One of the most heart-warming moments of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was seeing C-3PO back on the big screen once again. But when he appeared, everyone immediately noticed that there was one huge difference to the droid. He suddenly had a red arm. Obviously with so much going on in The Force Awakens there wasn’t time to explain what happened to C-3PO. But your minds can now be put to rest, because we’ve finally learned exactly how C-3PO lost his arm. And, as you probably expected, it’s a doozy of a story.
The details surrounding C-3PO’s injury were revealed in the Marvel one-shot comic Star Wars: C-3PO #1, which was created by James Robinson, Tony Harris, and Joe Caramagna. You can actually check out some pages from Star Wars: C-3PO #1 by heading over to io9.
Rather obviously, there are spoilers ahead. So proceed cautiously.
It turns out that C-3PO was part of a rag-tag team of Resistance droids that crash landed on an unidentified planet. In this disaster, the entire human crew of the ship was killed, which left the droids stranded alongside their captive Omri, who just so happened to be an enemy First Order RA-7 protocol droid.
The fact that Omri survived was rather integral, because this evil droid actually possessed information on where the legendary Admiral Ackbar was being kept captured, as well as further information that the Resistance needed to save the life of Mon Calamari, and stop him from being executed.
But Omri leads the Resistance droids into a trap. C-3PO, alongside his posse of droids, locate a distress beacon from a TIE fighter that had crash landed, which unfortunately happens to be on the other side of the planet, and they have to race there before it’s too late.
Suffice it to say, everything doesn’t go too well. In fact, all of the droids except for Threepio die both horribly and pointlessly. Rather luckily for Star Wars fans, C-3PO managed to escape this trauma only minus an arm. In the end, Omri actually sacrifices himself to help C-3PO. And as a tribute to the fallen droid, Threepio uses Omri’s arm as his own. Which is slightly disgusting but at the same time touching.
You can take a look at the rather impressive cover for Star Wars: C-3PO #1 below. I mean, just look how statuesque C-3PO looks on the front of the publication.
The first appearance of C-3PO, and the revelation that he has a red arm, provoked arguably the biggest laugh in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But, while the comic suggests that C-3PO had made a lasting tribute to Omri, by the end of The Force Awakens he’d actually returned his arm to its previous color. Which basically suggests that C-3PO is a heartless bastard.
