A New Beginning is a comic strip written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Al Williamson. It was published by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Plot summary[]

After escaping Seidhkona, the Millennium Falcon lands on Hoth, the location of the new rebel base. It turns out that to complete the repairs to the Falcon on Seidhkona, Han Solo had to bypass the ship's detection system. Because of this, someone followed the ship all the way to Hoth. Han, Luke and Chewbacca fly up to the intruder's ship to draw them away from the rebel base. The unknown ship sucks the Falcon in with it's tractor beam, at which point its captain informs Jabba The Hutt that he has captured Han Solo and asks about the price on Solo's head. The Falcon's passengers leave the ship, at which point they see that the unknown ship's captain is Raskar, who Han Solo met on Antipose while looking for a power gem. After Raskar's power gem was taken from him, he had to become a pirate to stay afloat. Raskar informs Solo of his intentions to sell Han to Jabba and asks him to make a counteroffer to him. Luke tells Raskar that Han will give him the reward princess Leia gave him in exchange for their freedom, at which point Solo insists that he doesn't have it. Raskar thinks Han is lying and that his treasure is actually on Hoth. He forces Solo to show him where his treasure is. Han has to be careful not to reveal the location of the rebel base to Raskar, and so he flies his ship into a ravine. When Solo attempts to leave the ravine, the Falcon's engines stall and Han can barely make an emergency landing on the bottom of the ravine. The Millennium Falcon is unharmed in the landing, but the sound of the Falcon landng triggers an avalanche. The avalanche does no serious damage, but Solo is afraid that taking off will trigger another bigger ice slide. Luke tells Raskar that the crew of Raskar's ship can pull the Falcon from the ravine with its tractor beam, but the walls of the ravine block the communication signal, making communication between the Falcon and the bigger ship impossible. However, Luke has used a scanner to find a cavern behind one of the ravine's walls, which they could use to climb back to the surface. Luke also tells Raskar that Han's treasure is in the cavern. When they enter the cavern, they see a faint glow. The glow turns out to be Lumni-spice, the rarest kind of spice in the galaxy. The Lumni-spice is guarded by a dragon-slug that feeds on it, and in the battle that ensues all of Raskar's men are killed. Luke manages to kill the dragon-slug with his lightsaber, which he hid in the Millennium Falcon when Raskar confiscated their weapons. The rebels and Raskar find a hole which the dragon-slug burrowed to get to the cavern and leave through it. Han and Raskar agree that they are now even and Raskar leaves the Hoth system with the Lumni-spice, still oblivious to the rebels' base on the planet.

Appearances[]

Collections[]

• Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 3
• Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Newspaper Strips Vol. 2

External links[]

• Incomplete set of Daily Star Wars' 30th Anniversary blog — Daily Star Wars: A New Beginning on Blogspot (backup link)}