Retro Fett Comic Review: “Twin Engines of Destruction”

“True analy­sis is born out of enjoy­ing the sound of ones own voice.” — Cujo

Join Cujos’ jour­ney as he reviews all Fett comics that dropped before Star Wars Episode 2. So for­get the future because life is too short not to live in the past. Meet old­school Boba as no one has ever looked at him. Revel in my inane obser­va­tions. With­out fur­ther ado– i give you…

Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruc­tion
Dark­horse Comics
Jan­u­ary 1997

Tal­ent Roll Call:
Writer: Andy Man­gels
Artists: John Nadeau(pen­cils), Jordi Ensign(Ink), Cary Porter(color).
Cover Art: John Nadeau
Note­wor­thy 411: This comic orig­i­nally dropped as a four parter in Wiz­ard Mag­a­zine. Later win­ning a read­ers poll of “best indi­vid­ual comic book”. A pro­posed pre­quel comic about Kast and Den­gar was scrapped– a moment of silence…As I started to research this comic I started to see a trend of pro­posed and scrapped comics and nov­els, caus­ing some dis­cord among fans and fran­chise dur­ing this time.

Cover Art Dis­sec­tion:
This cover leaves me a shade con­flicted to be hon­est, i love the sub­ject mat­ter but the com­po­si­tion seems a bit con­vo­luted to me. An artist is often told where to direct the view­ers atten­tion– and it just seems to be too busy to me…but the more i stare at it– yeah im feel­ing the flow, and the color palette choice is nice and fuzzy. It is a fine table set­ter– Boba vs Jodo: lets do this!
4/5 Dis­in­te­gra­tions

Star Wars Time­line:
Fett has had enough time to shake off the rust, of the deba­cle at the Sar­lacc. This Comic drops us in a chaotic galaxy after the empire has been scat­tered by “these guys”.

Boba by the Num­bers:
Num­ber of times he shows a wanna be Sith his pimp hand: 1
Num­ber of times he fires is gun: 3
Num­ber of days Boba plans Jodos demise: 6

Comic Sum­mary:
Well this is your clas­sic iden­tity theft, revenge, buddy com­edy. Oh, you need more?
Enter Jodo Kast a copy­cat hunter don­ning the Mando armor, the imi­ta­tion is not flat­ter­ing to one Boba Fett who has a mind to do some­thing about it. Fett does not take Kast lightly plan­ning quite a recep­tion for his “clone”. Along for the ride is every­ones favorite comic relief “Dengar”…when Did Fett and Den­gar get so cozy? Do your home­work. These two have his­tory and make quite a fun pair. Alas Kast jumps through many hoops to arrive at a show down with Boba– Bring the pop­corn this bat­tle deliv­ers.
Bad A** moment: Bobas dec­la­ra­tion in this frame.

Fett insight
How do you make the galax­ies cold­est bounty hunter even colder? Drop him in a slow digest­ing, sand bur­row­ing arthro­pod– yeah, that will ruin your day.
To the point– Andy Man­gels has his fin­ger on post Sarlacc-Fetts pulse, The Fett that i love any­how. Cold, Cal­cu­lated, sans the Kiwi accent and not prone to drop­ping cheesy one liners…I’m look­ing at you “shad­ows of the empire comic –Boba”. A coincidence(or is it?) worth men­tion­ing is the fact that Boba fires a poi­son dart into some­ones neck…sound famil­iar? Per­haps Jan­gos’ dart into Zams neck is an homage. I think the con­trast between Fett and Kast should be dis­cussed, It is an arch-typical theme. Old vs. New, Coke vs Pepsi, Teacher vs. Stu­dent dynamic, and Youth is always arro­gant, quick to over­look the expe­ri­ence of age. This is an effec­tive device and Man­gels spins it deftly. A Choice that i found some­what odd was the fact that when Boba is using an alias, he goes out in pub­lic dressed like a mummy, Really? Fett walk­ing around look­ing like some­one toi­let papered him. I guess i just thought he would have a cooler alter­na­tive uni­form, a space jan­i­tor uni­form would be a step up.

Ran­dom Comic 411
–Jodo Kast is left handed, Boba is right handed.
–Kast refers to Fett as “relic” or “fos­sil”, and his Jet­pack rocket as “baby”.
–Bobas’ Xbox gamertag is “Sar­lacc Food”…joke, sorry– that is Den­gars pet name for Boba.
–Jodo has some stylin’ side­burns.
–Boba refers to Dala as well as Shysa, nice con­ti­nu­ity tie-in.
–Kasts’ ship is called the Fox­catch and is actu­ally pretty tight.
-“The Hun­dred Club” is a list of the top boun­ties in the new repub­lic.

Bonus 411!
The theme of Mando iden­tity theft is a reoc­cur­ring one in the Star Wars uni­verse.
–In the book Tales of the Empire, Grand Admi­ral Thrawn wore Kasts armor and imper­son­ated him dur­ing a secret mis­sion on Cor­re­lia.
–In a Tales comic No.18 (100% Fett issue). A human named “Risso” steals Fetts armor and imper­son­ates him before Boba treats him to a sav­age beat­ing.
–In Star Wars No. 68 Fenn Shysa was mis­taken as Fett by Princess Leia and later receives a kiss, score one for the Man­dos!
Story: 5 Disintegrations

Comic Art assess­ment
Well to be hon­est the story is the real star in this comic, but if the story is chocolate-the art is peanut but­ter. The action is artic­u­lated well, and it feels like Fett, while he is not invin­ci­ble his fight­ing is resource­ful, and bru­tal. It is easy to dis­tin­guish between the two mando clad hunters. One thing i would really like to bring atten­tion to is the frames where the reader is look­ing through Boba or Jodo T– visor and what he sees– in a word awe­some.

If there is a knock on any­thing art related is that in some frames Boba Fetts head is not in pro­por­tional to his body, a venial sin.
Art: 4.5 Disintegrations

Should you get this comic?
I remem­ber com­ing across this comic in a Star Wars bin at my local comic store about seven years ago and was so giddy I read it in the park­ing lot in some swel­ter­ing heat I might add. So let me lay it out like this for you, Get this comic– As Fett comics go this is the grail. nuff said.

Another review of TEoD comic with insight and wit.

What Wook­ieepe­dia has to say on the comic.

Final Score: 5/5 Disintegrations

Next Month…“Jawas of Doom”