While all the headlines recently have been about The Hunt for Ben Solo, Star Wars has all the while been telling the story of a different hunt: Han Solo’s hunt for the Millennium Falcon.
As we know from The Force Awakens, at some point prior to the sequel trilogy Han’s beloved ship was stolen from him, prompting a galactic search trying to get it back. The story of that search is now being told in the four-part comic mini-series Hunt for the Falcon, written by Rodney Barnes.
The second issue of the series follows Han and Chewie tracking down a lead, but what’s most significant are some glimpses toward the past.
The issue begins with Chewbacca speaking with Leia Organa via hologram. Leia warns Chewie that he can’t get sucked up into Han’s web, or else he’ll turn the Wookiee’s life upside down. Leia tells Chewie to go back to Malla, as “we all have obligations, Chewie. And family has to come first.” It’s at this point that Han walks into the room, and Chewie brushes off the conversation as marriage counseling. Han quickly moves on to the task at hand, of trying to get the Millennium Falcon back, but we shouldn’t move on as fast. For starters, it’s a great moment to get to see Chewie’s relationship with Leia, something that is well-established but hasn’t been actually seen too much in Star Wars stories. But even though Han and Leia are going through some tough times, we see Chewie still communicating with his friend, Leia.
But their conversation is also significant for other – deeper – reasons. Leia’s advice to Chewbacca is to prioritize his family and go back to his wife. The Wookiee is now off running around the galaxy on another mission with his partner, and what Leia tells him to do is go back home to his wife, to prioritize family, to make sure that obligations to family come first. It’s easy to see how this is also what Leia thinks Han should do: Han is off running around the galaxy focused on other pursuits, but what he really needs to do is prioritize his wife and place his family obligations first. It’s a similar thing to what Maz Kanata will later tell him, in The Force Awakens: to go home, as he’s been running from the fight – and from Leia – for far too long. Though this is a conversation between Chewie and Leia, it serves as a poignant reminder of what this whole series is about: it’s about Han trying to figure out who he is after his life fell apart, but it’s really about Han running away from what should be most important. His pursuit of the Falcon is really a pursuit of the way things were, and that’s just a mask for what is truly important. His wife needs him. In Leia’s mind, Chewie should go back to Malla. But we all know that, really, Han should go back to Leia. They’ve hit some tough times – Leia warns Chewie that Han will trap him and turn his life upside down – but that doesn’t excuse running away.
But Han isn’t interested in that conversation, as he’s focused on the Falcon. He tells Chewie: “this is our chance to get back to the way things were.” If we jump ahead a bit in the issue, there is a beautiful page devoted to a flashback from years earlier. Han and Leia stand in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon (Leia wearing an outfit that looks a lot like something Padmé would wear, which is a great touch), with Ben at the controls. It’s a happy moment for the family, with Han and Leia smiling as they joke about how Ben has been eying the switch, and how he’s always looking for trouble – just like his dad. So Han holds his son as Ben pulls the lever, sending the Falcon into hyperspace. It is a beautiful moment from years past, of the happy family, at peace. We haven’t seen enough of that from Star Wars storytelling, although I’m glad that is beginning to change. In the films, we jump forward from the triumph at the end of Return of the Jedi to three decades later, where Han and Leia are separated and Ben is an agent of darkness. There’s no time for us to see any semblance of ‘happily ever after’ with the family, so it’s important that we’re starting to see small glimpses of it. Ben’s childhood wasn’t bad. Han and Leia’s marriage was happy. The family was at peace. It wouldn’t last, but that doesn’t mean it was any less real, or any less precious, or any less joyous. The more Star Wars can show us these glimpses, of the original heroes happy and at peace, the better.
And of course the happy moment highlighted here takes place in the cockpit of the Falcon, because that’s really the point of this whole series. When Han says he wants to get back to the way things were, what he thinks is that getting his ship back will get his life back, and get his happiness back. But what he really wants, without admitting it, is his family. The Falcon became so synonymous with his family, and the core memories he has with them, that he wants the ship back as a way of reclaiming that.
These moments aside, the rest of the issue is pretty straightforward, and a lot less compelling of a story. Han and Chewie attempt to break into the hangar on Oskatoon, but they’re met with resistance from droids guarding it. They fight their way through, only to discover that the hangar is empty. Well, mostly empty. Gannis Ducain is there, who previously stole the Falcon from Han. After some stern interrogating, Ducain tells Han and Chewie that the Irving Boys stole the Falcon from him, but that they’re currently cheating a card game on Timbra Ott. So Han and Chewie take Ducain prisoner and travel to the card game, where Han joins in. It doesn’t go as expected: Ducain turns on them, the guards move in, and Han, Chewie, and the Irving Boys have to team up to fight their way out. As they flee, they discover that Ducain has taken their ship and flown away (the second time he’s done that to Han), so they leave with the Irving Boys. Once in space, Han points his blaster at them and tells them to start talking, wanting to know the whereabouts of his beloved ship.
The real heartbeat of this story is the glimpse into Han’s state of mind, as he wrestles with the past and we see hints at how he’s dealing with all that has happened. The plot of the story itself is rather unremarkable so far, going about as we expected: Han and Chewie hunt for the ship on a series of missions, hunting down different leads, only to keep coming up empty. Given that they don’t actually find the Falcon until The Force Awakens, I’m guessing the rest of this mini-series will be more of the same. But that’s ok, since the series is exploring more of where Han is at during this period, which is something fresh, new, and needed.
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