"Smuggler's Run #2" adapted by Alec Worley

"Smuggler's Run #2" adapted by Alec Worley (based on the novel by Greg Rucka), illustrated by Ingo Romling

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This was SO much fun!! The plot, thank you Greg Rucka, is engaging, edge of your seat style storytelling and Worley did a fantastic job with the adaptation! The art is exceptionally drawn and colored, vividly visualizing the scenes from the novel. I would love to get a similar treatment for the Leia novel--Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure--that came out in the same publishing campaign as Smuggler's Run: A Han Solo and Chewbacca Adventure. Both were excellent stories and if this comic adaptation is any indication, fantastically suited for a super visual format! 

We begin this second issue of two with Delia Leighton being interrogated by the bounty hunters that were after Han. Unfortunately, with her friend at gunpoint, she gives in and tells them where to find our two heroes...leaving Ematt and the secrets of future Rebel bases in terrible danger! (Check out one of the bounty hunters attacking below.) Not to mention that the Empire is hot on the tails of the bounty hunters, ready to take advantage of the situation. And Commander Alecia Beck (her star destroyer is called the Vehement) is already waiting at the Millennium Falcon...things look really bad! 

I don't want to give much else away but I did want to point out a really awesome plot point that I'd completely forgotten. Alecia Beck is bound and determined to capture the Falcon, even employing tractor beams that will rip her TIE fighters apart while trying to lock onto the Rebel ship. To get away, Han swoops down toward the city of Motok below, at first leaving Beck in utter confusion but then it dawns on her, if she keeps up with her current plan, she'll destroy the barrier keeping the city safe from the surrounding polluted air (remember this all takes place on Cyrkon, a planet where the air is toxic and deadly due to industry) and, "There'll be millions of witnesses. The Rebel ship might be too small to see from the ground, but we're not. Those who survive will know the Empire destroyed their home." Nice move on Han's part! (see some of the denizens of Motok below)

There's also a heartfelt and heartbreaking conversation between Ematt and Han about trust. Ematt says, "Trust is as precious as it is rare, but you only get it by giving it." Han responds with, "Trust isn't given, it's earned. Like friendship." And the kicker is Ematt's reply, "You must be a very lonely guy." Poor Han!! And earlier in the story, he and Chewie are discussing how nobody trusts Han but they trust Han and Chewie together because they really just trust Chewie. Han does have a good heart so it makes me sad when characters don't support or believe in  him. *tear*

One more thing before I go--check out Chewie's luscious locks in the panel below. I love the way he's drawn in this comic so incredibly much!!

So a wonderful second half of this comic retelling of what was already a fun story in novel form. As I said in the opening paragraph, I would love to see the middle grade Leia book, and the middle grade Luke book too for that matter, that came out in the Journey to The Force Awakens publishing campaign given the same treatment!