| A smuggler by trade, Han runs into Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi on Tatooine while trying to escape the imperial guards. He then accompanies them on the rest of the missions for the money. His conscience finally takes over and he comes back to help the alliance in the fight against the empire. He is eventually captured by Darth Vader in Cloud City. While the carbon-freezing chambers of Bespin's Cloud City were built to store Tibanna gas, Darth Vader orders the modification of one chamber so that he can freeze Luke Skywalker-- and thus nullify his nascent Force powers -- to transport him to the Emperor. As a test, Vader decides to try the process on Han Solo, who survives the freezing process, but in a state like suspended animation. Immobilized and powerless, Han is handed over to the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett as a trophy. With Han loaded into the cargo compartment of the Slave I, Boba Fett conveys his entombed prisoner to the desert palace of the gangster Jabba the Hutt for the bounty on his head. The frozen Corellian pirate becomes an object of ridicule, hanging as a decoration in the Hutt’s throne room. |
