By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
In the days long before Disney showed the world just how much they didn’t understand Star Wars, all we had for new stories was our imaginations when playing with our figures and vehicles and the much loved Star Wars Weekly comic strip.
Marvel did a great and more cohesive job than Disney in expanding and solidifying the Star Wars universe right up to the very last issue. Some stories belonged in the general sci-fi stable but a focused effort was made to show us what else lay out there. Water worlds, Death Wheels, the Tagge family and politics where Vader tried to assassinate Leia kept us running to the newsagent every week.
In issue 100 we got the story The Long Hunt which expanded Han’s history, gave us a hint of the past to the days of a young Obi Wan and young Vader. I’ll explain that later when I review at the story.
The Long Hunt gives us what we want and more. New characters like the feline henchmen the Katuman, an airborne alien race , ariel lightsaber battles, multiple alien planets and a new range of characters that would make great figures.
Our heroes respite is short lived when Han takes them to the planet Tirahnn with its exotic marketplaces. Recognised as rebels, Luke and Leia are set up and accused of being thieves by Kharya, the Majestrix of Skye. She slams into Leia deliberately and she sets her bodyguards, the Catuman on them. Luke is injured but Han and wookie Chewbacca arrive and rescue them.
Han is visited by an old friend Kayta M’Buele, a fellow smuggler from the past who clearly has feelings for Han. From Luke’s description of the winged woman, both Han and Katya recognise her and it scares them. Han is never scared of anything at least outwardly and it is a chance to fill in his past. Given he refuses to tell the others even Chewbacca, deepens the tension and mystery. Chewie is literally Han’s guardian angel thanks to their life debt so this shocks the reader. What could be so terrifying that Han would keep them in the dark?
In those days the comic strip paired Luke and Leia together teasing the attraction Luke has for her taken from the first movie. It’s strange reading it now as we read Luke’s inner thoughts. He wonders if Leia feels the same for him as he does for her but it goes unspoken. Just as well given the ultimate reveal about their true relationship but in the Long Hunt, it won’t be the only wrong direction we will see. But no one knew the ultimate revelations the movies would being so fair play to the writers, they took what had been established, ran with it and in a later revelation about Vader, Ben Kenobi and Luke’s father, they got it wrong. But not their fault.
Han also visits an old colleague that owes him money and in the cliffhanger to part one, we learn he knows who the woman in the market that attacked his friends is; the great tyrant of Skye, Kharys.
Part two gives us an insight into Chewbacca’s thoughts at how hurt he is by Han’s actions. But little does he realise that a creature capable of turning itself into smoke attacks Katya. She is absorbed alive into it as it turns its attention to Luke and Leia. Even Chewbacca is helpless against it and only Luke’s lightsaber kills it. But we learn the thing was created from the Force by someone as powerful as Vader in the use of the Force. Furious at his friend’s death, Han blasts off the planet and heads for Skye to take down his old enemy.
He reveals that Skye is a remote world not even the Empire is aware of. Kharys hunted twenty two Corellians down as sport for daring to smuggle on her world. Only two survived; Han and Katya. But his thirst for revenge blinds him to the fact it is a trap and they are attacked by TIE fighters. The Falcon is overwhelmed as it plunges to the planet surface. Han ejects the droids, a sick Luke and Leia in an escape pod.
When Luke awakes he and Leia are prisoners of Aragh, Lord of the Highlands, Patriarch. For the crime of being born without wings and trespassing on sacred land, they are to face trial with only two outcomes; freedom or execution. and anyone born without wings is seen again.
In the relatively short part three, Han is being tortured by Kharys intent on learning all about Luke Skywalker. Han is subjugated to the Imperial torture probe, something Vader used on Leia on the Death Star. This deepens the connection between them unintentionally as they are both endured a torment that Leia can’t even speak about.
Suddenly Leia and Luke are leading an attack on Kharys’ fortress to save their friends. The reader gets no explanation at their sudden freedom but the answer may lie with Luke’s lightsaber. Using glider wings they manage to hit the Imperials hard. They found Skye and quickly took control as part of the Empire. Kharys used this opportunity to lure Han to Skye once she recognised Leia from wanted posters in the marketplace. She knows Luke destroyed the Death Star so by logic she knows of the involvement of a certain Corellian freighter. It also reminds us Leia is no pushover as she fights two Catuman warriors ending on a cliffhanger.
Leia manages to blast one of the Catuman while the rage of a hate filled wookie is on display again when Chewbacca chokes one to death. Meanwhile Khayrs is perched almost Batman like above the battle watching Luke. She can sense he is strong with the Force and in a twist used in The Phantom Menace, she believes that Luke is The One from the prophecy just as Qui Jonn did with Anakin in the movie. See? The writers weren’t that far off in their ideas. The watching council only confirm her fear and she swoops in to kill him. They have something we have never seen in the movies, an aerial lightsaber battle.
Kharys is strong with the Force as she attacks Luke psychically making Luke doubt his abilities. She also has wing and foot claws, slashing at his bandaged wounds in order to force him from the sky. But he feints, killing her with his saber. It is then we learn why Luke and Leia were not executed.
Long ago Ben Kenobi came to Skye with two apprentices; Vader and another man whose saber Luke carries. They saved Skye becoming brothers to the windborn. However Vader returned later declaring Skye an Imperial fort to be ruled over by Kharys to whom he gave his knowledge and part of his powers.
While we know that Vader was Luke’s father, it was a great attempt to flesh out the characters which succeeds in the frame of the early comics. It gives Luke depth as he sees first hand the impact his father had on Skye. He leaves Skye determined to be as great a Jedi as his father someday.
The droids are literally background characters here and rightly so as this is a story where the four main antagonists all emerge from it changed to some degree. While Chewbacca’s anger at being blocked out by Han is never mentioned again, you can see Luke continues to grow especially as the Empire Strikes Back was only around the corner and many images had already been released. The Long Hunt is probably the most adult story in a while given Luke is badly wounded, Han is tortured ala Empire Strikes Back And Katya’s arrival and murder only deepen Leia’s feelings for Han. He is suffering and all she wants to do is be a support for him even when he turns on her. But remember we always hurt the ones we love.
Kharys is a great villain that I feel could have been fleshed out evenmore. She is powerful enough to create an assassin out of thin air that could only be killed by another Force created object; the saber. Such a power has never been demonstrated before or since and it is a bloody cool one to have. If Luke Skywalker could project himself across the galaxy on The Last Jedi, imagine a Sith that never needed to hunt down their victims but simply spawn them from the Dark Side and let them kill their victim. Katya’s death is horrible as she is alive when she is turned to smoke then absorbed.
A cracking story that bravely expands the mythology; worthy of a one hundredth issue.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 