“Flight of the Dark Squadron”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ethan Sacks
Art: Ramon Bachs
Colors: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
CHAOS SPREADS THROUGH THE UNDERWORLD! As Crimson Reign has ignited the underworld in all-out war, T’ONGA’s team of bounty hunters – including BOSSK, ZUCKUSS and TASU LEECH – are running out of time to save the one young girl who can stop the conflict between syndicates! A mysterious bounty hunter is out to assassinate a high ranking Imperial officer in a daring hit on a heavily armed cruiser. But was the hunter given the right target?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
My hesitance at the start of this series at the time of its original release is now leaning into the first crossover storyline with all the other books and it was a crossover that didn’t work that well for me in the end. Most Star Wars crossover events just never seem to click for me anyway. That said, I’m enjoying taking it at my own pace a fair bit later and knowing that there’s a lot ahead of me as well. The book comes from writer Ethan Sacks and it has a pretty solid feeling overall as we get to see the slow growth and exploration of this fairly complex character and his history. With this issue, we get a chance in artwork as Ramon Bachs steps in to handle things with Bryan Valenza on the color design. As expected, it largely adheres to Star Wars “house” style but we get some good stuff from Bachs that showcases their talents well with some interesting details both in characters and in the backgrounds.
With Valance now under the control of Vader, the first test since getting his upgrades and being cleaned up is to go after someone he admires in General Sokoli. We got some of the flashback stuff the last time around and this issue starts off with another encounter between the two when Valance was a cadet. He and Solo end up literally bumping into Sokoli and even then you could see how jaded he was – and figuring that he was a holdover from the Republic as well makes sense. There’s a tension that exists there that’s interesting as Sokoli sees what Valance has already lost at that point with his leg and eye and basically apologizes to him. And that on top of not remembering the world that Valance was from and it being the inspiration for his joining, it’s a brutal encounter.
The present-day storyline of him being assigned with Dark Squadron to take down Sokoli is fairly decently done with Sokoli’s ship being lured into a trap. It’s a pretty good space battle we get with the TIE Defenders going at the ship and its complement of TIE fighters that shows how Valance interacts with this kind of fairly hardcore crew. But Valance shows just how hardcore he is himself as he wants to deal with Sokoli face to face and plows his Defender right into the bridge so he can stumble out and lay it all out in person. It’s comical to a degree because it’s the kind of crash that should just blow everything up but I appreciate the “cinematic” approach of a confrontation like this considering the history that gets presented for the two men. And for Vader, that kind of move shows that he’s got a useful tool that he can manipulate more going forward.
In Summary:
Bounty Hunters has a pretty good setup for what’s next here and I’m enjoying seeing Valance under Vader’s control since that takes some of the unpredictable elements of his personality out of play. He’s going to do the job for a number of reasons but there’s always that element of him being trained to succeed that’s interesting to watch. We do get a chunk of the book given over to T’ong and her crew as they’re trying to find Cadeliah but that’s just very uninteresting still. It puts some time in on Ord Mantell where we see how the Crimson Dawn return has sent things into chaos among the syndicates, but it’s just kind of there and doesn’t feel like it engages well or is all that interesting.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: December 21st, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
