Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #7 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS No. 7, January 2021

Despite containing enough lethal laser-blasts to populate a Death Star detention cell corridor with, as well as “the deadliest bounty hunting duo in the galaxy”, Ethan Sacks’ plot for this twenty-page periodical probably didn’t land all that well with some readers due to its somewhat contrived conclusion. Sure, the former film editor for the New York Daily News fills this comic with plenty of excellently penned, high-octane action and some truly exciting one-on-one combat sequences. But then arguably ruins it all by manufacturing an unlikely arrangement between Beilert Valance and his nonsense pursuers at this book’s very end; “All of us can walk away… But the girl stays. And I’ll make it worth your while.”

Indeed, having already chased the Chorin-born cyborg to a secret Rebel base it seems somewhat preposterous that Zuckuss and 4-LOM would suddenly decide to let their quarry escape their clutches unharmed, simply because he offers them a highly valuable fire ruby the one-time Carida Academy cadet was given by his lover, Yuralla Vega. Considering that the mercenaries both outnumber the “badly wounded Valance” and will collect the same reward for their target either dead or alive, it would surely make much more sense for them to just blast him to pieces at point blank range and subsequently take the treasure off of his cold corpse..?

Furthermore, the so-called sentimental value of the prized rock to Valance is badly undermined by a flashback scene on the planet Lowik, in which Sacks depicts the “cold-hearted cretin” simply giving the token back to Vega “years ago” because he feels the young woman’s good luck charm would do her more good than him. Such an act seems completely at odds with this comic’s pre-publicity boast that in handing the fire ruby over to the victorious insectoid male Gand findsman, Beilert is supposedly making “the toughest decision of his entire life.”

Happily however, up until this discomfiting choice, the plot to Issue Seven of “Star Wars: Bounty Hunters” is first-rate, with Paolo Villanelli pencilling some superb gun-fights and close combat confrontations. The “ambitious LOM-series protocol droid” 4-LOM seems especially well-served in this area, with the artist really capturing the Terminator-like determination of the robot to kill his opponent, even when the galactic thief’s plating and motor circuits are badly damaged.

The regular cover art of STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS #7 by Lee Bermejo