“Precious Cargo”
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Steve McNiven
Colors: Laura Martin
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
The notorious bounty hunter BOBA FETT has finally landed his greatest prize – HAN SOLO, frozen in carbonite for easy transport. Fett will bring the smuggler to TATOOINE to collect the massive bounty placed on Solo’s head by the fearsome crime lord JABBA THE HUTT. Sounds easy. What could go wrong?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With an expansive crossover launching from this, I’m admittedly a bit wary of the whole thing. Not because of the story as it’s something that definitely looks fun and can easily fit into this nebulous box where the films just went from point A to point B, but because it is so expansive. With the miniseries itself, the crossover with the four ongoings, and a bunch of one-offs, I’m already starting to wonder which ones I should skip or if I should just stick to my regular monthlies and wait on a collection that can be read at once. The opening installment is solid enough in the setup that I can see the fun as Charles Soule puts the first pieces of it into play, and Steve McNiven really does a great job capturing the intensity of it, but I’m already feeling a little burned out on the crossover just looking at the list of titles and its price commitment.
With Boba Fett having acquired Han Solo at Cloud City by working with Darth Vader, he’s hustling off to bring him to Jabba and get his credits. He’s even in communication with them there that he’s on the way, though it may take a little longer than anticipated. The carbonizing process isn’t the norm with a person inside and the whole thing is unstable, with bits starting to wear away. Needing his prize alive, he heads to the Smugger’s Moon where the’s a tech doc there that he’s known for an age can help. It makes easy sense, get it fixed, get back into space and head to Tatooine. The problem is that he doesn’t have the cash to cover the fix and the doc doesn’t work on credit. But a little trade? Where Boba Fett can make a little coin at the same time? That works.
The doc sets him on a problem of his by the name of Wyrmen, the current champion of the arena that took down one of the fighters the doc sponsored. Boba basically has to go in, win until he gets to the top, kill them, and it’s all good. It’s amusing as he does himself all up in a full-black outfit as a “disguise” and uses the name Jango to enter it. But we do get a single flashback panel to when he rescued his father’s head from the arena when Boba was a child that’s definitely eerie. The book spends some decent time on the various smaller fights and then devotes a good page count to the main fight, especially since Wyrmen is like a human spider, and it showcases more of how Boba Fett operates in a fight. It’s enjoyable and it allows for Han to be out of his view for a while, which makes his life even harder since someone has stolen him from the doc. As Boba says a couple of times in this issue, nothing is ever easy.
In Summary:
Steve McNiven is the real star here in bringing this to life as it has all the right look of Star Wars but also the worn down and rough around the edges aspect of Boba Fett himself. At the same time, we get some really neat alien designs across the board that are pretty great and the overall presentation is very strong, especially with Laura Martin’s color design to boost it all. Charles Soule is one of my favorite Star Wars comics writers and this is pretty standard setup stuff but he does capture Boba’s voice well here so that it all clicks. There is a lot of story ahead from a lot of creators so I can see a lot of hit or miss aspects to it. I’m wary and definitely purchasing cautiously.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 5th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
