– Spoiler Review –
Big Heist Energy explodes across the panels of Han Solo & Chewbacca #6, which makes a big, non-stop splash into its final half of the series!
Han seemingly dead by Greedo’s hands (another reason for him to shoot first, actually!) and Chewbacca captured and in prison (with Maz Kanata, at least!), both their prize for Jabba and the Millennium Falcon missing or out of reach, things aren’t looking so hot for the titular duo. As tough as it might seem for them, it means an opportunity for other characters to step into the spotlight and for a fresh energy to take over the series, making this a refreshing and fun issue. Big Heist and Breakout Energy really does make a difference!
For Chewbacca, we join him in the middle of a prison fight, because of course everyone wants to test their mettle against a Wookiee, but he finds help from a surprising source: Phaedra, a young inmate with a rap sheet as lengthy as Chewie’s life. Her assistance isn’t without expectations, as she sits down with Maz Kanata and explains she has a “fool proof” plan to escape, but she needs Chewie and Maz…and two other familiar faces. During their entire chat, Chewie’s embroiled in a cafeteria fight, bodies flying behind them as he battles through them, Maz unconcerned about Chewie’s health in the battle. The other two inmates Phaedra needs are Panda Baba and Dr. Evazan, of all the terrible people, and while she says Maz and Chewie’s sizes are part of why she needs them, it’s not very clear why she wants those two psychopaths. Either way, they aren’t immediately able to bring Chewie into the plan, as the cafeteria fights lands him in front of the prison’s tribunal, who sentence him to a 100 years due to all the crimes he’s wanted for. There was no doubt he’d be willing to join in with Phaedra’s plan regardless, but knowing it’s 100 years it certainly helps Chewie swallow Maz’s reveal much easier: for the plan to work, Chewie needs to die! A prison break with these 5 sounds fun enough already, but needing him to “die” certainly ramps up my curiosity and if writer Marc Guggenheim can keep up this energy and pace, it could very well be a blast.
As this all plays out, a heist for the Falcon and the valuable urn unfold as well, a fast pace endeavor with a witty enough script and mounting problems that keep things exciting, but the pace means some later moments go by too fast for their own good. We catch up with Khel Tanna, T’onga, Corbus (aka Han’s non-dad), Ooris, Greedo, and Akko as they work to get the Falcon out of the Marshal’s compound and secure the urn at the same time, since that’s where Corbus left it last. Even without Han, smooth-talking is an invaluable tool of a smuggler and bounty hunter’s trade, and somehow Greedo manages to help with the grift of distraction, though it’s T’onga and Corbus who lead the way while pretending to be Imperials at the compound. Meanwhile, Khel and Ooris sneak out of smuggling compartments in her Corellian ship’s upper hallways, the expected floorboard ones the distraction, and get to work freeing the Falcon from a docking clamp. Stormtroopers and TIE fighters naturally become problems, but the team is efficient enough they slip out and way to a hiding place to celebrate gaining back the urn, though their flight from the Imperial base and their battle with dozens of TIEs is sort of skipped over, a little jarring even with the hyped-up pace. Regardless, Corbus goes to grab the urn from the place he stashed it and, much like Ooris was concerned about before they flew away, it’s missing! All this hard work and near death experiences only to come up empty?! There’s no hints, other than likely some Imperial has it now, but a recent solicitation for an upcoming issue hinted at quite the surprising new owner (click if you dare for spoilers).
A whole issue of Han Solo & Chewbacca without Han?! I honestly found this to be the best issue of the series so far and was it due to a lack of Han or just the refreshed storyline and BHE? Well, the issue wasn’t totally devoid of Han Solo, as the last two pages take us to what resembles a resort planet in the Outer Rim, filled with an amphibious population fishing along their shores, enjoying their lives. Two of the inhabitants discuss something washing up on shore over a week ago, thought dead, and their doctor doing the best despite not knowing much about the alien’s physiology, and it’s revealed to be: Han Solo! So after Greedo shot him in the gut, presumed dead, they dumped him in the ocean of some nowhere planet in the Outer Rim?! Talk about cruel…good thing Han had plot armor otherwise that’s a tough break to come back from. How and when he’ll manage to get off-world, especially considering he’s not the best negotiator and has a habit for anger, could be an interesting new wrinkle to the series.
David Messina has been piloting this ship for the first 5 issues by himself, but for issue #6 he’s joined by Paul Fry, while Alex Sinclair continues on as colorist, and Joe Caramagna as letterer. It was hard to tell where Messina ended and Fry started, which is a good thing since far too often two artists have meant wildly different looking panels moment to moment and breaks the reading experience, while I noticed a little less of the shiny sheen to characters and their faces that has been prominent in the series to this point. I really loved the look of the planet Escalan, where Han was dumped, as it seemed like such an idyllic world from its fancy, seaside resort like buildings and leisurely fishing, but also too the beautiful panel of the planet hanging in space, two smaller bodies and their sun shining down on them. The Escalaneses (Escalanes? Escalans?) are a very cool design as well, with the flat face without a nose, gills, and headtails, while their little boats have special decals on the back to differentiate them; it’s only a little bit in two pages, but it all adds up enough to make them feel thought-out, not some throwaway addition, even if they only ever appear in this series. The prison’s tribunal situation was also eye-catching, from the floating chairs, the intricate pattern to the wall behind them, to the lonely feeling center circle inmates must stand, there’s a lot of design attributed to one location in an attempt to make the prisoners feel small and insignificant. The floating chairs, hanging far above even a Wookiee, have Chewie look up at his captors, the pattern in the background suggesting grandeur they can never touch, and their placement in a circular space high above the ground doesn’t shy away from the danger an inmate is in while there. Sinclair’s colors give the room some opulence, with the shiny lights which seem to be there to overpower the prisoner’s senses and make squint in the eyes of justice (or something like that!). Helping humor land must be a tough job, but this team makes it look easy, especially Caramagna, as he keeps dialogue out of the way of a random Dug Chewie sends flying past Phaedra and Maz as they sit and talk, the lack of SFX and the Dug just hanging in air shows how little the two women care about the fight going on around them.
Here is one other thing:
- It was weird to see Corbus with some color in his hair and no eye-patch, looking far younger, to the point I almost didn’t recognize him from the opening 5 issues.
- I also felt like the one page of Panda and Evazan finding a way to add another death sentence to their rap sheet felt out of a place and little confusing, as while I imagine it’s part of Phaedra’s plan, it felt extraneous to the issue overall/could’ve been explained in some dialogue in the next issue.
Han Solo & Chewbacca #6 rides the Big Heist/Breakout Energy to a great start for the final half of the maxiseries!
+ Loving the energy
+ Prison break looks like it’ll be a good time
– Pace brings jarring situations
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.
HAN SOLO & CHEWBACCA REVIEWS
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