Good Golly Miss Molly, Marvel is shitting the bed with their comics these days! Unfortunately the crap has now spread to its Star Wars line as well. You’d think a Han Solo comic would be a home-run but instead it’s one big yawner with a helluva convoluted plot that’s not worth trying to puzzle out.
Like many of the new Marvel Star Wars comics, this one is set between A New Hope and Empire. Leia needs Han to pick up some Rebel informants in an Imperial system - they have important information the Rebel Alliance needs. Why not send the information through whatever the Star Wars version of email is? No clue. They need to be physically picked up and brought to Leia so she can figure out who the traitor is.
But Leia knows they can’t send Rebel ships to an Imperial system so she wants to send Han and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon, who aren’t recognised as part of the Rebel Alliance (even though they played a major role in blowing up the Death Star). Except they can’t just go to the system and pick up the informants, they apparently need a good cover reason to be there (even though, not being a part of the Rebels, they shouldn’t be stopped by the Empire) so she’s enrolled them in something called the Dragon Void run, which is mega-dangerous. Why aren’t other, safer, good reasons like shopping, trading, visiting friends, or just being there for the fuck of it acceptable? No clue. Why exactly does she need the Falcon - why not use a different non-Rebel ship with a Rebel pilot for the mission? Well, the Falcon is well-suited to racing because it’s fast… which she set up as the reason for their being there. What contrived garbage!
This is just a badly conceived premise that reads as sloppily as it’s constructed and isn’t in the least bit interesting. How the, er, “mystery”?, plays out is equally as dumb as the rest of the book. Han accuses someone, they say something like “Noooo, you found me out!” and tries to kill him. How fucking stupid is that?! Why not just be silent or deny it? Han’s only guessing after all, he hasn’t got any evidence! It’s like a child wrote this drivel.
I guess the race aspect is meant to be exciting but it isn’t. We don’t see the track or have any idea of the race; it’s just spaceships flying into space, pew-pewing stuff - am I meant to be on the edge of my seat over who’ll win? The supporting characters are totally forgettable and dull, and even Han and Chewie come off as boring.
Mark Brooks’ art though is spectacular. Even though I had no idea what was happening in the race, it looked amazing with all the spaceships flying through chaos, lasers everywhere, stuff ‘sploding - it’s very visually arresting - and it’s always cool to see the Falcon in action. Some of the covers are amazing too, especially Lee Bermejo’s - one of them is the cover to the book.
Marjorie Liu’s script though is complete Wookie shit and the book is an absolute bore to endure. There’s bound to be some great stories to be had from Han and Chewie but she’s definitely not the writer to realise them. Not recommended in the least - Kessel run away from this crappy comic!
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