Despite his undeniable charm and rugged good looks, Han Solo has partaken in more than a few questionable pastimes throughout his rather diverse career, from his days as an Imperial cadet and a smuggler, where he made a name for himself by lying, cheating and stealing, to his eventual redemption in the original trilogy. It’s near the end of Star Wars: A New Hope when Han undergoes a rather impressive display of personal growth within a shockingly short timeframe. One of his worst attributes (performing good deeds solely for money without any concern for others) suddenly becomes a thing of the past, despite the trait being, up until that point, second nature to him.
By the end of A New Hope, the worst qualities and actions Han puts on display are limited to overt cockiness and him being a scruffy-looking nerf-herder. But it turns out that some of Han’s unappetizing and morally questionable tendencies from his past seep back through around the time of The Empire Strikes Back. In Marvel’s Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #8 by Ethan Sacks (which takes place before Return of the Jedi), Han cashes in on a debt that a bounty hunter named Beilert Valance owes him by recruiting the bounty hunter to participate in a rescue mission to save the crew of a crippled Rebel transport.
The issue opens with the mission already underway with Han, Valance and two other pilots manning some Tie Fighters they apparently commandeered earlier on. But they aren’t on some pleasure cruise. The team is under heavy fire, and Han is in the worst predicament, as three fighters are on his tail. It’s lucky that Han recruited Valance, for the bounty hunter quickly eliminates the threat, allowing the mission to continue as planned (and keeping Han from being vaporized).
What makes Han’s actions in this book so atrocious is that the former smuggler does not repay Valance in kind. When the bounty hunter’s fighter crashes, Han and the rest of the rescue team fly off without him, leaving Valance to fend for himself. And he’s forced to do quite a bit of fending almost immediately as he finds himself staring down the barrel of three blaster rifles.
Han doesn’t appear for the rest of issue #8 as the majority of the book focuses on Valance, who, having apparently fended off the earlier problem without much incident, is pursing another bounty mission for some extra cash to ensure his survival (seeing as he’s being hunted by a lethal duo and Boba Fett). Unfortunately for Valance, the mission was a trap and he’s soon ambushed, but the ever-resourceful bounty hunter is able to fend this threat off, too, and soon escapes. It doesn’t take long before Valance takes advantage of this brief respite to finish repaying his debt to Han (but not without some cursing). While the question as to whether or not the rebel crew will be saved is critical, a more pressing issue is how much Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #9 will depict Han Solo’s personal growth into a less morally apprehensible human being.
