WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars #3 by Charles Soule, Jesús Saiz, Arif Prianto and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Following the finale of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were sitting pretty. However, a lot of what happened in between the 1980 film and Return of the Jedi has been kept secret in modern canon, which is why Marvel is detailing these deleted scenes, so to speak, in its renewed Star Wars run, with the Rebellion stocking up to fire back.
Now, in Issue 3, the series peers into the fate of a fan-favorite character following Empire, and it's a grim picture of pain and torture. Lobot, Lando's best friend and loyal robot/human hybrid, is captured at the hands of the Empire after aiding the Rebels' escape.
Lobot came into Lando's employment after turning away from being a calculator for the Empire, opting to follow the path of the smuggler. With his neural interface able to sync up with tech, ships and machinery, he was just as effective as a hacker robot, which is why he became Lando's right-hand man running Cloud City in Bespin. He'd become infamous because he was in on the betrayal that saw Han Solo sent off to Jabba, and Vader taking over Cloud City to get Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia to Palpatine, more or less making strides in winning the war.
But Lando eventually came around and instructed Lobot to override Cloud City's lockdown protocol, freeing the rebels. They'd escape and in ROTJ, Lando is officially working with the rebels. This issue, though, illustrates how Lobot was made to pay for helping the rebels escape prior to that..
When Lando, Luke and Leia sneak aboard Cloud City again, everyone has an agenda. Luke wants to find his lost lightsaber and Leia's trying to attain data on how to free Han from carbonite freezing when she eventually finds him. As usual, everything goes wrong, especially for Leia, with Lando's fare being no different. He weasels his way into the main control chamber but instead of finding Lobot free and under guard working the manifold, his friend is hooked up to the circuit and in immense pain, being mined for data.
It's a brutal and unforgiving scene, and as Lando tries to free him from Cloud City's central processing core, Lobot starts to grimace. It seems there's some alarm system or failsafe set up in case anyone tries to extract him and the city starts venting flare gas that's considered dangerous. This is a warning sign the system's compromised and once Lando triggers it, guards head his way. He knows he's in for a tough battle but he wants to ensure his friend's integrity remains intact, which won't be easy as Imperial troops have orders to hold Lobot prisoner at all costs.
Though, knowing that Lobot was sending Lando intel in ROTJ for the rebels to use against Imperial forces makes this moment less tense. Still, it'll be interesting to see how Lando gets everyone off this aerial rock in one piece. Lobot's a fun character who really didn't get that much time in the limelight so here's hoping there are a couple more tricks up his sleeve before the run ends.