Boba Fett: Overkill Story: Thomas Andrews Art: Francisco Ruiz Velasco Coloring: Francisco Ruiz Velasco Lettering: Michael David Thomas Cover: Adam Hughes Released: 04/12/2006 Reviewed by: JF Boivin (01/13/2007) SUMMARY: On Troska, an ambitious Imperial lieutenant hires Boba Fett to rough up the local rich family who owns the fuel refineries and to break the peace between them and the Empire. His hope is to get promoted and take the place of the Sector commander. But his plan may turn against him when the King hires Boba Fett for the twice the fee of his original contract.

[regular cover] [preview cover]

THE STORY

With the last two Boba Fett one-shots being published as part of the Empire series (#7 and #28), I'm sure this one would have been part of it as well if the series hadn't been recently cancelled. And just to reinforce my argument, this story takes place nine months after A New Hope, exactly the same time as the last issue of Empire. But like most Boba Fett one-shots, the time frame is not really relevant to the story; it could basically take place any time during the Classic Trilogy.

I greatly enjoyed Andrews' previous Star Wars story, namely the "In the Shadows of Their Fathers" story arc (Empire #29-30 & 32-34) so I was expecting to be impressed with this one. Unfortunately, I'm a little disappointed with the overly simplistic plot, and how little Boba Fett is used in it. And maybe I'm dumb, but I'm not too clear what happens at about two-thirds in: basically, Lieutenant Manech is going behind his superior's back, Commander Buzk (I call him "Buzzkill" cause that's what he does) and hires Boba Fett to break the fragile peace between the Imperial outpost and the native Kyber family who owns some fuel refineries. Obviously, the Kybers haven't been happy that the Empire arrived on their planet, and the only reason the peace was maintained is the false threat of full-scale Imperial occupation. For some reason, Manech wants to get his promotion and get off this backwater world so he hires Boba Fett to cause a little trouble among the Kyber family. So Fett destroys a refinery owned by the king's son Torino, then invades the palace. At this point, Manech's friend Kelmont insists on informing Commander Buzk of the upcoming disaster. Buzk is not happy, but seeing he has no choice he sends his stormtroopers and TIEs to the palace to stop Boba Fett and avoid an outright war.

Now the part I don't get is when Fett catches up to King Natas, the king offers him double what the Imperials pay him to attack them back and he accepts. But when he gets back to the Imperials, we find out that Manech betrayed the commander and reported him to the Empire who send a representative to arrest him thus giving Manech command of the sector. Then they bomb the palace. So how can they arrest the commander without asking any questions? What are the charges anyway? And what happened to the king and his fortune? More importantly, what has Boba Fett to do with all of this? He hardly does anything in the story and Manech could have probably executed his own "plan" by himself. I don't feel Fett is put to good use in this story at all, aside from using the line "the enemy of my employer is my enemy, too".

THE ART

After having illustrated a few covers (Star Wars Tales #7, Boba Fett: Agent of Doom, Empire #14) and one story ("Jedi Chef" in Tales #7), Velasco gets to do a whole issue of a Star Wars comic. He has a nice style, but I find the wide-apart eyes, long chins and short legs a bit annoying. The characters are too cartoony compared to the backdrops, vehicles, ships, etc... The coloring is not bad but a bit too simplistic. I think Velasco's style is more suited to comedic stories; I enjoyed it way more in "Jedi Chef". Here, it just tries to add a comedic tone to a serious story, and it doesn't work.

Speaking of vehicles, the stormtrooper transports have an uncanny resemblance to the old Kenner toy from the late 70's and that's a nice touch. The cover by Adam Hughes is great, probably the best Boba Fett cover since the Enemy of the Empire series.

CONCLUSIONS

Disappointing story with minimal use of Boba Fett.

Rating: 6 / 10