Bounty Hunters (2020) #37
THE PATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS, PART 1
A last-ditch effort to save Valance’s slipping grip on humanity forced T’onga and the bounty hunters to team up with Boba Fett in exchange for coordinates to an enigmatic cybernetics fixer.
Their target? A name that has been whispered in the darkest recesses of the underworld for decades, dating back to an ill-fated mission undertaken by the legendary Jango Fett!
But time is not on the side of the hunters.
With her former mentor, Khel Tanna, angling for the captain’s seat, and a tempestuous crew of cutthroats that includes Bossk, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, Durge and Deathstick, can T’onga hold the team together long enough to save her friend?
Writer: Ethan Sacks
Artist: Davide Tinto
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Colorist: Arif Prianto
Cover artist: Marco Checchetto
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: August 30, 2023
We open this always action-packed title with a sorrowful scene as Beilert Valance thinks back to his lost love Yura, her face and words fading as his memory fades with it. In the previous issue we saw T’onga go to great lengths to keep the team together and help Valance, and we flick back to now as 4-LOM checks on the cyborg. 4-LOM doesn’t believe they should waste resources on him if he is losing his cerebral processor, but Valance pushes back as the ‘camera’ pulls back to reveal the whole crew in the cockpit of the ship as they follow Boba Fett, Slave 1 leading the way as we head to the past and Boba’s father Jango, deep in the Mid Rim aboard his Firespray and sitting beside him Kligson, the very man they are trying to find to fix Valance. He’s injured, their pursuers – and there are many of them – lacing them with fire. Jango calls Taun We for aid but she refuses, reminding him that their secret location on Kamino needs to remain exactly that. Their communications antennae destroyed, Jango looks for a back up plan and finds one as he punches a hole in their attackers defences and leaps to hyperspace as per Kligsons coordinates.
Back in the present they arrive at the same coordinates, only to find nothing but a small moon. 4-LOM uses his droid eyes to detect a distortion field bending light, and a check of the details Fett sent them reveals a code which they transmit. Revealed is an enormous station, which we see in the past as Kligson and Jango land, only to be attacked by droids. The melee is stopped by Telemax, the ‘guardian of the haven’ who tells them no trespassers will be tolerated. T’onga explains they’re looking for a cyborg expert, and that Fett sent them. Telemax clearly believes she means Jango rather than Boba, and takes Valance to the Guardian.
We flashback as telemax holds the face of Kligson in his metal hand, checking him over as Kligson tells the droid of his heritage, how his clan protected the security of the droid moon and sheltered Ajax and his army of free droids. The droid scans him, knowing he tells the truth and agrees to help, but insists that Jango leave. Fett is reticent to go, but Kligson insists, and we step back to the present as Telemax agrees to help save Valance.
Bossk, Durge, T’onga and the team wait impatiently outside, convinced something is awry and T’onga sends Zuckuss and 4-LOM into the city to see what they can find. Soon we spy the two being followed by silent droids, the Huntsmans senses dulled by so many inorganic beings. Inside, Valance sits in a medical chair, hooked up to wires and systems and watches as Kligson – now as much a cyborg as Valance is – enters the room. He has no intention of repairing Valance; instead he plans on wiping Valances memories entirely and using him as his new ‘vessel’ as we roll out of another cracking issue of Bounty Hunters.
Dark Droids threatened to overpower the regular titles, but here as in the recent issue of Doctor Aphra, it plays to the titles strengths. Ethan Sacks takes Kligson – a character familiar to original Marvel run readers and most famed for his appearance in the Droid World read-along book – and makes his presense completely logical, weaving into Valance’s predicament as we bob back to the past with a pre-Attack of the Clones Jango Fett. Super stuff, and long may these well placed crossovers to the main Dark Droids storyline continue.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Sacks, Ethan (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 23 Pages - 09/20/2023 (Publication Date) - Marvel (Publisher)
