“Trust Issues”
Creative Staff:
Story: Justina Ireland
Art: Ibraim Roberson, Luca Pizzari
Colors: Edgar Delgado, Giada Marchisio
Letterer: CS’s Ariana Maher
What They Say:
JABBA THE HUTT is one of the most powerful and ruthless gangsters in the galaxy—and BOBA FETT, his most trusted bounty hunter, has failed him. How will Jabba deal with betrayal? VIOLENTLY. And what does this have to do with a bounty hunter with ties to the HIGH REPUBLIC? Justina Ireland and Luca Pizzari’s hutt-sized spectacular is the first of four action-packed “War of the Bounty Hunters” tie-ins about the criminal underworld’s most notorious hunters and scoundrels, all told by the best Star Wars writers and illustrators in the galaxy.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ll admit, I’m wary going into the various one-shots here because Marvel has burned me before when it comes to their mainline side of things. What’s helping with this series is that the Star Wars side tends to flesh out things well in books like this and we get some solid talen. Justina Ireland has done the book work previously and has a good style there that translates well here, though things get a little convoluted between flashbacks and trying to keep the overall War continuity together. We get a pair artists here and colorists that focus separately on present-day and flashback sequences and it works well to highlight the separate time periods while also showing different looks for the newly introduced bounty hunter, Deva Lempop
The general premise here is that with Jabba the Hutt having realized that Fett has lost his most exalted prize, he’s intent on getting him back. And to do so, he’s sending someone that owes him a debt to find out what happened on Nar Shadda, and that means Deva Lempop. While she prefers to not be an active hunter/assassin type, instead preferring to be an information broker, her debt means she’s pulling the killer outfit out of retirement and heading the smuggler’s moon to do just that. It’s an engaging enough story to show how she operates, but it’s designed to set up how Jabba ends up at the auction and some of the threads that Crimson Dawn is playing with. They’re definitely being built up to being something truly impressive and filled with information that lets them manipulate others exceedingly well.
The flashback story is a little more awkward in its set up as it takes place a few years back and has Deva when she was more under Jabba’s thumb. Here, she’s being sent to investigate trouble at one of his facilities that he believes another Hutt is leaning in on and she’s being sent with the new “pup” in Boba Fett. The banter between the two is a lot of fun and we see more of how Jabba’s operates are and how expansive they are. At the same time, we also see how this far back that Crimson Dawn was manipulating things and gaining power as they had been secretly working the situation, not the Hutts. This feels a little confusing because supposedly they’ve been dormant for a long time and only recently coming back. That said, it’s a lot of fun to watch as the pair navigate this and as we see how Deva is doing her best to navigate Jabba’s world.
In Summary:
With some noise being made prior to the installment being released about Deva Lempop, I can imagine she’s going to show up in a number of places both in this storyline and after that. She’s a solid character that can add some new dimensions to things, has a good design to her, and some connections that can be fun to watch play out. Ireland’s script handles the back and forth well enough and it’s operating slightly outside of the main storyline itself since the ground it covers was largely dealt with back at the very beginning, if not the prelude period. Still, it’s a nice expansion on it and it further cements Crimson Dawn as the group to really watch here.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: July 21st, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
