Han Solo and the Lost Legacy by Brian Daley (1980)

In this exciting adventure starring Indiana Jones in space, Indiana Jones (played by Han Solo) goes on a treasure hunt to find treasure. I don't think this is a spoiler because Han Solo isn't a rich bastard when we first meet him in Star Wars but he doesn't get a whole lot of treasure at the end. It turns out the treasure is so old that the things people thought of as "treasure" a long time ago in a galaxy sort of far away aren't worth much any more.

I guess I wasn't too woke as a kid when I first read this book because, back then, I don't remember constantly thinking as I read this, "What gives Han the right to take this treasure from the people who have already discovered it? When does a 'lost treasure' suddenly become the property of the people who found it rather than up for grabs to any person jerky enough to think they deserve it?" Han Solo and his treasure hunting buddies kill a lot of people who were just holding on to the treasure they found because Han Solo somehow decided the treasure didn't belong to anybody. How fair is that?! That penchant for believing treasure only belongs to the first white man that comes along to steal it is another reason this should have been an Indiana Jones book and not a Han Solo book. Aside from the lasers and spaces ships, of course. But how hard would it have been to just make the lasers into pistols and the space ships into zeppelins?

If you think I'm making a big deal over some some kind of newfangled social justice way of thinking then you're just pointing out that you're a jerk because nobody in their right mind (and I wasn't in my right mind at eight. I was in my eight year old mind. That kid also didn't understand how Dungeons & Dragons was about the human/dwarf/elf privilege to raid the homes of orcs and kobolds, murder them, and steal their life savings) should be able to read this without thinking Han Solo was being a gigantic, greedy butthole. Sure, he's never been too keen on following the law. But his moral compass has never been this out of whack. The labor droid Bollux shows more ethical clarity in this book when it tries to stop the war machine robots through diplomacy before resorting to violence!

I would like to get over this aspect of the book because aren't all stories about treasure hunters simply stories about people stealing artifacts from people with less power? Should I really be bothered by that?! I mean, I can get over Han Solo firing first and killing Greedo in cold blood because it was the only way he was getting out of that situation alive. Plus, bounty hunters know what they're getting into. And I'm okay with Han Solo breaking laws while smuggling because he knows what he's getting into and the consequences of his actions if he's caught. But I'm far less enthusiastic about a Han Solo who realizes the treasure he is after is in the hands of a whole race of people on a planet and he decides those people don't deserve the treasure simply because he wants it. And in quite a few cases, those people don't even deserve to live because they're using deadly force to defend the treasure which is theirs.

I'm glad Garfield has never shown this lack of ethics in his strips. He may be a cynical douche but at least he's just thinking his terrible thoughts to himself.

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley (1979)

The cover of this book looks like a record album. Chewbacca probably played the keytar. Han Solo sang and jumped into the crowd and also he sang poorly. Sometimes his pants would rip and you could see his junk pressing against his sheer space underwear. But this book isn't about Han Solo's new wave space band. It is about Han Solo getting revenge. And even though I finished this book, I don't know if he got it. I'm not even sure who he was getting revenge on. If he was getting revenge on Zlarb the slaver then the book was over in the first few chapters.

That isn't a spoiler because I don't think spoilers count if they're about stuff that happens in the first few chapters. Unless you're the kind of person who thinks the synopsis on the back of the book is also a spoiler. Then fair point, mate. I just spoiled this book.

One chapter is just an entire chapter of Chewbacca acting like MacGyver except more gross. He turns the corpse of a flying lizard into a hang glider with the help of some surveying equipment. The chapter wasn't as exciting as it would have been in the movie of this book; it just made me think, "Brian Daley really knows a lot of hang-glider vocabulary. He must really be into hang-gliding."

I suppose not every chapter has to be completely relevant to the revenge plot (although during the chapter where the entire mystery is explained by the sentient otter, we learn why this chapter was included). Some times when Garfield sits around hating Mondays, I just enjoy the cynical resentment of an arbitrary day of the week and I don't complain that Garfield isn't moving the plot. So I guess that's a good defense for the Chewbacca hang-gliding from a corpse chapter. Although that sentence is also a good defense for that chapter. Why wasn't that scene in the movie "Solo"?

Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley (1979)

I read this book as a kid because Han Solo was super cool. I reread this book as an adult because I found it in my mother's basement and also because Han Solo is super cool. It stars Han Solo and his dog which he taught to fire a crossbow. That seems dangerous but what is danger to Han Solo? It is like an oyster before doing it.

While reading this book, I kept thinking, "Why hasn't anybody made a novelization of Garfield?" Not like the whole Garfield series is one book. But maybe one book per week of strips. I would buy that exciting book. Sometimes when I read a Garfield comic strip, I think, "This would make a terrific movie script if it were padded out a bit and introduced some exciting new characters, like a hamster that is a spy and a sexy cat that is a sexy spy." But since nobody has done that yet, I would recommend this book because it stars super cool Han Solo.