Star Wars’ Best Han/Lando Team Up Was in The Comics (& You Should Read Them)

Han Solo and Lando Calrissian are a pair of spacefaring smugglers and, while neither has ever been averse to a minor breach of trust, they have been partners-in-crime on many occasions. Often at odds across the sabacc table and ownership of the Millennium Falcon, Han and Lando work best as a team, whether navigating the tangle of the stellar Maw off Kessel or acting in tandem during the battle of the Second Death Star. But fans won’t find their most memorable team-up on the holonet, Dark Horse Comics published that story, Star Wars: Underworld – Yavin Vassilka in comic-form, an elegant medium for a more civilized age.

Rebellions are built on hope, but pirates like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian would rather gamble on a safe bet or a sure thing. This unscrupulous duo have found themselves frequent, if not reluctant, allies in the original trilogy of films as well as in Star Wars: Legends novels such as Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels and Honor Among Thieves. The Jedi Archives would have to build a new wing to catalogue the number of Star Wars comics published over the decades since Marvel launched the first series in 1977, two month’s before the film premiered. Marvel, Dark Horse, and IDW would all contribute to the Skywalker Saga and its tributary tales, though Marvel wielding the power of Disney has recaptured the cherished franchise while licensing the property back to Dark Horse for series such as Hyperspace Stories and High Republic Adventures. 

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In their Star Wars heyday, Dark Horse published Star Wars: Underworld – Yavin Vassilka, notable not only for its devious plot but also for its striking illustrations, saw-edged sketches that beguile the senses with their asymmetrical angularity and leave readers lingering on artwork that tells its own tale. Written by Mike Kennedy with said art by the late Carlos Meglia, the creative team were joined by Dave Stewart, the colorist whose role was to contend with Meglia’s hypnotic aesthetic. The result is a visual masterpiece conceived for the printed page, faithful to the franchise but willing to go where no one had gone before. With all the scum and villainy of the Star Wars Underworld to explore, Kennedy, Meglia, and Stewart send fans along on a high-stakes smash and grab that spans the galaxy. 

Set shortly before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Star Wars: Underworld – Yavin Vassilka opens at Jabba’s Place on the desert planet, Tatooine where three sluggish Hutt crimelords conspire around a holographic dejarik table, wallowing in their wealth and weaving new intrigues to entertain themselves. Learning of the emergence of the mythical Yavin Vassilka, an ancient crystalline statue etched with Massassi hieroglyphics, Embra, Malta, and Jabba each wager that they can find the prize before the other and employ teams of three contractors apiece to act as their proxies. Choosing squads from a rogues’ gallery of bounty hunters and intergalactic reprobates, Embra contracts the former-protocol droid, 4-LOM, the Gand findsman, Zuckuss, and Sardu Sallowe, a Tusken-tracker and his wily Jawa entourage. Malta’s team is recruited by his underling, Jozzel Moffett who hires the saurian Bossk, the slow-witty but dangerous, Dengar the Demolisher, and assassin droid, IG-88. Unbeknownst to Malta the Hutt, Jozzel Moffett is moonlighting for a shadowy benefactor known as The Collector and has plans to betray the gangster. Jabba’s Twi’lek majordomo, Bib Fortuna wrangles Captain Han Solo and his sidekick and navigator, Chewbacca, while the Rodian delinquent, Greedo tags along after catching wind of the bounty. Boba Fett is secretly commissioned by the conniving Jabba to stack his deck and, as all the other bounty hunters seem to agree, to take out Solo though the clone remains aloof as always. Lando Calrissian inadvertently crashes the party once the chase is underway, stowing away on the Falcon after seeing Boba Fett stalking a spaceport.

Skullduggery and subterfuge soon follow, with unprincipled and ruthless bounty hunters hilariously sabotaging one squad while double-crossing the other, all in pursuit of the cosmic MacGuffin, the mythical Vassilka. From Crevasse City, the capital of the planet, Kalkovak in the Mid Rim, to the water-world of Mon Calamari, and into the depths of Wild Space beyond the Outer Rim, the treasure hunt plays out like a blockbuster comedy-chase film. The five-issue limited series is steeped in Star Wars lore, with familiar starships like the Falcon and Fett’s infamous craft and artful renditions of the galaxy’s most bizarre species including the squid-like Quarren, reptilian Trandoshans, and cuddly Wookiees, with a cameo from Garindan ezz Zavor, sometimes referred to as Long Snoot—the Kubaz that sold-out Obi-Wan and Luke in Mos Eisley. Deep cut!

Originally published by Dark Horse Comic in 2000, now back under Marvel license and available on Marvel Unlimited, Star Wars: Underworld – Yavin Vassilka is a must-read for serious Star Wars fans—if only for the art, it’s scruffy looking. 

Is there a Star Wars team up you want to see? Tell us in the comments below.