Star Wars #15 (2020)
WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS:
Friends and Enemies
Princess Leia leads a team on a dangerous mission to rescue Han Solo from Crimson Dawn, who stole Solo from the bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker is desperate to find his path as a Jedi after Darth Vader revealed that he is Luke’s father.
Now Luke embarks on his own rescue mission with Starlight Squadron….
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover artist: Carlo Pagulayan
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: July 28, 2021
We kick off the issue in classic Star Wars fashion as Luke Skywalker joins his battle buddy Wedge Antilles in Starlight Squadron, filling the empty seat left by Shara Bey until she can be rescued. They’re blasting away from the Fourth and Seventh Fleet, heading out for their next mission and hungry for a victory to raise their spirits. As Wedge leads them out to the Outer Rim and Ab Dalis, they find a deserted world all but destroyed, the inference being that it happened during the era of The High Republic when the Great Disaster hit the galaxy. The far side of the crater has repair facilities where they suspect fellow Rebels are holed up, a suspicion proved right when the message comes in that they’re under Imperial assault.
That gives artist Ramon Rosanas the opportunity to deliver a stunning double-page spread showing the defensive sheild buckling under the barrage of fire from the ISD above, and the troops hunkering down as the AT-AT’s attack, on the verge of accepting their grim fate until they realise the ships coming in hot include Wedge and Luke, the heroes of Yavin. Above, the ISD Ultima II are aware of the incoming ships, dismissing them with customary Imperial hubris as the six X-wings and the lone A-wing assess the situation and plough into the wing of TIE Fighters launched from the ISD.
While the battle rages above, the ground troops concoct a unique idea, one that is unclear to the Rebel starships above, but they’re out of options so Luke heads in, the rest keeping the TIE’s off his tail as he remembers his historic Death Star run over Yavin, TIE’s swarming him as they did three years before. Again we’re treated to a pair of glorious double-page spreads as Luke fires, but surprisingly misses. Thankfully, the rest of Starlight Squadron are on his six and they hit the target, pulling up swiftly as their shots awake a dormant volcanoe directly beneath the ISD, destroying it in a poster-worthy double page. As Luke jumps away to Jekara to join Leia in the continuing search for Han Solo, the Rebel fleet is bolstered by the addition of none other than Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma.
We wrap up the issue as Luke briefly talks over the comm to Leia, held at gunpoint along with Chewie and Lando by Boba Fett as Luke tries to tell her of his vision; Darth Vader is also hunting for Solo, ending an absolute barnstormer of an issue that features some of the most attractve starship art seen in a long while, married to a snappy, nostalgia-fuelled Charles Soule script that feels like it was written in 1981 and left in a file somewhere, even with the numerous links to very modern storylines. Top drawer in every department and a perfect lead-in to the next chapter of War of the Bounty Hunters.
Star Wars #16 (Wobh) @ ForbiddenPlanet.com
