Star Wars’ Boba Fett, Bossk, the Ohnaka Gang, two crime syndicates and many more are all chasing after one man, Beilert Valance.
Ever since Boba Fett’s initial appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars fans have been obsessed with the bounty hunter ideology. This interest has only grown more in recent years with Disney+’s The Mandalorian. Recently, Marvel launched Star Wars: Bounty Hunters by Ethan Stacks, Paolo Villanelli, Arif Prianto, and VC’s Travis Lanham to further explore the history of these fan-favorite characters. This series has already highlighted characters like Bossk and Boba Fett, but the main protagonist is Beilert Valance, a cybernetic bounty hunter who debuted in 1978’s Star Wars #16, by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson.
To put it mildly, Valance has had a rough life. His origin is almost parallel to Han Solo. Born into slavery on a mining planet, Valance’s only chance at escape was to join the Galactic Empire. He crashed his TIE-fighter during a dog fight over a hostile planet. The former slave overestimated his value and thought himself the greatest cadet in the Carida Imperial Navy Acadamy. Unfortunately for Valance, the Empire did not value him much. They elected not to send a rescue party. Han Solo, one of Valance’s fellow Imperial cadets, organized a rescue mission and saves Valance. Unfortunately, the rescue comes too late and Valance’s body has taken a toll from the crash and battles with the natives. When Valance was returned to the Empire, they used spare parts to rebuild him as a cyborg who was then discharged from service.
Valance would eventually link up with his mentor Nakano Lash after saving a child from a gang of Stormtroopers. Lash put together a team that included Boba Fett and Bossk for an escort job. The job went sideways when Khamus, the heir to the Mourner’s Wail Syndicate, tried to kill the heir to the rival Unbroken Clan, Krynthia. Krynthia was pregnant with Khamus’ child, and Khamus knew that his syndicate’s knowledge of the child would destroy him. When Khamus tried to kill Krynthia, Lash pulled the trigger instead and killed Khamus. Lash then fled with the mother, which led to a galaxy-wide manhunt for Lash.
Lash resurfaced many years later with the child that could settle things between the Unbroken Clan and Mourner’s Wail Syndicate. Lash had been secretly reaching out to Valance to help with the child, Cadeliah. Large bounties had been placed on Lash’s head by both crime groups. This encouraged about every bounty hunter in the galaxy to track her down. Valance had an inside source and traveled to her parent’s grave where she hid coordinates to her location. Bossk had been tracking Valance and attacked the cyborg after he retrieved the coordinates. Valance was able to defeat Bossk, but another bounty hunter named Ooris took off with Valance’s droid’s head and the coordinates.
Valance remembered the location on the coordinates and traveled there with T’onga, the sister of a fallen bounty hunter. Upon arrival at Lash’s home, Valance discovers the lifeless body of Ooris. Lash is no longer in her home but Valance tracks her to a ship hidden in an asteroid field. Cadeliah and Valance meet for the first time before Boba Fett appears and kills T’onga. Lash, Fett and Valance battle while Cadeliah hides on Valance’s ship, the Broken Wing. Fett is able to fight off both the other two and leaves Lash injured and trapped under rubble. Valance leaves Lash as her ship explodes and makes plans to take Cadeliah to Lowik, the homeworld of his former lover, Yura.
Valance encounters two more bounty hunters, Zuckuss and 4-LOM while en route to Lowik. Valance is hurt badly in the battle, but Yura is able to patch him up. Their reunion is short-lived as not only does Yura now have a husband, but Zuckuss and 4-LOM have landed on the planet. Valance makes a deal with the pair. He gives them a valuable ruby and allows them to tell the Empire about Lowik in return for a three-day headstart on the hunters. They oblige. Valance leaves Cadeliah with Yuri, thinking that she will be safer with them than with a wanted bounty hunter. The colony is forced to evacuate Lowik and call upon Valance once more when one of their ships drops out of hyperspace. While Valance is able to help the evacuating ship, he runs into his nemesis Dengar.
Valance is a character with a deep history that has been given new life in Star Wars: Bounty Hunters. The stories take place after the Battle on Hoth and give much more background on the seedier sides of the Star Wars Universe. Valance has already had run-ins with multiple members from Star Wars lore and is bound to see many more.
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