Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #4 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS No. 4, October 2020

Whilst Ethan Sacks’ script for Issue Four of “Star Wars: Bounty Hunters” certainly must have struck many within its audience as being packed full of some seriously ferocious fighting as the comic’s various murderous mercenaries desperately try to claim Nakano Lash’s lucrative head. It is still arguably difficult to understand just what all the fuss was about concerning this publication’s supposed “graphic violence against women” when it first hit the spinner racks in August 2020, and why websites such as “Starwarsnewsnet.com” appealed to fans to “speak up about this because it’s time for this disturbing trend to end.”  

For starters, most of the bloodshed found within this twenty-page periodical is actually perpetrated by the series’ female cast as opposed to its male contingent, with T’onga demonstrating an especially vicious streak by fitting her cybernetic partner Beilert Valance with a restraining bolt and immediately then activating the device to painfully make him aware that she’ll use it on her ‘friend’ without a moment’s hesitation. Similarly as savage are Lash and Cadeliah, who between them literally hack apart Ooris Bynar for threatening to harm the Nautolan’s young protégé. This early scene is remarkably graphic as the Thisspiasian male is stabbed in the head, has one of his hands chopped off and is partially strangled with his own tail, before having his neck snapped with a resounding ‘crack’.

However, with perhaps the possible exception of Valance’s unprovoked assault, it is hard to see what else the likes of Lash could possibly otherwise do in the circumstances and every unforgiving blow is debatably justified. Indeed, even T’onga’s appalling behaviour towards Beilert makes some sense within the context of the story being told, as the human has “just walked away from a peaceful, happy life on a homestead with the woman” she loves, in order to kill the person who betrayed her brother, T'ongor, and clearly doesn’t intend for anything or anyone to stop her; “Just making my point. Get in my way and there won’t be enough parts left to put you back together. Oh, and Valance? It’s good to be working with you again.”

Setting aside any gender-driven kill-count issues, “Hunter’s Mutiny” is also noteworthy for containing some wonderfully dynamic artwork by Paolo Villanelli. The Italian artist’s pencilling of the former Imperial cadet battling against a Nexu puppy whilst T’onga guns down a small handful of inexperienced local hired goons is fantastically paced, as are his layouts concerning the flurry of activity which leads to Bynar’s aforementioned grisly demise.

The regular cover art of "STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS" #4 by Lee Bermejo