AURRA SING

The bounty hunter takes on a deal from a treacherous customer.

I don't know much about Aurra Sing. I saw her in Outlander, and I expect she'll get some character expansion in The Hunt for Aurra Sing, but after reading this short story, I still don't know anything about her -except, like all stereotypical bounty hunters, she doesn't like to be crossed. Okay.

Sing is hired to hunt down a fallen Jedi, Reese Kairn, who lost his mind in a jealous rage after his love cheated on him. After killing her and her lover, he turned into a pirate, who stole valuables from the Ffib (a species seen in Jabba's palace), and killed some of their monks.

While it might seem like a fun whimsical approach for the author and artists, it seemed like a giant contrivance to me that Sing met her customer on Endor (35 years before Return of the Jedi!), then hunted down her prey on Hoth, Tatooine, and Bespin, planets of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, respectively. What a tired concept.

And because the story is mercifully short, we don't get to see much of those planets, either. Her target had chosen three Shi'ido people, who can change their appearance to the one they want to impersonate. That was a cool concept. Kairn then had surgery to turn him from a Twi'lek to a female Ffib priestess, so that he/she might atone for his/her sins. First, to make everybody think he was dead, he hired Sing.

If the decoys were going into hiding, the one who went to Hoth did the best job, though he was caught first. The one on Tatooine seemed to be living the life of luxury, not what one would expect if trying to hide. And the one on Bespin was training some aerial riders, last seen in Trouble at Cloud City, and looked like he wanted to become famous on Coruscant.

All were caught because Kairn told Sing where to find them, but she found out that he also tried to kill the assassin by informing the last target of her approach. She was easily able to win the attack, and came back to Endor, where Kairn was still waiting (?!?), and kill him, too.

Not much of a story, and all four of Sing's kills were way too easy. And because I didn't like the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, I didn't really appreciate the nod to Bossk's father as the head of the Bounty Hunter's Guild.

The art was nicely dark and moody, and was well-rendered, except for faces. The flash-backs were once again in a sepia tone. But none of it actually stood out as being great.

There must be a better way to give a character's thoughts than by giving narrative squares all over the place on the page. Many comics give terrific thoughts as dialog, instead. This one felt like it was trying to be too much like Clint Eastwood, dark and mysterious, harboring a witty monotone. No thanks.