War of the Bounty Hunters #2 depicts the auction of Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt is not leaving the venue without the smuggler.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters #2 by Charles Soule, Luke Ross, Neeraj Menon and VC’s Travis Lanham, and Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #12 by Alyssa Wong, Minkyu Jung, Victor Olazaba, Joe Caramagna and Rachelle Rosenberg, both on sale now.
The Crimson Dawn criminal organization has successfully gathered the most powerful organizations in the Star Wars Universe for the auction of Han Solo’s carbonite slab. Among those attending include the Black Suns, the Hutts, the Empire and many more. While there are a few attendees that are not interested in obtaining Solo, like Doctor Aphra and Just Lucky, the majority of the organizations plan to leave the event with Solo in their possession. However, Jabba the Hutt just proved that he’s willing to go much further than any of his competition, even the Empire itself.
Jabba was one of the first to learn that Crimson Dawn had come into the possession of Han Solo. What Jabba did not know was how they acquired Solo. He had been in contact with Fett who was en route to Tatooine to deliver the smuggler. After receiving an invitation to attend Crimson Dawn’s auction, Jabba assumed that Fett must have delivered the bounty to a different organization. This led him to put out a bounty on his favorite hunter as he gathered the Hutt Council and headed to the auction’s location on Jekara.
Jabba and the Hutt Council arrived at the auction, and Jabba had no problem enjoying the party. Bokku the Hutt, on the other hand, felt that Crimson Dawn was being disrespectful as the Hutts were not given any special attention at the event. Bokku was actually attending the auction at the behest of Darth Vader who had convinced the Hutt to join his side. Vader wanted Solo as he felt losing Han would be detrimental to the Rebellion and to Luke Skywalker. Bokku was unsuccessful at convincing Jabba to leave, and Qi’ra wasted no time when opening the auction.
The bidding started at 100,000 credits and many of the groups were quick to raise their bid. One of Palpatine’s greatest generals, Sly Moore, was representing the Empire at the auction and made a bid of their own. Moore was force-sensitive and used the Force to prevent any of the other groups from placing higher bids. However, Moore did not account for the Hutts though. As Return of the Jedi demonstrated, Jedi mind tricks do not work on Jabba the Hutt.
With the rest of the competition disoriented, Jabba only had one other individual bidding against him. Bokku the Hutt was determined to acquire Solo for Vader, so he went against a higher ranking member of the Hutt Council and made his own bets. Jabba raised the bid up to one million credits which was much too high for even the Empire to compete with. Unfortunately for Jabba, one million credits may still be insufficient to claim Solo, especially now that Darth Vader has officially arrived at Crimson Dawn’s auction.
There are a few different reasons why Jabba is so determined to recover Solo. First and foremost, he wanted to send a message to anyone else working for him. At one point, Solo was one of Jabba’s favorite smugglers and pilots, but this changed after Solo had to jettison one of Jabba’s shipments. Jabba needed to save face after these events and needed to show the rest of his employees that nobody was exempt from failure. The novel Rebel Dawn by A.C. Crispin originally portrayed the events that caused Solo to owe Jabba before the story was moved to the Legends continuity. The events from Solo: A Star Wars Story directly interfere with Rebel Dawn’s events, making the book impossible in today’s Star Wars canon.
Outside of his own organization, Jabba still had to retain respect from the rest of the galaxy as well. Everyone knew that Solo’s bounty had been put out by Jabba. If another organization was able to claim Solo, it could seriously discredit the Hutt council. It would essentially show that they were not as powerful as believed and other groups would begin moving in on their territory.
One million credits seems like a lot of money, especially when considering Boba Fett was only originally offered 10,000 credits for delivering the bounty. While the Empire could effectively use those resources to fund other projects, Jabba does not have as much need for the money. Most of the Hutt Council oversees planets outside of the Empire’s influence which means these planets do not operate in Republic credits. This can be seen even further in The Phantom Menace when Watto scoffs at Qui-Gon for offering to pay with credits. If Jabba cannot even use the money on his own planet, why not use it to ensure that Han Solo is returned to him?
About The Author
For all the latest Comics News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
