Star Wars has officially retconned The Force Awakens, in the strangest possible way. We’ve just celebrated the ten-year anniversary of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which introduced viewers to a very different – yet nostalgically familiar – galaxy far, far away. It didn’t take long for Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn to stumble on the Millennium Falcon, apparently lost long ago by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. But all that was set up for Han’s return, as he celebrated his homecoming with his loyal friend Chewbacca.

But how did Han lose the Falcon in the first place? The Force Awakens never answered that question, but it did confirm Han had been scouring the galaxy for his trusty spaceship. Han was understandably frustrated when Rey told him it had been on Jakku, complaining to Chewbacca that they “should’ve double-checked the Western Reaches,” and guessed a thief named Ducain had the Falcon. “I stole it from Unkar Plutt,” Rey explained, demonstrating an odd knowledge of the Falcon’s history. “He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain.”

Rodney Barnes, Guru-eFX and Ramon Rosanas’ Han Solo – Hunt for the Falcon miniseries has told a story set before The Force Awakens, one in which Han and Chewbacca reunited to search for the Millennium Falcon. Although the story captured Han’s character quite well, it’s increasingly become clear this is one of the strangest retcons in Star Wars history, because now that it’s wrapped it just doesn’t make any sense.

The Hunt for the Falcon Directly Contradicts The Force Awakens

The core problem is that the story just doesn’t quite fit. In Hunt for the Falcon, Han successfully tracks his starship across the galaxy. He runs through all those familiar names; Ducain, the Irving Boys, and he even gets to Unkar Plutt himself. Even more staggering, the final confrontation between Han and Unkar Plutt takes place on Jakku itself, with Han realizing he’ll be killed if he pushes things any further and choosing to leave the Falcon behind – for now. It all directly contradicts the entire conversation between Han and Rey in The Force Awakens.

It’s hard to figure out how to read Hunt for the Falcon. It’s an enjoyable story, but there’s no way it can coexist well with the very movie it’s supposed to be setting up. The only possible way of reconciling these two tales is to suggest Han and Chewbacca were play-acting through their entire conversation with Rey, perhaps testing her to see if her story adds up and to decide whether or not they can trust her. But there’s absolutely nothing in The Force Awakens, nor any other novelization or adaptation, to suggest that interpretation. It’s such a strange decision.

Matters are actually compounded in Hunt for the Falcon #5, courtesy of a dream that feels as though it’s actually a memory (earlier issues featured emotional flashbacks in the same artistic style). In this scene, Han unwisely flies the Falcon through Imperial Space, risking his family who are on board. Ben is old enough to speak. The problem is that the Empire fell at the Battle of Jakku around the time of Ben’s birth; even factoring in the Imperial Remnant forces that operated for some years (as seen in The Mandalorian), there was no official Imperial space by the time Ben was old enough to talk.

Marvel’s Star Wars Comics Need to Take Continuity a Little More Seriously

This isn’t the first time Marvel’s official Star Wars comics have stumbled in terms of continuity. Last year’s The Battle of Jakku event was designed to tie in with other stories that had already told different perspectives on the Empire’s downfall, notably Chuck Wendig’s “Aftermath” trilogy. That, too, stumbled, because it didn’t fit at all with the established continuity. It even missed out on an epic scene featuring Luke Skywalker that had been teased in Ken Liu’s The Legends of Luke Skywalker, much to the disappointment of readers.

Hunt for the Falcon is, of course, much more frustrating. It’s one thing for a Star Wars story to conflict with a series of tie-in novels that were published a decade ago; it’s quite another to explicitly contradict the very movie the comic is supposed to be setting up. Hunt for the Falcon is an enjoyable story, it has good characterization, but it just doesn’t work. And that’s a real shame.

Hunt for the Falcon #5 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.

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