An exciting new Star Wars and Marvel Comics collaboration has just been announced with Han Solo and Chewbacca, a new comic series featuring never-before-scene adventures for the Millennium Falcon's captain and his Wookiee first mate. Releasing early 2022, Han and Chewie's new comic will see them working as smugglers before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. While Han might like to think of himself as a rogue, it looks as though this new series will offer him plenty of opportunities to be a hero well before he helped Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star.
Coming from writer Marc Guggenheim and artist David Messina, the Han Solo and Chewbacca series will be a Star Wars first. While Han and Chewie have been featured alongside the greater cast of Rebels in Marvel's flagship Star Wars series and have also had their share of limited series and one-shot specials, this new comic will be their first ongoing monthly series. Taking place before A New Hope, the announcement revealed that it will take place after Solo: A Star Wars Story, teasing a new era for Han and Chewie that has yet to be fully explored in the Star Wars timeline.
StarWars.com's Han Solo and Chewbacca announcement also contains an interview with Guggenheim, who shares his excitement for this particular time period and where he wants to take Solo at this point in the smuggler's life:
"It’s interesting because the cornerstone of Han’s character is that he wants to be a jerk, a selfless criminal, but has this idealistic streak that always gets in his way. He aspires to cynicism, but deep down, he’s a hopeless romantic at heart...So one of the things I’ve been playing with is the tension between the “hopeless romantic” Han reveals himself to be at the end of Solo and the hard-bitten cynic we meet in Episode IV. To be very reductive about it, I’ve searched for opportunities to force Han to choose between his lesser and greater angels."
It certainly seems as though this in-between era is the perfect space for Guggenheim's exploration into Han's "lesser and greater angels," as Han and Chewie will already be working for Jabba the Hutt. Furthermore, it's also been revealed that they'll be partnered with none other than Greedo (albeit at an earlier period, before Greedo was trying to kill Solo). Here's a look at the cover art from Alex Maleev, along with variant covers from Adam Huges, Phil Noto, and Declan Shalvey:
Han Solo has always been one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars, with Chewbacca always at his side. Rather than having a lightsaber in his hand and taking a righteous stance in the battle between the forces of light and dark, Han fights for what he thinks is right, though it certainly takes time for him to feel comfortable being a hero. That gradual evolution is one of the greatest arcs Star Wars has to offer, and it's going to be exciting as Guggenheim and Messina pull back the curtain on Han Solo's earliest days as a scoundrel who still sometimes can't help but to do the right thing.
Han Solo and Chewbacca should be a welcome addition to Marvel Comics' collection of ongoing Star Wars titles. If any characters deserve a monthly series, it's the captain and first mate of the Millennium Falcon. The first issue of Han Solo and Chewbacca's new series comes to comic book store shelves in March of 2022.
Source: StarWars.com