Some truths are revealed as the chaos unfolds.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marc Guggenheim
Art: David Messina
Colors: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
“LET’S KEEP A LITTLE OPTIMISM HERE.” But optimism is hard to come by with the Millennium Falcon gone and Han and Chewie in their toughest spot ever! Greedo is back and boy, is he mad! Featuring the returns of Marshal Buck Vancto and Khel Tanna. Which one is going to get their hands on Han first?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a decent run of issues so far that hasn’t quite hit its stride or found the right tone yet, it’s definitely been fun but kind of inessential in a way. Which is fine because sometimes you just want to have adventures with characters you like, which is why I had tons of Han and Chewie stories as a kid with my action figures. Marc Guggenheim may not have cracked the code but he has loosened it up significantly where there’s a good feel to this that comes across as pre-ANH Han Solo. Here, he’s joined by David Messina on the art duties and we get a solid piece that captures the Star Wars design and aesthetic and is trying to bring in some of that youthful Solo that predates Ford’s ANH period. He was leading man material then but was over a decade older than the other two main leads. Trying to find that balance isn’t easy but I think Messina has captured it, and that really is half the battle here.
As the story moves along a bit further here, it’s a pretty action-filled installment which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s just filled with characters that we’ve got a limited connection with which can be problematic at times. Han and Chewie’s fortunes have been all over the map in this run but they do manage to get off the planetoid when Khel Tanna and her group show up on their Falcon-model ship. They’re on the same job as Han in trying to get the urn and they know he has it, which of course is semi-true as his father is the one that has it. But they don’t learn that until they had to Antillion first and find that where Han had left it that it’s not there anymore and that his father faked being injured and absconded with it and the Falcon. Suffice to say, Han has a lot of people – including Greedo now – who are ready to finish him off since things have gone sideways so much.
Han does at least reveal that he figured out that his father isn’t actually his father and slipped him a tracker a while ago, which keeps him alive since Han is useful now. His father has been picked up by a Benelex Marshall and has been taken to their homeworld/facility and that means a lot of problems in trying to rescue him in order to get the urn. This ups the complications with the growing cast and getting the reveal of who Han’s father really is, but it lead to a pretty good action sequence in trying to deal with the marshall and the urn itself. I do like that it takes the turn of having Chewie captured by the marshall so that the group doesn’t get away cleanly, and Han’s fate is a bit circumspect at the moment, but we get what looks to be a first meet between Chewie and an interesting character that I doubt will get explored heavily but at least presents itself.
In Summary:
There continues to be a basic kind of fun to this property and it’s enjoyable as a kind of simple space opera romp. At times it doesn’t feel very Star Wars-y outside of the characters being used but it has at least captured the right voice for Han at this point in time and just seeing him and Chewie fall into problematic situations is fun. I’m curious to see how things go with the next installment and where the series finds itself after the first storyline. Part of it is just figuring out the nature of the character and property with that first storyline and getting a better handle on the next, so I’m holding out hope that it can come together better. But if not, it’s still a fun romp that you can treat lightly and enjoy without trying to connect things too hard – for the most part.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: August 10th, 2022
MSRP: 3.99
