Star Wars: War Of The Bounty Hunters #1 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS: WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS No. 1, August 2021

Those fans blissfully unaware that Issue One of "Star Wars: War Of The Bounty Hunters" was actually preceded by “a canon one-shot”, were probably quite a bit perturbed by his comic’s succinctly short opening crawl detailing that Boba Fett had somehow lost the carbonite-contained body of Han Solo following the events seen in Irvin Kershner's 1980 science fiction film "The Empire Strikes Back". Sure, the sudden loss of the male mercenary’s "greatest prize of all” certainly promises to have the mini-series depict a lot of exhilarating gun-play and violence in “a galaxy far, far away.” But it also begs the question as to just why Jabba’s most favoured enforcer would even dare risk the Hutt’s infamous wrath by not flying straight back from Cloud City to the gangster’s palace on Tatooine..?

Fortunately, such ignorance doesn’t impact too much upon Charles Soule’s narrative for “Most Wanted”, courtesy of the Milwaukee-born writer quickly gathering up any unconvinced readers with his penmanship’s pulse-pounding pace. Indeed, just as soon as a positively peeved Fett arrives at Nar Shaddaa and begins offloading his problems to the corpulent bar-tender, Jango’s son is shown blasting away both inexperienced hot-heads and Gand findsmen within the space of just a few panels; “Thought you could predict the future, Zuckuss. Should’ve seen that coming.”

These intense fire-fights simply don’t stop either, at least until the thirty-page periodical’s concluding revelation as to just who was personally behind the Corellian smuggler’s theft, due to the American author continuing to portray Boba at his most murderously impatient - even when confronted with the combined forces of Bib Fortuna and a plethora of the majordomo’s most deadly assassins. These enthralling skirmishes genuinely help the book’s plot bound along at a corking rate, and also quickly establish the formidable reputation that the Mandalorian clone has throughout the universe as a stone cold killer who only those as “tough as hell, or too stupid to know” better would rip off.

Helping such scintillating storytelling is Luke Ross, whose proficient ability to illustrate this title’s central character in his prime makes every picture involving the bounty hunter well worth an additional look or two. The Brazilian artist also does a particularly fine job of pencilling the overly-confident Zuckuss and his constant companion, 4-LOM, and as a result it’s arguably something of a shame that the skilled insectoid tracker doesn’t last longer against the devastating firepower of Slave 1’s ion cannons.

The regular cover art for "STAR WARS: WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS" #1 by Steve McNiven & Frank D'Armata