Written by Charles Soule
Art by Luke Ross
Published by Marvel Comics
War of the Bounty Hunters #3 picks up where we left off weeks ago over multiple storylines; just as Darth Vader arrives to the planet Jekara to claim carbonite frozen Han Solo from Crimson Dawn.
It’s the pivotal moment this series has been building up to. The result?
Mixed.
Which is a shame because, I think the point of this issue was to give Star Wars fans some very cool and unexpected confrontations between new favorite and classic characters.
These match ups were great ideas, but I wasn’t sold on the execution of both the dialogue and, surprisingly, the panel-work fronts. The dialogue was too comic booky (yes, I know these are comics, but since when are comic books bound by rules!) and the panel work was straight forward to the point of depriving us of potential drama.
One of these match-ups pays off the ending of War of the Bounty Hunters #2 when Boba Fett ran into Leia, Lando and Chewbacca after they crashed Crimson Dawn’s auction party. I feared the worst and was pleased that we didn’t get Boba Fett and Leia and company joining forces to thwart Darth Vader.
We did get a cool fight which you’ll have to experience yourself.
I’m spoiling the next match-up because, in all my years of collecting and playing with Star Wars toys, I don’t recall ever putting these two together in the same set-up:
Jabba the Hutt and Darth Vader.
Jabba calls out Vader for trying to snatch his prize out from under him. One of the very few creatures in the entire galaxy who can get away with that and live!
Although I don’t buy Darth Vader even involving himself with carbonite frozen Han Solo after giving him to Boba Fett, it was a fun confrontation and I enjoyed Vader’s confidence, not knowing that his plan to have the Empire win the Han Solo auction failed.
Vader definitely let his envoys get off way too easy for failing to secure Solo, though.
The final confrontation involves Qi’ra from Solo: A Star Wars Story. There has been much fan fiction speculation about what happened to Han’s old flame after they parted ways. We get to see some of this speculation come to fruition and I must admit, it was satisfying.
From this point forward, events run concurrently with Star Wars #16.
Luke Skywalker arrives, setting up another potential confrontation that, given the events of the original films, we’re anxious to see and see how they fit into Return of the Jedi.
As always, we get an exciting end panel, this time leaving us waiting to see why Darth Vader doesn’t just finish off Han Solo right then and there.
