After getting the location of Han Solo, now in the possession of Crimson Dawn, Leia, Chewie, Lando, Lobot and C-3PO head to the meeting, with Lando taking the opportunity to do some dealings of his own.
Soule kicks off the main titles ‘War of the Bounty Hunters’ storyline and it’s already go intrigue, shady dealings, romance and some good old Star Wars style good times.
After receiving a message from Amilyn Holdo with details on the auction for Han Solo, Leia recruits Chewie, Lando, Lobot and C-3O to get on board Qi’Ra’s ship and join the auction and pay to get Solo and free him.
Lando uses this vast meeting to make good on his promise to Jabba to deliver the Talky Droid, where he will jettison the Droid out into space at a set location for Jabba’s crew to pick it up.
Before Lando and Lobot dispose of the Talky, Lobot connects with it again and Lando gives it some ‘what for’, telling the Droid he would have been much kinder had it not tried to kill his friend. That’s when Talky pulls a blinder and uses their connection to push back the implants connection to Lobot’s mind and allows the man to talk to Lando, but only after Lando sends it to its fate and the connection is lost as the Falcon flies away.
To avoid being detected, Chewie pilots the Falcon to the other side of the planet where the meeting is to be held but after a near collision the Falcon crash-lands near to the meeting place.
It’s not surprising that this story already fits in so well with the main ‘War of the Bounty Hunters’ title with Soule at the helm, he’s quite probably been building his way to it, laying seeds throughout the last 13 (well 12 if you don’t include last months Prelude) much like he and Cavan Scott (and maybe the others) had been laying seeds and dropping hints about ‘The High Republic’ in their other works.
I’m pleased that Soule has referenced how out of character Leia has seemed over the last few issues. Whilst not glaringly obvious, something just hasn’t been the same, and it’s finally come to light as an intentional choice and the after effect of Leia’s defeat by Zahra earlier in the run. With that on top of the search for Han, the MIA Shara Bey and the scattered Rebel fleet it’s actually a work of genius to show the usually on form Leia show some cracks and allow herself some time to not be the all inspiring beacon of hope and just have a chance to feel like a regular person.
The continuing storyline with Lando and Lobot is hopefully coming to an end soon, maybe he can get himself out from under Jabba’s thumb in this arc. It’s totally understandable why Lando can’t be trusted by the main group but at some point he’s going to have to gain their trust, and the trust of the Rebellion leadership before the run comes to an end, which could be somewhere around issue 25 if they follow a similar structure to the first run which was 75 issues spanning three years in-universe. That leaves a bit of room after this crossover but we’ll just have to see.
The art and writing continues to be on point, I absolutely love this panel of Chewie as the Falcon is crash landing, the fear and surprise is conveyed so well which is something that could be quite difficult to do in a non-human character, but Rosanas excelled in this issue with the range that he shows in Chewie.
A great second-start to this new arc, I’m looking forward to seeing where Soule takes this series and what Lando will get up to next.
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