Star Wars: Han Secretly Got Revenge By Saving Luke Skywalker on Hoth
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Star Wars #12
A secret enemy of Han Solo met their end when Luke Skywalker was rescued on Hoth, during the original the Star Wars trilogy. A recent Star Wars comic reveals that Han's heroics from the Empire Strikes Back may have also helped him settle a petty grudge.
The Rebel Alliance’s time on Hoth at Echo Base was rough. The frozen, brutal and isolated planet served as a valuable base after destroying the first Death Star. In Star Wars #12, General Leia Organa tells a story of a time the power in the base went out and they lost the ability to heat the facility. In order to salvage resources, sacrifices had to be made. Because the ships still had power, and more importantly heat, rebels crammed themselves inside. However, it wasn’t just the rebels themselves that needed shelter, and Leia had a special request for Captain Han Solo.
Before Han Solo used the warm carcass of a tauntaun to help Luke Skywalker survive a frigid Hoth night, he was forced to keep the beasts on his beloved ship. In Star Wars #12, written by Charles Soule with art by Ramon Rosanas and Rachelle Rosenberg, a small herd of filthy tauntauns are brought aboard the Millennium Falcon until Han can restore power and save the base. The Falcon is Solo’s most prized possession, and being forced to house the foul smelling creatures is an absolute outrage to the smuggler. In the Empire Strikes Back, before the Rebel Alliance is forced to abandon Hoth, Han Solo heroically tracks down a missing Luke Skywalker out in the tundra. The tauntaun that Han is riding when he locates Luke dies, unable to handle the weather conditions. Solo quickly slices open the beast and pushes Skywalker inside, to help stave off hypothermia until their temporary shelter can be built. Han’s quick actions results in the rescue of his friend, but also provides an opportunity to let off some literal steam after the creatures had caused him so much grief.
The Rebel Alliance repeatedly make the best out of whatever situations are handed to them. The frozen conditions of Hoth are not kind to rebel ships and make the tauntauns' inclusion a necessity for operations on the planet’s surface. In the film, as he leaves in search of Luke, Solo is warned his mount won’t survive the frigid nighttime temperatures and he takes off anyway, clearly not as concerned for the creature as he is for his friend. This issue only solidifies why Han would be indifferent to tauntauns. He saves the lives of tauntauns by allowing them on the Millennium Falcon the day the heat goes out, and when he needs one of the beasts the most, it drops dead and leaves him stranded in a storm with a near-death friend. Even if Solo appreciates whatever help the creature does provide, there was certainly no regret shown about the beast’s death.
After being repeatedly inconvenienced and failed by this species, it makes sense he wouldn’t think twice about cutting one open if the situation called for it. Star Wars allows Solo to unknowingly continue to be tormented by tauntauns even after Hoth. When Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and hung as a decoration in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi, had he not been temporarily blind after being freed, he may have seen the stuffed tauntaun head hanging next to his spot, secretly taunting him from beyond the world of the living.