First look: Boba Fett stars in War of the Bounty Hunters comic series

What exactly did Boba Fett encounter on his trip to deliver a frozen-in-carbonite Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt? We’re about to find out with the new Marvel comics spinoff series War of the Bounty Hunters.

StarWars.com said series writer Charles Soule came up with the pitch for Marvel’s Star Wars series back in 2019, which included a breakout story that “he was itching to write.”

Soule explained to StarWars.com in their announcement today:

"Boba Fett clearly doesn’t take Han Solo directly to Jabba’s palace. Something had to happen in between that intervening time between Empire and Jedi. And I was like, “I would like to tell that story, and I would like it to be about Boba Fett and what happens to him.”"

War of the Bounty Hunters is an “epic crossover” series that kicks off on May 5 with Bounty Hunters Alpha #1 and runs through October. Then, the miniseries will continue in several ongoing series in Marvel’s post-Empire Strikes Back line. That includes Star Wars, Bounty Hunters, Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra.

The five-issue War of the Bounty Hunters run from Soule and Luke Ross kicks off in June. StarWars.com said the miniseries will anchor the story.

Soule described the series as a crime epic focused on iconic bounty hunter Boba Fett as he has a not-so-smooth journey from Cloud City to Tatooine.

Soule told StarWars.com:

"The main story that we’re dealing with is a Boba Fett-focused crime epic, that involves Boba Fett going up against some of the heaviest hitters in the galaxy. It’s Jabba the Hutt. It’s Black Sun. It’s Darth Vader. And a bunch of others — factions and so on — that I think will be really interesting for the fans. It’s basically Boba Fett, by himself, against all of these people."

Why, exactly, does Boba Fett have to take on the galaxy’s “heaviest hitters?” Well, at the end of Empire Strikes Back, he has Han Solo frozen in a slab of carbonite in his possession. But at the beginning of War of the Bounty Hunters, Soule said Boba Fett does not have Solo anymore.

As fans know, Boba Fett does have Solo’s carbonite slab by the time we get to Return of the Jedi, but War of the Bounty Hunters appears to show how the bounty hunter lost him and what lengths he had to go to get him back.

“War of the Bounty Hunters will be the biggest Star Wars story Marvel has told thus far,” StarWars.com said.

In the exclusive first look on StarWars.com, we see the cover for the prelude Alpha #1 issue coming in May, showing Boba Fett, blaster drawn, appearing to try to protect Solo’s slab from something. In other panels, we see Boba Fett communicate with Bib Fortuna and stare at Solo’s frozen form. Soule added in the interview:

"War of the Bounty Hunters is a story about Boba Fett doing his thing, but it builds into something much bigger, and that’s what the best comic crossovers and big stories do. They tell a great story in and of themselves, but they’re also the start of something, and they open a lot of new doors. And this story will absolutely do that."

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