As I finish catching up on comic reviews I missed during my vacation earlier this month, I have finally read issues #6 and 7 of the Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories anthology series from Dark Horse Comics.
Hyperspace Stories has had a troubled history since it launched last year, but at long last it seems to be figuring out its own strengths. Issue #6 of the comic continues that pattern, focusing on the Rodian bounty hunter Greedo (who we saw come to an untimely end thanks to Han Solo’s blaster in the original Star Wars film) and his early days working for vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Poor Greedo does his best to ingratiate himself to the mighty Jabba, but he’s only given grunt work and mocked by the other denizens of Jabba’s Palace. One day he sets eyes on a new singer on the palace stage– her name is Bennun Glau and she belongs to an exotic-looking species that I don’t believe we’ve seen before in Star Wars lore. Greedo falls hard for Bennun and soon finds himself running errands for the singer, to the point where he even acquires her a ship. Eventually the time comes when he plans to meet Glau in a Mos Eisley food court, where Greedo runs into Jabba himself– also waiting for a date to meet him.
We as readers realize that they’re both waiting for the same alien, though it takes the unlikely barmates a bit longer. Once they come to the understanding of how Bennun tricked them both, Greedo flees in pursuit, hoping to use the opportunity to both make things right with Jabba and gain an upper hand in the Hutt’s criminal organization. Unfortunately for him, as soon as he catches up with Glau he’s fooled by her again, misled into taking an innocent Wookiee toymaker into captivity. But Greedo’s luck changes at the last minute as Jabba takes the Wookiee into his service as personal toymaker for his newborn son Rotta the Hutt (as first seen in the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie). So now we have a better idea of how Greedo got his start as a bounty hunter, and we move on to another bounty hunter tale in Hyperspace Stories #7, in which Boba Fett helps a young Wookiee– I’m sure this is a coincidence too– evade Bossk and his crew of Trandoshans.
The Wookiee wants to hire Fett to track down a toy with sentimental memories, and at first the hunter refuses, but when he learns of the toy’s connection to the Wookiee’s father, he quickly changes his mind. But the Wookiee has been careless about spreading around information regarding the amount of money she’s carrying on the newly introduced dangerous underworld planet of Ridley (I hope this is a reference to Alien filmmaker Ridley Scott, or perhaps the Metroid villain of the same name), and she attracts the attention of Bossk’s crew. This leads the Trandoshans and Boba Fett on a wild goose chase that also involves the Imperial fleet and a showdown on another backwater planet. I have to say I really enjoyed both of these stories, and writers Cecil Castellucci and Michael Moreci have absolutely helped Hyperspace Stories improve greatly over its first batch of issues, which were fairly lackluster. At the same time, artists Eduardo Mello and Andrea Mutti each deliver their own unique styles that are perfectly suited to the stories being told. At this point I’d put forth that if Hyperspace Stories proves capable of maintaining its current streak of successes, it could become a very reliable (and even eagerly anticipated) source of one-off Star Wars comic stories spanning the franchise’s entire timeline and enormous cast of characters.
Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories #6 & 7 are available now wherever comic books are sold.