Written by Charles Soule
Art by Luke Ross
Published by Marvel Comics
This is one of those cringe-worthy issues due to the cliché tone of our main characters. Perhaps it works for some, but it’s just not my cup of blue milk.
Picking up as Darth Vader threatens to slice up Han Solo, frozen in Carbonite, we’re immediately told what’s happening both visually and via dialogue. Enough already. There are plenty of issues in the War of the Bounty Hunter series that work really well without spoon-feeding the reader.
Setting my dislike for the writing choices aside, the biggest problem with this particular point in the story line is that it doesn’t make sense to me according to Star Wars canon.
The same bullet point gets reiterated:
Solo is much, “too valuable a prize to the Empire to let go.” Then why give him to Boba Fett in the first place?
If Vader wanted to lure Luke Skywalker into another fight, why not send a garrison of troops to Jabba’s Palace and ambush him?
Perhaps this is a flaw in Return of the Jedi, but then again, the Emperor did foresee Luke surrendering.
Maybe I’m missing something.
What’s worse is that this issue takes our main characters from the Bounty Hunters series issues, Valance and Dengar, who I truly liked, and dumbs them down.
Dengar, who has been built up to be a sympathetic character, is given an exit about as unceremonious as Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi.
What might be most egregious is a repeat of one of the worst sequences in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi; an excoriatingly slow spaceship chase while side quests are happening. Here, while a shuttle carries carbonite frozen Han Solo to Darth Vader’s flag ship, The Executor, Boba Fett has a philosophical conversation with Valance as Leia, Lando and Chewie pursue this shuttle and its precious cargo with the fastest hunk of junk in that galaxy.
Somehow there’s enough time for Boba to recruit Valance, get to Slave One and disable the Millennium Falcon which has already had quite a head start.
Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader dogfight in the skies above because Luke isn’t ready face Darth Vader again, lightsaber to lightsaber. This entire plot point feels forced. The whole interaction between Luke, Vader and Leia could have been done with no need for Luke to verbally announce his presence to anyone using a certain Star Wars universe foundation called The Force. This was done very effectively towards the end of the Empire Strikes Back when Luke reached out to Leia via the Force, dangling precariously on some sort of antenna below Cloud City.
This series had the dubious task of trying to create a convincing story about what happened during Han Solo’s journey from Cloud City to Jabba’s palace. There’s been a ton to enjoy so far, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, at times, certain plot points trip over themselves trying to justify our beloved heroes motivations that run contrary to what Star Wars fans grew up excepting as canon.
This issue wasn’t all bad, though. What I did like is what’s going on with the Hutts; scheming, double-crossing and ending up in an exciting end panel.
