Something happened on the way to Jabba’s Palace…and that’s what we’re about to find out in the mega-crossover event for Star Wars comics starting in May! Boba Fett’s plans to drop off the frozen Han Solo to Jabba go awry when everyone hunts him down for the prize, something that will spill across the current on-goings and lead to a new miniseries, War of the Bounty Hunters. Head below for the few details we have and a look at all the crossover covers!
Spearheaded by luminous The High Republic author Charles Soule (Light of the Jedi), and current writer of the Star Wars (Vol.2) series, War of the Bounty Hunters comes from an idea of his, but the writers of the other on-goings, Alyssa Wong (Doctor Aphra {Vol. 2}), Greg Pak (Darth Vader {Vol. 3}), and Ethan Sacks (Bounty Hunters) helped him with the story as it’ll bleed into the other series. On May 5, War of the Bounty Hunters Alpha #1 “Prelude: Precious Cargo” will launch, written by Soule with art by Steve McNiven and colors from Laura Martin, kickstarting the story of Boba’s problems holding onto the frozen Solo (Dude, where’s my Solo?). Throughout the rest of May, the crossovers will commence, with Star Wars #13 (Vol. 2) “Prelude: The Hunt for Han Solo” on 5/12, Bounty Hunters #12 “Prelude: Target Solo” on 5/19, and on 5/26 both Darth Vader #12 (Vol. 3) “Prelude: Into the Trap” and Doctor Aphra #10 (Vol. 3) “Prelude: The Invitation,” release and wrap up the crossover, leading into the miniseries proper. In June, the War of the Bounty Hunters 5-issue miniseries starts, written by Soule with art from Luke Ross (Age of Republic), with its final issue dropping in October. We’ll do our best to make it clear what part of this big crossover series we’re covering in our reviews of each issue, while you can follow the our tag War of the Bounty Hunters to keep track!
This is the biggest crossover they have yet to do with Marvel’s Star Wars comics, as previous crossovers would take two series and bounce the story between them, but now we have an “Alpha” issue, 4 issues of “Prelude,” and then the miniseries?! From what we’ve been told regarding the story, be it in the interview with Soule on the official site’s blog or the Marvel blog’s post, it seems a little crazy to think this tale of Boba trying to get back the carbonite hunk of Han Solo would require so much content! But from Soule’s own Twitter account, and the tease at the end of the interview, it seems this is destined to set up far larger things, so I’ll be curious to see what this could all possibly entail and build towards. Everyone and everything from Vader, Aphra, Luke/Leia, the Pykes, Jabba the Hutt, Bossk, Dengar, 4-LOM, IG-88, to Black Sun have all been mentioned, so it certainly will bring together a large cast of characters and organizations. As for what it could all build into…could this all be a prelude itself to canon’s version of Shadows of the Empire, the original multimedia event that filled in the story between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi? Having Black Sun involved, who previously haven’t had a big part in canon but were heavily involved with SotE, are the only things I really have going for this theory, but whatever comes next will likely be on a similar scope/level from how they are hyping this up. In fact, as I was discussing it with fellow Manor writer Chris, he also pointed out, regardless if there’s a Shadows-level story after this, WotBH could set-up how all these organizations continue and grow to cause trouble for the New Republic after RotJ; it would make sense publishing, alongside all the shows set in the era, would begin to build up and into the post-Return of the Jedi era, long left alone (beyond a few stories) since the announcement of the sequel trilogy. Plus, it could even set the stage for some events in The Book of Boba Fett TV show later this year, a result of his excellent return in The Mandalorian’s second season, maybe giving some background on grudges or grievances he’ll square in the show.
From Soule’s interview, there’s some preview images for the Alpha issue and I’m intrigued by what appears to be problems with the carbonite encasing Han. Boba takes the slab to a Besalisk known as Doc Leroy to figure out what’s happening and I have to wonder: is this actually what Lando was doing to the slab when he messed with a few dials on Cloud City? It would be fun for it to be more than him checking/ensuring the vitals would stay healthy, but that he did attempt to mess with it so Han could break out/free, which would only add to his backtrack from his betrayal of the Rebellion to the Empire. On Twitter, Greg Pak revealed his Vader issue of the crossover will explore when he first learns Han’s name… I don’t think that’ll be as consequential as when he learned the pilot who destroyed the Death Star had the last name of Skywalker, but I’m curious how/why learning Han’s name might affect Vader; some people have pointed out Vader’s involvement seems like a stretch due to giving Han to Boba, but maybe now that his gambit to capture Luke failed he wants to try Han as bait again…maybe? We’ll know more, and how/why this tale will take up so many issues, beginning in May.
Overall, I’m enjoying the writer team arrayed for this and how stretched out/not rushed this feels, but the idea of a Boba Fett-focused crossover isn’t exactly top of my list; his TV appearance, as mentioned above, was great, but his most recent comic appearances haven’t been top notch, despite the fact some of the controversy has been addressed with a reveal recently. Honestly, if there wasn’t a show coming up for Boba and Fennec Shand, I’d probably be more eager for this, but I’m more about the show at the moment but I’d love for this to beat expectations.
UPDATE APRIL 2021: This crossover keeps getting bigger all the time! Thanks to the June comic solicitations and the recent reveal of variant covers and a 4-issue run of one-shots, the story of War of the Bounty Hunters looks more and more massive by the parsec!
Otherwise, check out the rather awesomely and neatly designed covers for the crossover issues below! We’ll know a little more about each issue when the solicitations for May drop on Thursday, so tune back into the Manor then for potentially even more details then!
Star Wars #13 (Vol. 2) “Prelude: The Hunt for Han Solo”
Bounty Hunters #12 “Prelude: Target Solo”
Darth Vader #12 (Vol. 3) “Prelude: Into the Trap”
Doctor Aphra #10 (Vol. 3) “Prelude: The Invitation”
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.