Review by Ian Keogh

When Dark Horse published Star Wars comics the sight of Boba Fett was an occasional treat rather than a regular feature, sometimes accorded a miniseries, but more likely found in one-shots and anthologies. Following the appearances of the unbeatable bounty hunter must have been a frustrating experience before this Omnibus neatly gathered everything of consequence published between 1995 and 2000, except missing out Battle of the Bounty Hunters. Understandably, including a pop-up comic in a five hundred page Omnibus would be asking too much of the production department.

The three longest stories can be found in paperback as Death, Lies and Treachery; Enemy of the Empire and Star Wars Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika. Follow the links for more in-depth reviews, but the second and third are both effective capers provided you don’t mind seeing cartoon versions of characters as supplied by Ian Gibson and Carlos Meglia respectively. The latter doesn’t feature a great deal of Boba Fett, mind. ‘Death, Lies and Treachery’, though, is the collection’s highlight and an under-rated gem in the Star Wars back catalogue. Placed near the end of the collection, it concerns Groda the Hutt’s desire for a bride, and appointing Fett to assassinate her father’s greatest enemy as being the best way to impress. Chaos ensues. It’s funny, yet also supplies action and thrills.

John Wagner and Cam Kennedy are also responsible for the single chapter ‘Sacrifice’, not quite up to their previous collaboration, but still a tidy and twisting plot about two brothers, one a solid supporter of the Empire, the other a rebel leader. This is Kennedy’s first story in the Omnibus and indication of what’s to come (sample art). His alien scenes are given signature unique colour schemes, and the people and their locations are always downtrodden, patched and grimy, providing the necessary mood.

Adriana Melo’s art moves away from cartooning toward a greater realism in Ron Marz’s ‘Wreckage’, in which Fett is on a retrieval mission just before a spacecraft is scuttled. There’s a good pay-off, but leading to it is standard page filler. Slightly better overall is Thomas Andrews and Francisco Luiz Velasco’s ‘Overkill’ in which the Empire’s advance party are taking the opportunity to fleece the local population, and they hire Fett to ensure there’s no resistance.

As if to highlight Wagner writing Fett very much like Judge Dredd, Dredd’s co-creator Carlos Ezquerra draws ‘Salvage’, and draws it gloriously well. Wagner creatively pits Fett against an deadly enemy he can’t just point a gun at and shoot, and comes up with an ingenious solution.

There’s also ingenuity on Andy Mangels’ part concerning an usually fallible Fett seen over the opening scenes of ‘Twin Engines of Destruction’. That’s drawn by John Nadeau in a style not far removed from Kennedy’s, except not as adventurously laid out, but this is a twisting thriller.

Kennedy is back for the final inclusion ‘Agents of Doom’, written by John Ostrander who knows his way around a Star Wars plot and comes up trumps here with a survivor of the Empire’s genocidal purge hiring Fett to extract revenge on their tormentors. Ostrander and Kennedy treat this more as a Western than SF, and it’s another gem.

There’s very little below average over almost five hundred story pages, and Wagner, Ostrander and Kennedy really produce the goods, making this a treat for any Star Wars fan.