Review – Everyone Wants Revenge in Marvel’s Bounty Hunter #3

Marvel has resumed a slow-rolling release of comics after a long, unavoidable hiatus. This week, we return to Bounty Hunters, where bounty hunter Nakano Lash is still being hotly pursued. Beilert Valance has managed to find her location, which puts him in the sights of other bounty hunters in pursuit almost as much as Lash. The blasters are primed, hyperdrives are ready, and this chase isn’t slowing down at all. SPOILERS AHEAD….

 

 

As Ooris sets his sights on Valance’s droid (who is carrying the coordinates to Nakano Leash), the cyborg bounty hunter and his old acquaintance Boskk are working some things out. It’s been well established these two have a past. Also, in the opening pages, it’s revealed Leash is living quietly on a planet called Russan. I appreciate writer Ethan Sacks giving us a layered, complex story with several players, but the amount of flashbacks and planet hopping in the first few pages is very confusing to the reader. I had to go through this issue a few times and reference previous issues to figure out what’s happening. Full disclosure, this series hasn’t really excited me so my reads through the previous issues probably weren’t as thorough as they could’ve been. As Boskk and Valance trade blasts and blows, we are taken into their past to see a moment which played a role in bringing them to this.

 

 

Years ago, while working for Lash, Boskk and Valance wait in the queue to make a holo-transmission. We overhear T’Ongor talking with his sister, T’Onga, about her new love. Knowing where they both end up adds a melancholy typical in flashbacks like these. Boskk continues to poke at Valance about his cybernetic state, so this can’t be too long after the events of Han Solo – Imperial Cadet. 

 

 

Young Valance attempts a transmission to his love, Vega, on his home world of Chorin. Too nervous to tell her what’s become of him, Valance cuts the transmission, just as she picks up. Boskk has been watching and doesn’t spare Valance the ridicule. This ridiculing snowballs into a fight as brutal as the one we just left but the two of them are broken up by Lash, as she’s got a briefing for them. And funnily enough, it’s the job about a certain assassination involving the Mourner’s Wail.

 

 

Back to the present day fight, Valance and Boskk are beating the crap out of each other. The fight goes on until Valance finally gets the advantage, knocking Boskk unconscious. Not only does the code prevent him from killing Boskk, he wants his fellow bounty hunter to live with the fact he beat him. Something tells me a rematch is in their very near future.

 

 

Valance finishes his pummeling just in time to find his beheaded droid and his ship taking off. How he gets out of this, who knows?

 

 

Well, in case you weren’t having a hard enough time keeping up with the number of people set on revenge, meet General Vukorah. She’s arrived and is guns blazing in her effort for revenge against Mourner’s Wail. That’s about all we get from her backstory until one of the operatives receives a transmission. It’s from Nakano Lash and she’s prepared to surrender.

 

 

Lash is in some trouble of her own. Ooris has caught up with her but I’m not counting Lash out at this point. It seems like pretty much everyone in this series has a blaster up their sleeve, ready to use it.

 

 

Valance has a visitor of his own. Now, in Star Wars, I’d say T’Onga’s ominous greeting more likely means they are going to be working together and will both be getting what they hoped for. There are a lot of new players in motion so I’d expect this series is only going to move faster.

 

The art in Bounty Hunters is stellar! I love the dark, nightmare shades Paolo Villanelli and Arif Prianto bring to these pages. It’s really the story I’m having problems with. Sacks has a tendency to pile-on characters (big problem I had with his promising Galaxy’s Edge series, which kinda fell apart) instead of focusing on the themes and conflicts of the ones he introduces. A lot of times when I’m reading it seems like the primary characters’ stories fade into the background as Sacks brings out new characters. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all intriguing, but it seems like he’s compelled to give them all equal time, which just confuses the reader. I’m intrigued enough to keep reading so let’s hope it these spinning plate plot lines don’t come tumbling down in the next couple issues.

 

RATING: 6/10

 

 

 

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Kyle Larson lives in Portland, Oregon. When he's not running trails, he's reading and writing.

Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson lives in Portland, Oregon. When he's not running trails, he's reading and writing.

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