The infamous “Han Shot First” debate is reignited in the new Star Wars canon comic series Han Solo & Chewbacca, this time with an unexpected twist.
Before Han Solo and Greedo’s infamous standoff in the first Star Wars film, a new canon comic shows the two scoundrels in a similar situation, but with a very different outcome that puts a new spin on the “Han Shot First” debate. Star Wars fans are well-known for passionately debating elements of the saga across all media, and one particularly notable point of contention concerns Greedo’s death in A New Hope. An issue of Star Wars: Han Solo & Chewbacca includes a variation of this eventual confrontation which speaks to the underrated mercenary talents of Greedo.
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The original Star Wars trilogy has been re-released with noticeable changes in 1997, 2004, 2011, and 2019, and Han and Greedo’s deadly altercation is the most infamously revised moment. In the theatrical cut, Han preemptively blasts Greedo, but the first Special Edition has Greedo fire first and miss at point-blank range before Han shoots and kills him, much to the annoyance of some viewers. Each subsequent re-release has sped up the moment, making it appear as though both combatants fire simultaneously, but the phrase “Han Shot First” remains a famous indicator of a viewer’s preference for the original 1977 version of the scene.
Related: Star Wars Reveals Why Greedo Really Hates Han Solo
Issue 5 of Star Wars: Han Solo & Chewbacca, by Marc Guggenheim and David Messina, puts Han Solo and Greedo at odds once again, with the two reluctantly working together to find an urn containing the remains of Krestrel D’Naran. When Han gets into an altercation with Greedo’s ally Khel Tanna aboard the Millennium Falcon, the fight is seemingly broken up by the Rodian bounty hunter, who quickly blasts Solo and seemingly kills him. Canon dictates that Solo will survive this somehow, but the moment depicts Greedo as a crack shot with a blaster with fast reflexes, despite the A New Hope re-releases leading Greedo to develop a poor reputation in-universe and among fans. The Han Solo & Chewbacca issue has Greedo canonically shoot first, proving that however things played out in A New Hope, he is a skilled mercenary.
The “Han Shot First” debate has become a big enough controversy to be referenced in other Star Wars media. Video games like 2005’s Star Wars: Battlefront II and novels like Legacy of the Force: Betrayal humorously use the phrase and Solo: A Star Wars Story has Han specifically survive a confrontation with his mentor-turned-enemy, Tobias Beckett, by shooting first. Unfortunately, Greedo’s improbably poor marksmanship has also led to him being portrayed as an incompetent bounty hunter in many canon and Legends stories released after 1997.
One notable exception to this is the Legends-era Star Wars Tales story The Hovel on Terk Street by Tom Fassbender, Jim Pascoe and Eric Powell, which portrays Greedo as a resourceful and formidable mercenary (the sort that Jabba the Hutt would believably hire to track down Han Solo). It even provides an implied explanation for his point-blank miss in A New Hope by having him purchase a defective blaster. Greedo’s actions in canon’s Han Solo & Chewbacca takes a similar approach, showing Greedo to be a lethally fast draw, retroactively showing how much danger Han was in during their A New Hope standoff. The “Han Shot First” debate is unlikely to be settled any time soon, but new Star Wars material like Han Solo & Chewbacca is at least repairing Greedo’s reputation.
