Review: Beilert Valance Faces Darth Vader and New Foes in Marvel’s ‘Star Wars: Bounty Hunters’ #31
It says a lot about the quality of Ethan Sacks’ Bounty Hunters recently that you can tease Iden Versio and Inferno Squad, and still completely forget they are on the horizon. This current “Bedlam on Bestine” 3-issue arc has completely changed the series, throwing everything you know into a blender, and spitting it back out anew. The result was arguably the best issue in the series last month, exploring every possible emotion one could have.
Issue #31 sees Beilert Valance come face-to-face with the one who took everything from him: Darth Vader. Lieutenant Haydenn looks on, torn between her duty to the Empire and her feelings towards Valance. After such groundbreaking events in the last issue, you’d hope everyone affected by this conflict would get a chance to grieve and decompress before doing something they might regret. Unfortunately, this isn’t that type of story.
Spoilers ahead…
Whether he’s directly responsible or not, Valance isn’t happy with Vader turning his back on his word. The thing is, Vader isn’t to blame. The Empire just decided one day to blow up the Rebel base that conveniently housed Yura with the tactical side barely having anything to do with it. She was never a target. Vader doesn’t care one way or another, all he sees is a man who betrayed the Empire.
The fight that ensues only spans a few pages, but it hits hard like a classic boxing match. Valance has all kinds of tricks up his sleeve, even distracting Vader long enough to disarm his lightsaber. While not as visceral and brutal as the Trandoshan clash in issue #29 or as shocking as Valance punching a hole through a stormtrooper, the fight packs the dramatic heft you want thanks to some stunning art from Villanelli.
The Dark Lord finds himself struggling with Valance’s hand blasters when T’onga tries swooping in to help Valance. This diversion fails as Vader regrips his lightsaber and slashes at T’onga, dismantling her swoop bike in the process.
Lieutenant Haydenn suddenly joins in on the action and opens fire on T’onga before Tasu Leech saves her. Back to the main event, a reinvigorated Vader quickly slaps down Valance and his one-man rebellion. To rub salt in the wound, Vader reveals he ordered the destruction of the village Valance committed to protecting.
Making matters worse, there are panels that imply the deaths of Valance’s old team, S’ira, Tanka, and Ankala, who we have been following since Vader hired them to weed out Crimson Dawn all the way back in Darth Vader #18. While they have never been the most interesting of side characters, in this context their potential fate hits because of Vader’s callous nature. He doesn’t care what happens to any of these people, creating a haunting contrast.
That includes Jyala Haydenn who offers to take out Valance as he kneels helplessly in the dirt. Valance pleads to Haydenn’s better half, pulling at any last string they used to have as a potential couple. He knows she is more than what the Empire has made her, but if there is redemption to be had, it will have to come at a later date and when Vader isn’t breathing down her neck. She shoots Valance right in the head, and the bounty hunter falls off the cliff to his intended death.
With the deed done, the moment of reckoning is nigh, including for those far away on Corellia. Vukorah, still serving as the insurgent leader of the Unbroken Clan, is about to have her leadership challenged. We see her spying on some individuals plotting to put the rightful heir on the throne.
I’m not sure if this is a sudden oversight from Sacks, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the child Cadeliah has yet to even be acknowledged by either of the series’ major warring crime syndicates as a legitimate heir. Her future rights to both have been sanctioned by Bounty Hunters‘ main players, but efforts to convince the Mourner’s Wail and Unbroken Clan have been proven folly. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt because nobody really likes Vukorah anyhow, but Cadeliah’s claim is still a story beat that hasn’t been earned yet.
There is also plenty to read into in regards to where Vukorah is at in her arc. The brutal warrior had her walls broken down after she inadvertently killed Losha’s pet nexu (yes, there’s apparently a way to domesticate them). Every time we’ve revisited Vukorah since, there’s been a sense of deep personal loss even though she shouldn’t feel anything. She did what she had to do in that moment to survive. We learn why while flashing back to Vukorah’s youth when she was forced to kill her own loth-cat to prove her worth to the Unbroken Clan.
While this segment of the issue is entirely disconnected from the main plotline, Sacks and Villanelli deftly weave the two together when we rejoin Zuckuss and Losha searching for Valance’s body. Our last image of Vukorah and the first image of the fallen bounty hunter is the same, the two characters sitting with a solemn look on their face wondering where to go from here as they grieve. When Vukorah’s story intertwines itself with the bounty hunters again, it will mean something — this is a good first sign that she is not forgotten.
Sacks and Villanelli dovetail varying emotions further as we leave Valance looking out a window, only to peer into another with Haydenn who is clearly broken by her own actions. The images of shooting Valance replay in her mind before she is brought back to the present by some long-awaited individuals who approach her.
Vader has ordered the death of Beilert Valance because he might have seen some things he shouldn’t have while in service to the Empire. There’s other reasons obviously, but seeing classified plans of the second coming of a certain planet-destroying space station is enough for specialized loyalists to the Empire to step in and take the job. Enter Gideon Hask, Del Meeko, and Iden Versio. Inferno Squad is finally here.
Bounty Hunters #31 had the tall task of following an early contender for Star Wars comic of the year. Instead of giving into his primal instinct and use Vader to deliver a grand, action-packed spectacle, Sacks used Vader in a way that provided introspection as we put a bow to this part of the story. The writing and Villanelli’s art give just enough to allow you as a reader to dig into what is going on in each of the character’s mind. While made obvious in the case of Vukorah and Haydenn, there are still things left up to the imagination.
This series is at its best when it deals in the gray, with the moral quandaries each character finds themselves in. That’s what many people have always enjoyed about the Star Wars underworld. As the series went on and the stakes with Crimson Dawn became what they are, several characters lost what made them whole. Their humanity was lost. The core reason I am enjoying this series as much as I am right now is because there finally seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Despite all the difficult moments Sacks and Villanelli are putting readers through at the moment, there is still hope. Valance got shot in this issue, but the result was the undoing of what the Empire did to him. His face implants(?) are gone and the cyborg is back. Once he gets over himself, it’s back to business. Bounty Hunters is also at its best when Beilert Valance is here to play, and it’s as good a time as any with Inferno Squad about to enter the fray.
RATING: 8.5/10
Nate uses his love for Star Wars and movies in general as a way to cope with the pain of being a Minnesota sports fan. When he's not at the theater, you can usually find Nate reading a comic, listening to an audiobook, or playing a Mario video game for the 1,000th time.
