Han Solo #5

Han Solo #5 (of 5)

Writer: Marjorie Liu
Artist: Mark Brooks
Colorist: Sonia Oback
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist: Kamome Shirahama

Han Solo #5 brings an end to the Dragon Void Race and an end to the Han Solo mini-series. This issue neatly ties up the results of the race, the outcome of the pursuing Imperials, and the identity of the Rebel traitor. As a bonus, we get a little bit more on the mysterious alien Loo Re Anno. It’s a satisfying ending to the five issue run.

The action starts off with the Imperials close on the heels of the racers. In fact the entire issue is just one big chase scene as everyone zooms towards the finish line. However, there’s not that much action. Most of the content is dialog between the racers as they debate whether to flee the Imperials or give up, with an intermission in between as Han deals with the traitor on board the Millennium Falcon. There are panels throughout showing the Imperial ships chasing them, and there are a few explosions. Aside from that, the only action is the brief skirmish with the Rebel traitor.

Now without revealing who the traitor is, the who Rebel spy subplot is king of anti-climatic. Midway through the race scenes, Han stops to go back and check on the passengers and the dead Rebel. Without much effort, Han picks out who the traitor is, there’s a suffel, and the issue is resolved. With that, Han goes back to racing. While this scenario did resolve the spy plot, it didn’t give readers much to chew on. Han didn’t point out the clues that gave the traitor away, he simply pointed the traitor out without any explanation on how he knew.

Adding to the lack of real payoff is the resolution of the race. On the plus side, the finish line is a wormhole gate that warps the winner back to the start of the race. It seems the gate only works once, so everyone else is left stranded in the Void. Han, naturally, takes the lead and is set to win, but decides to pull out at the last instance which allows one of the other racers to win. I’ll keep that spoiler safe, but for those who have read it, the outcome is a little too rushed without some of the necessary breadcrumbs that would have made the event more worthwhile. There’s a little bit of dialog that preps the scene, which leads Han to his decision, but the dialog doesn’t fully explain the why. Nor does it really explain what happened. The nature of the gate opens up a lot of questions, and the whole other time and dimension aspect felt a little too Treky. I think the idea could of worked, but it needed to be more firmly placed in the Star Wars universe. As is, it feels like a Star Trek plot more so than Star Wars. It’s not bad, it just could have been better.

The artwork is pretty good throughout, though none of the panels really stand out like the ones from previous issues. A lot of the space scenes are hurt by the blurring effect which, while it does simulate motion, doesn’t really look that good. With all of the action, there’s a lot of smaller, crammed in panels. One of the big misses, in my opinion, was the jellyfish monster that appears in the middle of the issue. That would have been a great panel to impress readers with an awesome looking creature. Alas, the jellyfish monster is kind of boring and not all that impressive. In the end, the artwork is good, but it missed some opportunities to excel.

With a good story, dialog and good artwork, Han Solo #5 is a decent ending to the series. It’s satisfying and it gets the job done, thus I give it a four out of five metal bikinis. The issues leading up to this one raised the bar pretty high. Overall, it’s definitely a series worth checking out.

Reviewed By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.