Marvel’s Star Wars: Sana Starros comic miniseries continues this week with an adventure that partners the title character and her family with long-lived Shani bounty hunter Deva Lompop from The High Republic and the War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event.
Sana Starros #3 begins with Sana, her Grammy Thea, and her Aunt Mevera arriving at Lompop’s base in the Dalnan sector (another High Republic connection), as they seek a way to retrieve Sana’s cousin Aryssha from the grasp of her Imperial husband.
Sana gets frustrated by her family’s forgiving nature when it comes to her wayward brother Phel and goes off to have a drink by herself. At the bar, she meets a Pantoran named Lanitra, who it turns out is working for Deva on a heist to retrieve a Rancor from an animal refuge that Lompop herself helped build some time earlier. Anyway, the Starroses get roped into going along on this mission in exchange for Deva’s help in tracking down Aryssha, so much of the rest of this issue is spent watching that particular plan unfold with varying levels of success. Meanwhile, we also check in on Aryssha as she travels aboard her husband Cerasus’s ship the King’s Ransom and the unlikely couple clash over the amount of autonomy that Aryssha theoretically should or shouldn’t have. Then on the planet Hon-Tallos, we see Lompop and the Starroses– along with the other members of Deva’s crew– enacting their plan to cause a chaotic distraction at Wild Wollina’s Animal Adventures in order to rescue the Rancor in question.
Disorder ensues, naturally, as the team sets loose an enormous three-headed Hydra-type creature called the Hragscythe (once again, see Star Wars: The High Republic for more on this monster) to allow Sana and Deva the cover to enter the Rancor’s enclosure. Sana hesitantly permits Deva to douse her in juvenile Rancor urine, which according to her is the only way the beast will allow her to ride it, and then it only becomes a matter of rampaging out through the zoo. Unfortunately their egress is impeded by the destination’s namesake Wollina– not to mention rival bounty hunter Marl Jibs, who ends up capturing Grammy Thea, demanding Mevera in exchange. So we get two cliffhanger endings in this issue: one in which Sana insists Deva help her rescue Thea, and one in which Aryssha is ambushed by a surprise visit from her cousin Phel on the King’s Ransom, thanks to her husband. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s all pretty fun and writer Justina Ireland is more than capable of keeping things moving at an energetic clip along the way. Similarly, artist Pere Pérez– collaborating with colorist Dono Sánchez-Almara– has rendered eye-catching, kinetic visuals that go a long way in conveying the energy that Ireland put forth in her script. With just two issues left to go in this miniseries, Star Wars: Sana Starros is shaping up to be a memorable and unique entry in the long-running, George Lucas-created franchise.
Star Wars: Sana Starros #3 is available now wherever comic books are sold.