Comic Info
Comic Name: Star Wars: Bounty Hunters
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Ethan Sacks
Artist: Polo Villanelli
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2021
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #7
Reprints Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #6-11 (December 2020-June 2021). Beilert Valance is on the run. With orders to protect a child named Cadeliah, the bounty hunter has become the hunted. Valance realizes that he can’t protect Cadeliah alone and finds himself headed to the person he knew before his days as a bounty hunter and the Rebel Alliance. With Zuckuss, 4-LOM, and other bounty hunters hot on his trail, Valance’s luck might finally run out!
Written by Ethan Sacks, Star Wars: Bounty Hunters Volume 2: Target Valance is a Marvel Comics Star Wars spin-off title. Following Star Wars: Bounty Hunters Volume 1: Galaxy’s Deadliest, the series features art by Paolo Villanelli.
The bounty hunters were always the coolest. Though they just had a little cameo, they were my favorite of my Star Wars toys. They were mysterious, and as a kid, I didn’t know what a bounty hunter was when they were introduced in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back…but I knew that they were dangerous. While Valance wasn’t one of the bounty hunters who cameoed in The Empire Strikes Back, this second volume has plenty of bounty hunters to go around.
The volume is split into three stories. The first story is “Target Valance” and features Valance trying to dodge 4-LOM and Zuckuss (who as kids, I always got their names confused). The irony of the story is that many see Valance as a kind of precursor to the Terminator or Cable, and here he’s acting much like the Terminator in T2…he’s out to protect the kid with any means possible and sometimes it has a price (like the location of the Rebel base).
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #11
The second story is “The Terminus Gauntlet” which has Valance trying to pay back the by outing their Rebel base. Like the previous story, Valance is pretty much a hero, but there is a fun tie back to Valance days in the Imperial forces which was chronicled in Star Wars: Han Solo—Imperial Cadet. Valance’s actions in the series are pushed by Han’s decision to save him on Qhulosk which creates a ripple effect for future issues.
The final story is a stand-alone story with Bossk. Bossk was my favorite toy of the bounty hunters…I think he even outranked Boba Fett just because he was creepy and “lizard-y”. Bossk and his people have appeared in a number of other Star Wars stories and related media, but this outing isn’t my favorite (though we do get a visit from Bib Fortuna as well). I do however feel Star Wars: Bounty Hunters might need a few more of these excursions to justify the Bounty Hunters title since the series could just be called Star Wars: Valance right now.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters is the Star Wars series that I’m maybe most excited for right now just because of the wide-open nature of the series. Like Doctor Aphra, there are a lot of stories that could be told without being locked into the Star Wars films, but as seen in this volume, they can still incorporate a lot of characters that never had the chance to be “stars” in Star Wars. I look forward to seeing where Star Wars: Bounty Hunters goes.
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