We’ve had a Chewbacca miniseries in 2015 and a Han Solo one in 2016, so to quote the famous meme/gif: why not both?! Marvel announced today a new on-going comic starring the close-knit pair, Han Solo & Chewbacca, set to release in March 2022, which will be written by Marc Guggenheim, with art by David Messina. Set a few years prior to A New Hope, the comic will follow the smugglers’ chaotic lifestyle leading up to their fateful meeting with a young moister farmer, exploring jobs they took with Jabba the Hutt and more. Read below for more details from the interview with Guggenheim, which helped turned me from a shrug to cautiously optimistic about this. Plus, see the full cover for upcoming anthology Stories of Jedi & Sith!
In the interview, where the series is often compared to Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid, Guggenheim describes the inciting incident for the series:
“In the first issue, Jabba the Hutt gives them what should be an easy job: Steal something and bring it back to him. But the job turns out to be anything but easy as everything that can go wrong promptly does.”
Greedo will join them on this job and adding in the fact anything and everything will go wrong makes me wonder if it’ll end up being the infamous one that causes Jabba to put a bounty on the pair or if that’ll come in due time in the series. T’onga, who has an awesome crew now in the Bounty Hunters series set after The Empire Strikes Back, will also make appearances here, so maybe we’ll get to see how she meets Losha, her wife? It’s a surprising but neat character crossover and makes me happy we’re expanding the series’ cast in such a way we know there’s some added diversity already, while Guggenheim has promised more comic characters as well; it can’t be Doctor Aphra, unfortunately, since Han and her don’t meet until after A New Hope, but I look forward to seeing who else appears. Speaking of that, he’s also promised new characters and one surprise at the end of issue one he thinks no one will see coming. Big talk and I’m eager to see who it might be!
One of the most exciting prospects for me with Han Solo & Chewbacca is more Chewbacca, especially with at least one issue already planned to be from the Wookiee’s POV! In his 2015 miniseries, we had Chewie filtered through an incredibly fun new character but at times it wasn’t always clear what he was feeling or thinking, so I hope Guggenheim’s POV issue manages to be clearer. And by having Chewie share top billing with Han, he shouldn’t be regulated to the background as he usually seems to in the main Star Wars comic, like how he’s not been in the forefront as the Rebellion went after the frozen Han Solo, though he did have his chance to shine in Greg Pak’s short run on the first volume. Making sure he’s just as vital to the series as Han will be an important part of my enjoyment of the coming series.
While Han can’t change much either, Guggenheim says he’s been working out how to keep the character engaging:
“…I’ve been playing with is the tension between the “hopeless romantic” Han reveals himself to be at the end of Solo and the hard-bitten cynic we meet in Episode IV. To be very reductive about it, I’ve searched for opportunities to force Han to choose between his lesser and greater angels.”
That push and pull should make for good drama and show more highs and lows for the character before he runs into Luke and Leia and his life is forever changed. The previous Han Solo miniseries in 2016 was a damn delight pushing and pulling the character, still fighting his decision to be with the Rebellion, so hopefully this series can match some of that, while it was one of the first Star Wars comic written by a woman and it of course turned out way better than expected. We’ve already seen some Han after Solo, thanks to Daniel José Older’s delightful Last Shot, so I’m interested to see if he pulls anything from the film as well, maybe some Enfys Nest sightings? Which reminds me, we should have an Enfys Nest series instead of this, but I’m at least intrigued enough after the interview to be cautiously optimistic about Han Solo & Chewbacca.
Artist David Messina has assisted on pages for the final three issues of the War of the Bounty Hunter miniseries, and it’s not totally clear which are his sometimes compared to Luke Ross’, but I did enjoy all the art for those issues so I feel like we should be in good hands. I will miss the art from both Han and Chewie’s respective series, as Mark Brooks provided art George Lucas even wanted to buy and the stellar Phil Noto did interiors for Chewbacca, probably the best version of the walking carpet I’ve yet to see, though others have thankfully come close. We’ll find out how Messina fairs come March 2022!
Lastly, the full cover for Stories of Jedi & Sith (out June 7, 2022) was revealed as well, put together by illustrator Jake Bartok:
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.