WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters #1 by Charles Soule, Luke Ross, Neeraj Menon, and VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
While Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn't exactly a resounding box office success, the story of Han Solo's past, how he met Chewbacca and what started his smuggling career still has more than a few fans. It took him to villains such as Tobias Beckett, Dryden Vos and a very shady Lando Calrissian. But after he sped off with the Millennium Falcon to explore more of the galaxy's seedy criminal underworld in a cliffhanger ending, a sequel never materialized.
While we might not see Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover up to more space shenanigans on the big screen anytime soon, Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters #1 is almost a perfect sequel to the themes and characters of Solo, even if the Millennium Falcon pilot is frozen in carbonite.
In this story set before Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Boba Fett loses Han's frozen body before he can deliver it to Jabba the Hutt. He has to track the thieves down but it's easier said than done. Jabba's pissed he took so long to deliver so he has a bounty on Boba's head now, which sets hunters such as Valance and Dengar after him. It's revealed Qi'ra, Han's ex and a main player from Solo is behind the heist and auctioning Han off to the highest bidder.
The Hutt clans are accepting Qi'ra's invitation, while we see others like Aphra, Darth Vader and the Rebels also being informed she's got him hostage. Qi'ra's using her role as the leader of Crimson Dawn to bring everyone together to either buy him or die trying.
If Han was not frozen, Qi'ra kidnapping and using him as this symbol would be smart, as it'd show she learned Dryden's sneaky ways and truly became a villain under her real boss, Darth Maul. We didn't find out what happened when she went to train with him on Dathomir, Qi'ra behaving so sadistically, torturing Han and wanting his new love Leia dead hints that she may have taken his lessons to heart. It'd show her as a true mastermind and Maul's successor, toying with the Empire and Han's nastiest enemy in Boba.
But now, War of the Bounty Hunters shown how important Han is by giving so many different characters and factions a reason to want to reclaim his body for their own purposes. Every major player in the Galaxy is either trying to rescue, kill or imprison Han, and Qi'ra controls his destiny. In Solo, Han was always wrapped around her finger, and her descent into villainy turns another one of Solo's signature characters into the center of the Galaxy.
Qi'ra always told Han that he would affect great change. While he might be out cold, her prediction is proving to be right, even as she maintains the Crimson Dawn as the kind of criminal organization that a young Han feared.
0 Comments