Warning: spoilers ahead for Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #17!
In Marvel's new Darth Vader himself. With the War of the Bounty Hunters crossover having come to an end, Valance was trapped on Vader's flagship known as the Executor. However, while he was ultimately captured before he could make his grand escape, the dark lord of the Sith chose not to kill Valance, granting him a new form instead.
During the War of the Bounty Hunters, Valance was determined to try and save Han Solo from his carbonite prison, owing him a life debt after the infamous smuggler saved his life when the pair were both cadets in the Imperial Academy (before their respectively drastic turns away from Imperial service.) While the cyborg even allied himself with his rival Boba Fett to try and save the carbonized Han from the Executor, he was ultimately betrayed by the legendary hunter, who recovered the smuggler, delivering Solo to Jabba the Hutt as Fett always intended before Crimson Dawn stole Solo away from him.
While Fett left Valance to die on the Executor, the new Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #17 from writer Ethan Sacks and artist Paolo Villanelli reveals the cyborg hunter's ultimate fate. While he almost escapes the Imperial flagship in this new issue by stealing a jetpack from a jumptrooper and leaping out into space, only to be retrieved by his fellow hunters Bossk and Zuckuss. Using the Force, Vader pulls Valance back to the Executor as the cyborg fades from consciousness. However, once he wakes up, he's instantly aware that something major has changed.
Remarkably, it looks as though Darth Vader has restored Valance and his cybernetic systems (including his face). Seeing as how Valance and his half-robot face were introduced in the Star Wars comics of 1978, many fans have speculated that Valance is a visual inspiration for 1984's The Terminator. As a result, it's fairly significant that Valance now resembles a regular human, looking even better than Darth Vader himself. However, that apparently comes at the steep cost of his freedom, given Vader's claim at the end of the issue that Valance now works for the Sith lord.
It's going to be interesting to see how long the new and improved Valance will last (considering his half-robot face was his most defining feature). Furthermore, with Vader focusing his efforts on hunting Crimson Dawn after War of the Bounty Hunters, it seems as though Valance is going to become a key part of Darth Vader's plans in the coming issues of Star Wars: Bounty Hunters.
