Later this month, Boba Fett will make his play as a major new face in the Star Wars underworld in his very own Disney+ show, The Book of Boba Fett. But while this will be our “official” look at what Boba got up to after escaping digestion, it’s not the first time Star Wars has pondered what the infamous Bounty Hunter got up to after cheating death. In case you weren’t aware, not all of those exploits were exactly kickass.
We all know Boba got out of the sarlacc, but the version of it we remember in the EU is actually his second escape, because his first attempt was woefully funny. The 81st issue of Marvel’s classic Star Wars comic revealed that Boba managed to claw his way out of the monstrous pit just after Return of the Jedi, but was blighted with temporary amnesia following his traumatic ordeal... and immediately kidnapped by Jawas, who are very dumb and assume he’s a cyborg. Naturally, said Jawas also manage to kidnap R2-D2 out of Mos Eisley—who was there with Han and Leia, with the former trying to literally get his bank account reopened after being strapped for cash due to his time in carbonite. This meant that when Han went to rescue the droid, he was horrified to discover Boba aboard the Jawa’s sandcrawler... even if the bounty hunter had no idea who he was. After the duo worked together to liberate Artoo, Han took pity on Fett and tried to help him escape... only for Leia to scream Han’s name enough that Fett’s memories resurfaced, leading to him immediately try to murder Solo. Han escaped with Artoo, leaving Boba and the out-of-control sandcrawler to literally drive right back into the sarlacc’s waiting maw. Womp, womp.
The second time Boba got out, he was nursed back to health by everyone’s favorite second-string bounty hunter, Dengar. It kickstarted a partnership that saw the duo become so close that Boba was invited to be Dengar’s best man at his wedding to his girlfriend Manaroo, who had convinced Dengar to not just kill Boba where he lay after escaping the sarlacc. This might not sound all that weird, but honestly, who doesn’t want to picture the thought of Boba Fett—the alleged biggest, baddest bounty hunter in the entire galaxy—not just at a wedding, but acting as Best Man? What was his speech like? Did he wear formalwear over his armor? Did the helmet stay on at all times? The EU was so good at diving into so much Star Wars nonsense, but we need to know more!
Alas, Boba’s bromance with Dengar was quite short-lived, in spite of their growing closeness. It didn’t help that they were actually quite comically bad together. Their partnership ended after just four years when, re-confronting Han Solo for the first time on the moon Nar Shaddaa, he chased him all the way to Byss. But an overconfident Boba mistimed escaping past the planet’s shielding systems, sending his and Dengar’s ship (more on that shortly) bouncing off it and blasting off like they were Team Rocket knockoffs. The incident lead to the duo breaking up, but it was at Dengar’s behest. What a way to get dumped!
Boba used the inconvenience of being partially digested to his own benefit when he escaped the sarlacc, spending his first few years free trying to keep a low profile, accepting discreet jobs. But when a former Alliance operative turned bounty hunter named Jodo Kast acquired his own set of Mandalorian armor and was presumed to be the returned Fett, Boba staged the most ridiculous gotcha to clear his name. Operating under an alias, Boba hired Kast to claim a bounty on a man named Satnik Hiicrop... who was just Boba operating under an alias. Boba Fett hired the man the galaxy thought was Boba Fett, to kill Boba Fett, who was there to kill—well, you get the picture. Boba naturally hoodwinked poor Jodo, who was left to get killed by his own exploding jetpack.
Also, it has to be noted: Boba wasn’t flying the Slave I at this point anymore, as the ship had been locked up and impounded after falling into Rebel Alliance hands. So, Boba got a new ship, a Pursuer-class enforcer rather than the identifiable Firespray of old, and what did the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy name it to keep his low profile? Slave II. Come ON, man.
Boba would keep fighting well into his old age, nearly a decade and a half after he escaped the sarlacc. But beaten and drowning in medical debt from preventing a cancer that could develop from his partial digestion, he crossed paths with Han Solo once more, both men wizened by their age. Boba, coming off a tough bounty that secured him the funds to get a clone leg that could replace his current cybernetic one, promptly got into a fistfight with Han in an attempt to prove that he could still finish the fight with his most infamous target. Ultimately, both men were enough past their prime to draw each other into a stalemate, agreeing to put their long history behind themselves and move on.
Okay, this is silly, but also actually cool, because the Yuuzhan Vong—the extragalactic alien invaders who played a major role in the post-Jedi story of the old Expanded Universe, and are responsible for, among other things, literally dropping a moon on Chewbacca (slash the planet Chewbacca was on at the time)—deserve to be made chumps of. By the time the Vong invaded the Star Wars galaxy, Boba had managed to work his way up to the fabled position of Mandalore. He stood ready to defend his people from the alien threat... or would’ve if the Vong hadn’t come to him first, offering an alliance in exchange for Mandalore being kept off-limits. Boba agreed, but only because what he actually wanted to do was play the Vong—the man loves hoodwinking people—gather as much data about them as possible, and warn the New Republic of what was about to come knocking on their doorstep.
This tactic continued for several years into the Vong war, with Mandalorians acting as mercenaries to assist Vong invasion forces while also moonlighting as trainers for Republic forces in repelling them. It took the dumb aliens almost the entire conflict to realize Boba hoodwinked them, attacking Mandalore in the final year of the war, but they were handily repelled, and Boba’s forces helped liberate the galaxy world by world from their clutches.
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