WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #10 by Ethan Sacks, Paolo Villanelli, Travis Lanham, and Arif Prianto, on sale now.
Despite his cavalier attitude, Han Solo is one of the greatest heroes in the Star Wars Universe. One of Han's greatest attributes is his ability to save friends when they're in need. Solo has shown this many times over the course of numerous movies, comics, and books. While his heroic actions are most remembered during the destruction of the first Death Star, one of Han's rescue missions for the Empire had disastrous results.
Beilert Valance is one of the most lethal bounty hunters in the galaxy, and he partially owes his success to Han Solo. Before he became a cybernetic bounty hunter, Valance was simply a cadet in the Imperial Navy. Valance and Solo had quite the rivalry during their time together at the Naval Academy. Solo displays his usual attitude and is seen being reprimanded multiple times during Robbie Thompson and Leonard Kirk's Star Wars: Han Solo - Imperial Cadet miniseries. Valance is clearly not a fan of Solo's arrogance and makes it clear multiple times.
Contrary to Valance's beliefs, Solo is one of the few members of the Empire who even slightly cares if someone lives or not. Valance's ship goes down during a dogfight, and Solo's request to lead a rescue mission is shot down by the Empire. Much to the surprise of Valance, Solo elects to save him anyway. Now, Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #10 has shown the events from Valance's eyes and offered a deeper look into Valance's recovery.
Valance was not of a high enough rank to receive cybernetics. His leg was amputated and he lost an eye due to the crash so the Empire patched him up with spare parts. Solo told Valance after the operation that this was his chance to get out of Imperial service. Valance decided to stay enlisted with the Empire and was hurt again in a later battle. This time, the majority of Valance's body needed to be replaced, and he was remade into a cyborg. He was then discharged from the Empire and eventually would join up with Boba Fett, Bossk and Nakano Lash as one of the most feared bounty hunter gangs in the galaxy.
In Bounty Hunters, Valance recently learned that Boba Fett has trapped Han Solo in carbonite, and Beilert is on a collision course to find the rebel. It seems pretty clear that Valance wants to make up his debt to Solo by saving his life from Fett. Return of the Jedi has already shown that Han Solo does end up making it to Jabba's Palace thanks to the efforts of Boba Fett. But only time will tell when Valance will run into Fett, but he's bound to run into the man who saved his life one more time. While Han is not necessarily responsible for Valance becoming a bounty hunter, Beilert would most likely have not survived long on the war-torn planet.
This is just one step in a long line of Han Solo's more heroic actions. Most times he saves people without being asked. As he's been doing since he made a dramatic return to help the Rebels take down the Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope, Han Solo keeps proving that he will do whatever it takes to save his friends. Even though that eventually costs him his life in The Force Awakens, anybody who stayed by Solo's side must have felt comforted by the fact that if they got into a sticky situation, their smuggler friend would be along shortly to save them.