"War of the Bounty Hunters #5: Attack at Dawn" by Charles Soule

"War of the Bounty Hunters #5: Attack at Dawn" written by Charles Soule, illustrated by Luke Ross, David Messina, Neeraj Menon, and Rachelle Rosenberg

This tied things up nicely in some quite surprising ways!! I'm super curious to see how the individual long-run series will relate to this ending issue of the overarching mini-series. On the last page we have the future of this set of stories laid out before us with the "Crimson Reign" crossover event starting in December and the "Hidden Empire" crossover event starting in 2022. I'm loving how they've taken what would have otherwise been a really short run of each of these series (due to the time span between ESB and ROTJ just being one year) and expanded it in such a creative way. So cool and I am so here for it.

We start off with carbonite-encased Han aboard the disabled Imperial shuttle and the entire Hutt armada on the attack--Bokku seems to be incredibly insulted by Vader claiming Han for himself over Jabba and even the other members of the Hutt Council are leery of his audacity! Turns out though, that the upstart Hutt is secretly working for Crimson Dawn!! That explains things because Bokku goes full force against an Imperial Super Star Destroyer!! It's truly bizarre. Check out the insanity below!!

Independently after Han are Leia, Lando, Lobot, and Chewbacca as well as Valance and Boba Fett. Both groups make it aboard the Super Star Destroyer (the former with a little bit of disguised help from Qi'ra), but everything pretty much ends in disaster for all involved...including for the Hutts. The only two main people that really make it out unscathed are Boba Fett and Jabba...go figure. Valance for one, gets blown wide open by Boba Fett and is left laying on the floor with his wiring exposed (see the quite gruesome image below). Poor guy--at least we know there HAS to be more of him since the "Bounty Hunters" series is really his story.

As for the other people involved, our 4 heroes plus Boba Fett are within feet of rescuing Han, until a blast from the Hutt ships blows a hole in the SSD's hull and carbonite-encased Han gets sucked into space! The large block plummets down to the planet below, but Boba jumps ship with his jet pack and rescues the smuggler from sinking down into the Jekara ocean (see below)...only of course to bring him in a surprise Epilogue to Jabba. All seems forgiven between the criminal mastermind and the bounty hunter and it appears their new, closer working relationship has begun. 

Also going on is the dogfight between Vader and Luke, but this ends once Piett informs Palpatine of the Hutt armada's attack on the SSD. Palpatine wants Vader to deal with the Hutt situation personally. "He wants them cowed, not destroyed," as Piett puts it. So Vader does what he does best...boards the Hutt Council's ship and kills every last member... Lucky for Jabba, he wasn't a part of the whole mess despite being the actual person who was gipped. This leaves Jabba as the sole leader of the Hutt clans. Bully for him!! Although, we all know it doesn't last much longer...

Before I get to spoilers, I want to share this image of a ridiculously fancified Hutt!!! Cracks me up:

And lastly...SPOILERS!!!! >>>

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

The main part of the story ends with an incredibly enticing panel of Qi'ra standing before a whole host of baddies (see below), including REN!!!! WHAT?!?! This is going to be REALLY interesting and I cannot wait to see where Charles Soule takes us from here in "Crimson Reign"!!