Last week saw the release of the debut issue of the new miniseries Star Wars: Jango Fett from Marvel Comics, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this first installment.
Jango Fett #1 begins with a bounty-hunting mission similar to what we saw at the top of the first-ever episode of The Mandalorian on Disney+– basically a way to show off how good (and ruthless) the title character is at his job. Jango busts up a seedy gambling den on the planet Oosalon (from a Star Wars Rebels episode) to claim his prize, leaving nothing but death and destruction in his wake. Then writer Ethan Sacks (previous of Marvel’s Star Wars: Bounty Hunters, which ended just a couple months ago) cuts to the Regional Republic Headquarters on Jaloria, where a representative is bringing together the warring species of Nautolans and Anselmi– or is it the other way around?– from Glee Anselm in apparently successful peace talks. As a symbol of this newly achieved treaty between the two races, the Republic is returning a museum piece called the Hope of Glee Anselm, containing two enormous jewels symbolizing each species, to the world.
But this display of truce and harmony is interrupted by mercenaries who take out the Republic guards watching over the ceremony and make off with the ostentatious sculpture. Here’s where we learn that this story takes place concurrent with the events of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (there’s a reference to talks having broken down between the Trade Federation and delegates from Naboo) and it’s also where the two storylines begin to intersect. As Jango Fett delivers his bounty to a droid called Y3-99 on Halmad (another planet borrowed from the Legends timeline), a request comes in for him to retrieve the Hope statue for the Republic in order to prevent a war from breaking out once again. Unfortunately for Fett, Y3 has also assigned this task to a number of other hunters (this also reminded me of Din Djarin’s mission in the first episode of The Mandalorian), and we get a demonstration of how tough some of them can be in a cutaway to the planet Daiyu (first seen in the Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series).
The final subplot introduced in this issue involves the release of another infamous bounty hunter from a penitentiary on Megalox Beta (introduced in Charles Soule’s Star Wars: Poe Dameron comics): namely the Force-sensitive Palliduvan Aurra Sing, who has been a semi-regular supporting character in A Galaxy Far, Far Away since her debut in The Phantom Menace. So I’m expecting all of these various interested parties to cross paths on a collision course in subsequent issues, and that explosive conflict kicks off with the cliffhanger ending here, which sees Y3-99 destroyed as Jango Fett’s ship (we know it’s called the Slave I, though I doubt the comic will ever use that name) comes under attack by those same mercenaries from the ceremony. It’s an exciting start and I’m definitely intrigued to see where this is all headed, mostly because of Sacks’ sharp, experienced bounty-hunter writing and the really gorgeous artwork by Luke Ross, who has plenty of history with Star Wars comics as well at this point. Bring on the next issue!
Star Wars: Jango Fett #1 is available now wherever comic books are sold.