretty much exactly as she had originally envisioned it.
"The Big Con" features the culmination of the Rebel's search for the carbon-frozen form of Han Solo, which had been going on – in an off-and-on manner – since issue #46 of the series. Of course, the search was ultimately a failure, since the Rebels couldn't prevent the bounty hunter Boba Fett from delivering Han to Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine (which they knew would be Fett's ultimate destination anyway). Really though, there was no other way for this scenario to play out in the comics because Lucasfilm had forbidden Marvel from having Han rescued, since that was something that was going to happen in
Return of the Jedi. Nonetheless, now that Solo is on Tatooine and in the clutches of Jabba, it sets up the opening of ROTJ nicely.
It's a shame that the God-awful fill-in story "Hoth Stuff!" that appeared in issue #78 kind of broke up the flow of this story arc because the events of this issue are part of the mission that Lando and Chewbacca were sent on in
Star Wars #77, "Chanteuse of the Stars...". It was revealed in that issue that Imperial intelligence seemed to believe that Han Solo might know the same information about the Empire's new secret weapon as the long-sought-after Rebel spy, Tay Vanis. That plot point isn't referenced at all in this issue and, in fact, had been summarily dropped by Duffy. Nevertheless, this issue is still tangentially a part of the ongoing Search for Tay Vanis storyline.
Something else that I want to mention is how totally cool Lando looks and acts when he's in his "Captain Drebble" disguise. On the letters page of
Star Wars #87, a reader named Nina V. Twersky noted the similarities between Calrissian's Drebble costume and the Japanese anime character Captain Harlock. The reply to her letter certainly hints that Harlock was indeed the inspiration for Lando's look. Judge for yourself: here's Captain Harlock...
And here's Captain Drebble...
Lando finally explains in this issue why he keeps adopting the name of his old arch nemesis: his rational is that any trouble that he causes while he's using the false name will eventually come back to negatively impact his enemy. Of course, we met the real Drebble back in issues #71 and #72, so Lando adopting his name serves as a cool in-joke for regular readers of the series. Duffy also drops in a nice reference to The Wheel gambling station (which we saw in issues #18–23 and #69), again for the benefit of long-time readers of the series.
We also get our first glimpse of Lando's ship, the
Cobra. It's certainly a nice looking vessel, but I can't help feeling that it's perhaps a little too reminiscent of the Imperial
Lambda-class shuttle that we first saw in
Return of the Jedi. It's a pity that Frenz or Palmer couldn't have come up with a slightly more original design.
There's a minor continuity error in this issue when Duffy mistakenly has Lando refer to the planet Stenos as Stenax, which is the name given to its native inhabitants. Also, I find the fact that he and Chewbacca are thrown clear of their aircar collision – a collision which appears to have taken place many storeys above the ground – stretches credulity a bit too far for my tastes.
Another slight criticism would be that the sibling duo of Lemo and Sanda, along with their gang of mercenaries and smugglers, are a bit two-dimensional and not terribly memorable. Still, I suppose that they don't really need to be all that well fleshed out, since their role in the narrative is simply to impart the information about Han's whereabouts and then to propel the story forward during the aircar chase. We will see Lemo and Sanda again in
Star Wars #85, while the Dancing Goddess and Minstrel statues will reappear in issues #85 and #99.
As I noted earlier, the artwork in this issue is very nice. The book opens with a terrific looking splash page of Han Solo's face on a wanted poster, which really is a good likeness of actor Harrison Ford...
As a striking image with which to open the story, this picture certainly does its job and really impressed me as a kid back in 1984, and it still impresses me today. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I think this splash page is almost certainly all Palmer's own work. It certainly appears to be signed by him in the bottom right hand corner.
While I'm on the subject of Palmer's art, I noted in my review of
Star Wars #77 that I felt like his inking was starting to dominate Frenz's pencils somewhat and that continues to be the case in this issue. It's not necessarily a criticism, since I'm a big fan of Palmer's work generally and his work on
Star Wars in particular, but it is an observation. Nevertheless, Frenz's sequential story telling and staging is excellent, while the pair adeptly punch home the script's more humorous moments with some impressive visual comedy. Every page here is a real joy to look at.
Overall, this is another fantastic issue of
Star Wars, but perhaps a touch more throwaway than some of the others we've had of late and it looses a point for that. Still, it's a good little adventure, with some strong in-character writing, plenty of humour and more than a dash of the thrills and spills we associate with the
Star Wars films.
Continuity issues:
- Lando mistakenly refers to the planet Stenos as Stenax.
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "Yes, I'm sure you do. Now, put your blaster away, there's a good fellow." – Lando Calrissian nonchalantly dismisses Lemo's aggressive reaction to his offer of help in finding the Dancing Goddess and Minstrel statues.
