The Third Law

The Third Law is a clever and tightly-written story full of political intrigue, scheming, plotting and counter-plotting, and really the only thing wrong with it is that it does not feel like a Star Wars story at all.

Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2 are on a mission for the Rebel Alliance to a planet that is nothing but a giant space bank. They want to get money to meet Paul Darrow buy more space ships, but Darth Vader is there too.

The exposition of the space bank's three laws is delivered by way of a huge sign with them written on it.

While a space bank is not intrinsically something that does not belong in Star Wars, the idea that Darth Vader is as subject to its laws as the rebels and so it acts as neutral territory where they cannot immediately fight definitely is something that does not fit in with anything established elsewhere in Star Wars.

Darth Vader has three aliens with him, each of whom has a superpower with which he plans to cheat the laws and kill Princess Leia's friend Viscount Tardi. The aliens are in disguise, but Princess Leia displays her cleverness by recognising them.

Most of the story is taken up with the three attempts to kill Viscount Tardi, each of which is foiled by Princess Leia with the help of C3PO and R2D2. These are enjoyable scenes, let down only by the foundation of the premise upon which they are built.

When all of his alien friends have been defeated, Darth Vader deals with Viscount Tardi personally using his laser blade.

At this point the story degenerates into an overly-convoluted mess of "I knew you were going to do that" and "I knew that you knew that I was going to do that" between Princess Leia and Darth Vader. Viscount Tardi was a droid all along, and R2D2 made a recording of Darth Vader using an illegal weapon so it looks like the goodys have won.

But then Darth Vader reveals that his plan was actually to steal the crown jewels of Alderaan that Princess Leia had with her and he knew about all along, so in the end he wins... and looks fabulous when he does so.

Because so many of the twists and turns of the story are only revealed to the reader at the moment they are necessary to create a surprise twist, it has the cumulative effect of making it seem that the writer is making it up as he goes along, and as a result it feels contrived and artificial.

Princess Leia is the obvious choice of main character for the story, but it does not ring true that she could come up against Darth Vader so soon after the events of The Empire Strikes Back without reacting to them, mentioning them or being affected in any way. In fact, as I said at the start, none of the events feel like they fit in with the rest of the Star Wars universe, making this a below-average and easily missable comic.


This would have made more sense as a Blakes 7 story, with Avon, Tarrant and Vila in place of Princess Leia, R2D2 and C3PO, and Servalan instead of Darth Vader. It would even work the other way around, with Servalan as Princess Leia and Avon as Darth Vader.