Star Wars War of the Bounty Hunters IG-88 #1: Come With Me If You Want To Die

Wow, I never thought a book that has a robot as the main character could bring such emotion out in the reader. We all know and love IG-88 from his cameo in The Empire Strikes Back, and we recently saw what an IG unit could do thanks to The Mandalorian and now author Rodney Barnes combines that knowledge into this character, and the result is really quite thrilling. This whole crossover has actually lived up to the hype delivering thrills and chills, which is quite the accomplishment considering we pretty much knew how it was going to end. But here, Barnes does a deep-dive into some behind-the-scenes follow up to the main series that we weren’t aware of and gives life to a character that we only saw for 2 seconds in one scene of a movie. Barnes creates a wonderful story that fits perfectly into the spaces between the panels of the main War of the Bounty Hunters mini-series. He introduces a number of characters, who are quite important, and these characters matter in the grand scheme of things. That’s pretty impressive in general, let alone for a licensed comic. While this may be considered a “satellite book”, Barnes really makes this an integral part of the overall story and you’re going to be missing a fascinating chapter if you don’t pick this one up.

Artist Guiu Vilanova brings a unique perspective to the Star Wars universe because it’s seen through the eyes of an assassin droid, not a living, breathing person or alien. Antonio Fabela mutes the colors just a bit so that everything isn’t as bold and vivid as it normally would be, but lets them shine where they should. Vilanova’s designs of the new characters are spot-on for Star Wars and they grab the reader and almost instantly make them care. A very well-illustrated book.