The It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World-style hunt for Nakano Lash continues in Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #4, out today from Marvel Comics. Picking up from where we left off in June, Beilert Valance and T’onga have formed an uneasy alliance to track down the Nautolan woman who botched a bounty hunter team-up years ago on Corellia.
That incident evidently sparked a war between two gangs that has resulted in countless deaths ever since, including that of T’onga’s brother– which is her particular reason for seeking revenge on Lash. Valance has his own personal motivations for participating in the hunt, however, which we don’t discover until the end of this issue (fear not: I won’t spoil them in this review).
Meanwhile, Nakano Lash and her mysterious ward face off against other bounty hunters who have already tracked them down, Bossk reveals some key information to a shadowy figure, and the unlikely partnership of T’onga and Valance find themselves at odds with some unfriendly locals on the planet Ruusan (first mentioned in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series).
But unlike T’onga and Valance, writer Ethan Sacks (Star Wars: Allegiance) and artist Paolo Villanelli (Star Wars: Lando – Double or Nothing) are making their association work. The staging and pacing of Star Wars: Bounty Hunters remain readable and engaging– enough so that even the less-familiar characters have been rendered interesting enough to carry their own subplots.
The last half-dozen pages of this issue are dedicated to Lash’s explanation for why she acted as she did on that mission so many years earlier, and the account certainly puts those actions in a new context– to the point where even her most dogged pursuers may reconsider their crusade. And the cliffhanger ending provides readers with a jumping-off point that ensures next month’s issue #5 will be jam-packed with action amid another confrontation between two fan-favorite characters. Will Nakano Lash successfully sway enough fellow bounty hunters to her cause, or will the promise of credits win out among this collection of the “Galaxy’s Deadliest”? We’ll have to wait five weeks to find out more.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #4 is available now wherever comic books are sold.