Jedi Readers: Attack of the Clones: Jango Fett: Bounty Hunter

Jango Fett: Bounty Hunter

Author: Eric Arnold

Illustrator: Valerie Reckert

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: April 2002

Timeline Placement: 22 BBY

 

This book begins shortly before Attack of the Clones and ends with Jango Fett's return to Kamino following his failed mission to assassinate Senator Amidala on Coruscant. We open on Jango Fett giving baby Boba flying lessons in the Boba Fett's Starship. Boba blows up some tower on Kamino that I guess the Kaminoans weren't using for anything, then Jango has to leave when he gets a call from Count Dooku hiring him to kill stupid Padmé.

Realizing that he's too incompetent to handle a job this big by himself, Jango hires his old friend/flame Zam Wesell to do it for him. They meet at the Outlander Club on Coruscant, where Elan Sleazebaggano tries to sell them some "rancor nail blades," presumably because he knew he was in a children's book and didn't want the kids to see him pushing hard drugs. It doesn't have anything to do with this book, but I have to say I was pretty devastated when I learned that "Sleazebaggano" is apparently just a nickname and his real name is Elan Sel'Sabagno. Because God knows no one would ever be able to take Star Wars seriously if there was a character whose last name was Sleazebaggano.

The next day, Zam watches from afar as Padmé's ship lands and then explodes. We learn that Zam had planted a thermal detonator on the landing platform, something that definitely would have been too complex for Jango to do without help. Zam assumes that Padmé has been killed, but Jango gets an angry call from Dooku complaining that they only hit Padmé's stupid decoy.

From here, Jango and Zam's plot proceeds much as it does in the film, with Nute Gunray sending Dooku to send Jango to send Zam to send a robot to send poisonous bugs to kill Padmé Amidala. Obi-Wan and Anakin intervene and chase the droid back to Zam, capturing her in the Outlander Club. We get Jango's point of view for the scene where he shoots Zam with the toxic dart. He doesn't want to use it, but Zam is about to break the bounty hunters code by revealing the name of her employer, so he kills her and makes his escape. Unfortunately we don't get to see his immediate reaction to murdering his erstwhile partner after their years of adventures together in that one video game and that one comic book, but we will get a glimpse of how he processes Zam's death in Boba Fett #1: The Fight to Survive, which came out the same day as this book.

This one is okay. It's nice to see another original Jango Fett story, even if most of the new events are just transitional scenes that weren't shown in the movie intentionally. By far the worst illustrations in any of these picture books so far, though. They just took screenshots and promotional stills from Attack of the Clones and Photoshopped in bad explosion JPEGs or overlaid them with pointless digital "art" effects. Like why even bother?

 

We'll always have Kohlma.