“With Friends Like These…”
Creative Staff:
Story: Ethan Sacks
Art: Paolo Villanelli
Colors: Arif Prianto
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
FORLORN FOR 4-LOM! T’ONGA and her bounty hunters are desperate to recover 4-LOM for their mission…but the upgraded killer droid is the one hunting them aboard a ghost ship. Can ZUCKUSS survive a reunion with his onetime partner? Meanwhile, VUKORAH makes her move…and the criminal underworld will never be the same!
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 still there because something about it more often than not just doesn’t click. Certain elements work, especially when focused on Valance, but the variety of the cast and the bounty hunters themselves aren’t as compelling as you’d hope. 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, Paolo Villanelli and Arif Prianto are very familiar names within this franchise for the comics and it looks and feels quite good with the variety of characters and some of the seedier aspects of the concept.
Unfortunately, this installment has nothing to do with Valance directly and that means it’s all supporting cast, which is vastly uninteresting to me. The material with Vukorah has a little bit going for it as she essentially takes control of the Unbroken Clan in Cadeliah’s name since she’ll be going for control of her and that has her eliminating the man currently in charge who thought Cadeliah was dead. It’s a decent enough fight when you get down to it but I’m still nowhere near invested in this clan and knowing that Vukorah is working the Crimson Dawn angle for her own purposes – and knowing how all that plays out – just reduces the impact and interest there. Crimson Dawn felt like it had potential but it ended up just sputtering to its own weird close later on.
The other half of the book follows T’onga and her crew as they go hunting for Cadeliah as well, but they have to get 4-Lom first. Since the droid was reprogrammed before, Zuckuss is intent on getting his friend back but they also need the droid to be able to find out where Cadeliah is. Of course, 4-Lom is still in its kill Zuckuss mode and that means it lays a trap to draw in its old friend and that makes for a pretty fun bug hunt of sorts on the space station where they’re looking for him. The rest of the crew just isn’t interested in most of what Zuckuss represents as they’re continually tormenting him and what can’t be called a friendly way. The action for this is the main draw, and seeing the best buds back together by the end, so it works on that kind of basic level and does deliver what it needs to. I can take Zuckuss in small doses and this was definitely not a small dose – on top of other characters that I don’t care much for.
In Summary:
The Bounty Hunter series continues to have its good moments and interesting characters but this issue was not one of them. It is slowly moving the larger storyline forward and I can appreciate that it’s not just barreling through it but rather working at it. But when we get to these characters being the primary story with Valance kept from being in the book, it’s just far less interesting to me. The artwork is great, the action is fun, and the end goals move things along, but the characters just don’t do a thing for me on so many levels.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: January 12th, 2022
MSRP: $4.99
