Star Wars has revealed the official new name of Boba Fett‘s spaceship, formerly known as “Slave I”. News that Lucasfilm and Disney were renaming Boba Fett’s ship leaked in June, and needless to say, it caused a massive backlash within the Star Wars fandom – including a former Boba Fett actor publicly chastising the studio. Some fans even started a petition to keep Slave II’s name intact, but it seems it was all for naught. Boba Fett’s ship has an official new name, and it is “Firespray”. The official name was quietly debuted in a press release about the current Star Wars crossover event, “War of the Bounty Hunters.”
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You can read “War of the Bounty Hunters” over in Marvel’s Star Wars comics line this summer. The story takes place soon after Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and centers on Boba Fett trying to take Han Solo’s Carbonite body back to Jabba the Hutt. Unfortunately, Boba gets robbed by Solo’s old girlfriend Qi’ra, who has brought the threat of Crimson Dawn back to the galaxy. What ensues is a free-for-all between the Empire, galactic crime syndicates, Rebel Alliance, and every major bounty hunter in between, all battling to take possession of Han Solo.
Well, Marvel has produced “Behold the Vehicles of War” variant covers (that form one big poster) for Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters; one of those variants is of Boba Fett and his ship, and in the press release for that cover, we get the official new name of Slave I:
ยท Bossk and The Hound’s Tooth
ยท Boba Fett and Firespray
ยท IG-88 and IG-2000
ยท Zuckuss and The Mist Hunter
ยท Valance Beilert and The Broken Wing
ยท Dengar and The Punishing One
There is a bit of discrepancy as to whether or not “Firespray” is the actual class of ship that Boba Fett pilots; however, as (Slash Gear) points out, the nature of the list above seems to be placing each bounty hunter’s name with the name of his/her/its ship – so “Firespray” indeed seems to be the official name Slave II will now have in Star Wars canon.
At the time the news leaked that Boba Fett’s ship was getting a name change, it was said by LEGO Star Wars Lead Designer Michael Lee Stockwell that we would be getting “Boba Fett’s Starship.” It was hinted that the change would be done for both easier marketing and merchandising of the vehicle, and to avoid the obvious cultural land mine of the “Slave” name. We’re no longer sure about the former reason, but the latter will certainly be a continued cultural debate for some time.
Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters is now unfolding in Marvel Comics.