Released by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: February 26, 2014
Central character Ania Solo finds herself out of one frying pan and into another in this setup issue. She discovers there's a price on her head for the false charge of her killing an Imperial Knight. Just as she and her crew of friends are trying to wrap their heads around that they get a distress call that turns out to reunite Ania with an old flame named Ramid. But then Ramid captures her and leaves her friends behind...
Meanwhile, Ania is finding that Ramid - whom she'd thought dead when they escaped a prison colony years prior - and his crew are only after her for the bounty and are not very good at kidnapping. In their haste to escape from Ania's ship they took some risks that left them without much fuel and only one fairly hostile planet is close enough to refuel. Its inhospitable atmosphere notwithstanding, Ramid proceeds into the storm.
Ramid's ship is taking a bit of a beating in the hostile atmosphere but, soon enough, it's getting more of a beating from a TIE fighter that opens fire upon it. Losing his pilot, Ramid has no choice but to throw Ania into the driver's seat. Try as she might she can't save the ship but manages to crash without killing quite everyone aboard. But a new threat announces itself outside as the TIE pilot is calling her out…
It's great to have a solid, exciting female character at the center of a Star Wars title and writers Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman nicely move the pieces around here, providing more exposition for Ania's character as well as giving her a new set of challenges. Hardman's artwork is also quite excellent here, being nice and gritty and noir-ish which seems to suit the Solo version of this world.