Star Wars: Han Solo & Chewbacca #3
THE CRYSTAL RUN, Part 3
It is a golden age of criminal enterprise. With the evil GALACTIC EMPIRE preoccupied with bringing the galaxy under its thumb, scoundrels and thieves are free to ply their illegal trade with abandon.
The vile gangster Jabba the Hutt has hired Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Greedo to steal an urn containing the ashes of his archrival.
With the help of the man claiming to be his father, Han, along with Greedo, broke into the home of the urn’s owner only to discover the item wasn’t there. Now Han and his cohorts are trapped, with security guards closing in….
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: David Messina
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Cover artist: Alex Maleev
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: June 29, 2022
Tasked by Jabba the Hutt to steal an urn from a rival gangster, Han, Chewie and Greedo along with Han’s alleged long lost father find themselves trapped in the penthouse of the gangster as security forces are bearing down on them. Cue Han’s particular brand hairbrained idea’s, charm and a sizable slice of luck.
After the thrill ride of the debut issue I found the second issue to be a bit of a comedown in comparison. That’s not to say it was bad by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just it forgoes both the exploration of Ovan’s revelation and the fun rivalry between Han and Greedo in favour of focusing on the job at hand, which is thin but fun at best and uninteresting at worst, especially when it re-treads similar ground as the previous issue. Fortunately this issue shifts gears somewhat as it broadens the scope of the story being told.
This is still very much Han’s show as he swaggers his way through an escape plan, relegating the other players to mere background characters making this feel like “An Audience with Han Solo”. The Han we have here is a heightened and more brilliant version of the one we know from the movies. He’s a super-scoundrel deftly concocting ludicrous plans to get him out of any scrape with a wink and a smile. He’s as fun to read as ever and lives up to his reputation as one of the coolest characters in Star Wars. The second title character Chewbacca is barely seen once again but I’m hoping the next arc will focus more on the walking carpet.
Han Solo & Chewbacca is the one ongoing series that isn’t part of the Crimson Reign crossover as it’s set years earlier than that event. We do get a nod to it here though when the gangs search for the urn takes them to Antillion and the stall of Sava Sun aka The Archivist in a direct reference to the third issue of Crimson Reign. Han even sees Qi’ra from afar, even though he doesn’t realise that’s who it is, and that filled me with hope that this series could be used to temporarily re-unite the pair and give us further insight in Qi’ra’s history with the Dawn. As this series is set prior to A New Hope it wouldn’t be a stretch canonically and the events of such a meeting could explain why Qi’ra was not as emotionally attached to her carbonite ex in War of the Bounty Hunters as you may have expected.
The arc’s central mystery of Han’s would-be father has been pushed to the side somewhat in favour of the driving plot but there are a couple of nice moments between the pair with Han showing a little more vulnerability than you might expect. Our scruffy looking nerf herder is going to have his heartbroken I fear. I’m not saying that Ovan isn’t his father, but I’m thinking he has ulterior motives for wanting to reconnect with Han. There’s a couple of small moments in this issue to suggest that Ovan isn’t quite as earnest as he seems.
We get another big cameo in the last panel, one plucked from the seedier, but topical, section of the rogue’s gallery. It’s a big enough character no doubt dominate much of the next issue. Hopefully it will help focus the central plot somewhat because it needs it.
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