STAR WARS: AGE OF REBELLION: BOBA FETT#1 : The Heart of a Hunter

It’s another one shot in the Age of Rebellion series and this time it’s all about the man in the Mandalorian mask. Terry and Rachel Dodson deliver a striking cover with the Boba Fett against a white background and have really done the great work on the covers for this series.

On to the writing. Pak builds this tale around the infamous bounty hunter through Fett’s actions and the words of other characters as Fett does not utter a single line for the entire story until the last two pages. Fett pursues a sly and deadly foe in the form of a former bounty hunter gone bad called Zingo Gabnit across the deserts of a plant called Carajam in the Outer Rim. Paks writing is sharp and though he says nothing Pak’s scripting cleverly paints a picture of the kind of character Fett is and his code versus say his quarry and that’s the clever thing about this tale, it creates a slightly skewed perception of Fett as a character which sets you up for what happens on the last two pages of the story which remind us of exactly who Boba Fett is. It is very much written as a western right down to Fett first appearing on his “Horse” as it were and several scenes remind me of the old spaghetti westerns like The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

The art is nothing short of superb. Marc Laming is an exceptionally talented artist and each panel is really beautifully drawn and detailed and combined with absolutely excellent coloring from Neeraj Menon who superbly adds coloring and shading layers to Laming’s crisp inks. The overall effect helps sell the grittiness and worn feeling of life on a desert planet in the Outer Rim even as the rich color reminds us of the otherworldly nature of the universe it’s set in. I was reminded of some of Al Williamson’s issues in Marvel’s very first Star Wars run beautifully detailed but with a much more sophisticated and modern coloring.