Is there anyone cooler than Boba Fett? Like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Chow Yun Fat--but with a jetpack and kneepad rocket dart launchers--Fett has always symbolized cool, quiet power. If Fett wants you, you're as good as got (that ridiculous incident over the Great Pit of Carkoon in Return of the Jedi notwithstanding).

So any book or comic featuring his royal Fettness had better be good. Fortunately, our boy gets his due in this quality Dark Horse collection of three previously published comics (Bounty on Bar-Kooda, When the Fat Lady Swings, and Murder Most Foul). The story, by John Wagner of Judge Dredd fame, is by no means brilliant, but it's clever enough to rise a cut above the more schlocky Star Wars spinoff fare. What really sets this collection apart, though, are the moody colors and expert composition of Cam Kennedy (Star Wars: Dark Empire). From our favorite bounty hunter nonchalantly capping some thug without even turning around to breezing through the defenses of a H'unn's criminal stronghold, Death, Lies, and Treachery is classic Fett. --Paul Hughes

Book Description
Hired by a misguided Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett pursues an intergalactic magician who may hold the key to the Hutt`s future. The fact that the magician has died only poses a slight problem for the bounty hunter . . . not even the dead can escape Boba Fett!

FROM OUR EDITORS

I really dig the "offshoot" projects by Dark Horse and DC. Some good examples are the Preacher specials, like Ancient History and Cassidy; and Michael Stackpole's X-Wing Squadron series, set in the ever-famous Star Wars universe. (Oh, and yet another good example is Image's Curse of the Spawn series.) What these projects do is take a smaller character or concept out of the larger whole and develop it separately into a brand-new creative landscape: mining new ore from an old, reliable mountain. Boba Fett is one more such offshoot from the Star Wars mythos. Remember the existential "bounty hunter?" That high-tech body armor and cool blast-pocked helmet? We never learned much about him in the movie, did we? Well, now he's ready to strut his stuff in this new book, and we get to peel a few layers off of the onion of his mystery. Not too many, but just enough, which is why I hope Dark Horse turns this offshoot into a full-fledged series.

Here's the gist: In the intergalactic underworld, where every cosmic scumbag, killer, pirate, dope dealer, and spaceship jacker get together for a beer, there's one name that's always whispered in the utmost dread. Ally McBeal? No -- you guessed it. Boba Fett is the ultimate badass for hire. There are more rumors floating around him than you can shake a mag-pulse pistol at. Some swear he's a bona fide Mandalore warrior, while some claim he wears the feared battlesuit as a spoil of war. But all agree that this guy is grim news if someone has the dough to put a contract out on you. (After all, his job references include Darth Vader.) On to the story: Gorga the Hutt (one of the Hutt clan, of course) gets a quick case of the hots for a similarly disgusting pile of slop named Anachro, and Gorga's gotta have her, even if it means knocking off Bar-Kooda, the baddest pirate in the sector. Enter Boba, hired to fix the problem. I won't spoil the story, but let's just say that this book is a romp, with an interstellar traveling magic show, cannibalism, deep-space triple-crosses, and action, action, action. Check it out!
—Edward Lee

FROM THE PUBLISHER