Star Wars: Boba Fett To Star in War of the Bounty Hunters

Following up on Monday's mysterious teaser, Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm have announced that Boba Fett will lead the upcoming Star Wars comic book crossover event, War of the Bounty Hunters. Charles Soule orchestrates the event, which begins in War of the Bounty Hunters: Alpha #1 on May 5th (the day after Star Wars Day), featuring art by Steve McNiven. The story continues to unfold throughout a five-issue War of the Bounty Hunters miniseries from Soule and artist Luke Ross, with tie-ins to every post-The Empire Strikes Back title in Marvel's Star Wars line, including Star Wars, Bounty Hunters, Darth Vader, and Doctor Aphra. War of the Bounty Hunters reveals what happened after Boba Fett left Cloud City with Han Solo carbon-frozen in Slave-1's cargo hold in The Empire Strikes Back, but before he landed at Jabba's palace on Tatooine.

"Boba Fett clearly doesn't take Han Solo directly to Jabba's palace," Soule tells StarWars.com, recalling his original pitch for War of the Bounty Hunters. "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.

"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."

By the time the War of the Bounty Hunters miniseries begins, Boba Fett is no longer in possession of Han Solo. The story seems destined to reveal how Fett reclaims his prize ahead of Return of the Jedi.

"My co-writers on this story, and all of the great artists that we're working with, it's a fantastic team. This might've come from my brain to a degree, but we're all adding things to it, and we're all adding really interesting things to it," Soule says. "Everybody's getting to tell their own story within this over-arching plot of Boba Fett trying to get what's his.

"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."

Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters Alpha #1 goes on sale on May 5th.