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Review: "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Echoes of the Empire #1"
Writer Ethan Sacks has given us another Boba Fett gem.
While many have criticized Jon Favreau’s Boba Fett as lacking something or upset at how the character has been seemingly abandoned, many neglect to praise how consistent Ethan Sacks has been in keeping Boba Fett (and also Jango) the classic character as we imagined him. While this comic will no doubt get overlooked a little due to its title, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – Echoes of the Empire #1 is a pure portrayal of the hardened bounty hunter Boba Fett — with no fear of the hunt, consistent with his classic “Expanded Universe” counterpart.
The story begins in the present time with Rey (Luke Skywalker’s final student, from the Sequel Trilogy films) entering Oga Garra’s Cantina on Batuu, a planet that was created with the creation of “Galaxy’s Edge,” the theme park that this comic series is named after. Also there are original characters like a crime lord raised by Hutts named Oga Garra and an Ithorian named Dok-Ondar, who ran an antiquities shop in the Black Spire Outpost with his assistant Tohago.
In this story Dok-Ondar is in possession of a powerful Jedi weapon (that looks like more like a green rock) that Rey is seeking to help the Resistance’s war effort but she doesn’t know where it is on Batuu. Rey seeks that info from Garra, offering her money and a small aquatic creature to eat alive (gross), to get info on the Jedi weapon. This is where Garra starts to tell the story of the Jedi weapon, explaining that the Jedi knew the Living Force was strong on the planet Batuu. The High Republic era Jedi had found an object there, one that looks like a green rock with a unique pattern to it. A High Republic Jedi known as Master Drow and his Padawan (who are characters from the Young Jedi Adventures cartoon) are told by Yoda to hide the powerful object containing the living force, and so the Jedi Council cover it up. Literally — with rocks. While hidden for years the object is eventually found by Dok-Ondor who was excavating the site.
So where does Boba Fett come into this story of a powerful object containing the living force? Well, Garra’s story flashes forward a few months after the Battle of Hoth — and after Solo is delivered to Jabba. We see Luke, Leia, C-3PO, R2, and Chewie in the Falcon on their way to Batuu to meet a contact who could give them intel on Jabba’s palace to help save Han Solo. And on Batuu is where Boba Fett is lurking in the shadows. Boba Fett — in his “Return of the Jedi” style suit — spots Luke Skywalker, matching him up with a holographic image of Luke displaying off of his Mandalorian gauntlet. The Empire has a big bounty on Luke at this time — dead or alive, for more credits — and Fett is seeking to cash in one way or the other. Boba waits in the shadows as Luke suddenly turns way from his friends, having a force vision, sensing the powerful force object nearby (that Dok-Ondar has). Boba stalks out Luke who lets the force guide him, all while Leia and the others continue on to meet their contact. It turns out to be Savi, of Savi’s Workshop, where Force-worshipers known as Gatherers did business like constructing lightsabers. Meanwhile, far away from Batuu, Darth Vader similarly senses something going on there and sets course to the planet to find the source of the force object. (Vader does not get to the planet until the last page, so Vader fans will have to wait until the next issue for more Darth since this issue only teases him.)
Fortunately, Boba Fett fans don’t want to miss this issue because he has a long fight with Luke Skywalker, displaying what he is capable of against Jedi, with his usual tactics and new ones too, like a whipcord-assisted swinging spiked kick that hits Luke in his torso. The fight also sees the return of the retractable gauntlet blades that were seen in “Attack of the Clones” worn by Jango Fett. Boba even gets in a headbutt on Luke, which may have also been a nod to Jango Fett’s headbutt moment from film. While Luke manages at one point to force-push rocks at Boba’s jetpack to damage it, Boba tells him that he doesn’t need a jetpack to defeat him. It certainly looked that way, as he used his gauntlets to block his lightsaber attack, and then was successful in disarming Luke. Boba could have finished Luke off (for a lower bounty) were Garra not to call Fett and ask him to not kill Skywalker; he needed him alive for something important. Fett then leaves — but not before telling Skywalker to not to forget who would have won. Luke does use the force to get his lightsaber back while Fett walks away, showing the fight could have continued too; that said, it did look like a clear Fett win to me even if Luke had another round left in him. Fett says “til next time, Skywalker,” with Luke saying “I look forward to it,” alluding to their brief fight from “Return of the Jedi” that was cut short. The story then ends with Vader’s arrival at the Black Spire outpost, ordering Stormtroopers to kill anyone who got in the way of their goal, but that seems to be it as far as Fett’s “Galaxy’s Edge” story goes.
If the idea of an extended Boba Fett versus Luke Skywalker fight appeals to you, this story is for you. It’s a believable fight because Luke is still on the path to Jedi Mastery and it’s reasonable to see him as the underdog at this point of the timeline. This story may also remind Fett fans of 2015’s Star Wars #6 where Boba and a blind Luke dueled in Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home — when Fett was doing a job for Vader looking for the pilot who blew up the Death Star. This story does not acknowledge that event but does not retcon it either. Luke’s line “I know who you are, Boba Fett… and what you did to Han” comes off as a weird line since they already met before. (“The Empire Strikes Back” also had a deleted scene where Luke learns of Boba Fett’s name from Leia, so with that deleted scene in continuity it would have made sense for Luke to say “I know who you are, Boba Fett”, since in the very original timeline Luke wasn’t even aware of who Boba Fett was when Fett was firing at him in Cloud City.) It could also be that Ethan Sacks with that line was clarifying that this event is post-“War of the Bounty Hunters,” since I started to wonder if the timeline got messed up, but this event seems to be sandwiched somewhere in between War of the Bounty Hunters and the final arc of “Bounty Hunters.” Honestly I have more of a problem with his judgmental attitude, implying that Boba wronged Han, even though Boba was just doing his job well.
Regardless, the true first meeting of Boba and Luke in “legends” was the Holiday Special cartoon, just with a non-canon status. What “The Story of a Faithful Wookiee” (1978) did was make Boba Fett a villain with the potential to take out the heroes using cleverness and deception. While it showcased his armor and jetpack a bit there was no Boba versus Luke fight on the cartoon, Boba was more into outsmarting his prey there. The films teased Boba versus Luke a couple times though, but it’s only in the comics where the concept was explored a bit further, and video games too of course. (“Masters of Teras Kasi” even used Boba vs. Luke in its advertisement imagery.) Most likely they won’t ever fight again during the New Republic era, with Boba having no desire to hunt him and Luke focused on mastery of the force and teaching. They did almost have a reunion on “The Mandalorian” Season 2 finale but Boba was MIA for the Luke scene. While Luke appeared in “The Book of Boba Fett,” the two also did not reunite there as they are on doing their own thing on separate planets. Oddly enough Luke Skywalker trusts a Mandalorian with his first student despite his rough experiences with Boba Fett who wears Mandalorian armor. This comic delivers on a cool idea, but one that we would have loved to see in live-action, so it is bittersweet in some sense. I also think it’s a bit funny that Rey is learning about Boba Fett in this story, so it’s connecting Fett lore to sequel trilogy lore in a unique way.
To sum it up, this is a satisfying, simple story full of fan service for fans of multiple eras of Star Wars. The art is decent too. If you want a deep story this won’t be your kind of story. Much like the “Galaxy’s Edge” theme park, this feels more like a showcase. I’m only sort of curious to what the deal with the green Force stone is, the story doesn’t do a great job getting someone interested into whatever it is. So as the story revolves around a mystery object of no real intrigue the story suffers slightly. If I were to dumb the story down to what it felt like it would be “Rey learns about how cool Luke versus Boba Fett was” which is kind of why this story works, because the idea of Luke versus Boba is cool.
Rating
About the Author, Mosh Babilonia
BFFC Member #14255
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