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The Book of Boba Fett isn’t the first time the character returned, Marvel revived them in the original Star Wars comic – but he met a different fate.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the series premiere of The Book of Boba Fett, now streaming on Disney+.
In the second season of The Mandalorian, fan-favorite character Boba Fett returned from the dead. As expected for such a popular character in the Star Wars mythos, he quickly got his own series in the form of the new Disney+ show The Book of Boba Fett. The first episode of the series explained how the bounty hunter escaped his cruel fate in the belly of the Sarlacc Pit. However, it isn’t the first time this death-defying feat has astounded fans, as Marvel’s Star Wars comics did it first.
This wasn’t long after he met his end in Return of the Jedi either. That film came out in the summer of 1983 and the comic that contained this resurrection went on sale in December of the same year. The scenes in Star Wars #81 (by Mary Jo Duffy, Ron Frenz, Tom Palmer, Tom Mandrake, Glynis Wein and Joe Rosen) may seem familiar to fans who have watched the series premiere of the Disney+ show.
The opening panels showed a figure covered in sand, just on the edge of the Sarlacc Pit, as the submerged monster took a passing bird as its latest meal. Flashbacks to the events of the film reveal that this is indeed Boba Fett. However, the exact reason why he was able to escape the belly of the beast isn’t detailed, he’s just shown in the sand outside it. The new series, on the other hand, gave all the gory details. Not only did it show Fett inside the Sarlacc, but it also showed his ingenuity in his escape. He harnessed the air of a deceased Stormtrooper to survive whilst he used his flamethrower to hurt the beast. He then crawled his way out through the sand, in an image that looks much like the one in the original Marvel comic.
In both versions of the story, Fett is unconscious in the sands just outside the pit upon his escape. When this happens, Fett is found by some locals and taken prisoner for their own purposes. In the show, it’s Tuskens who find him. In the Marvel comic, it’s Jawas. Due to his armor, they believe that he’s some sort of droid. His missing armor in The Book of Boba Fett‘s premiere does not lead to such a mistake with the Tuskens.
Though both stories play with the idea of memory, they do so in different ways. Fett’s post-Sarclacc adventures are told as flashbacks. In the comic, the character lost his memory. He doesn’t even recognize Han Solo when he and Leia stumble upon him in the Jawa’s Sandcrawler. However, he does eventually remember who the smuggler is, as well as the fact that he’s the reason he fell into the Sarlacc pit in the first place.
This leads to the biggest difference between the two stories – Fett’s fate. The infamous bounty hunter obviously went on to have his own adventures in his own Disney+ series but the comic cut his return shockingly short. When his memory returned, he wanted revenge on Solo. He wanted it so badly that he prioritized it over saving his own life. The Sandcrawler he was in fell into the Sarlacc Pit, resigning him to his original Return of the Jedi fate.
It seems odd that Boba Fett’s return in Marvel’s Star Wars comic, mere months after he was killed off in the films, ended in the very same issue he was brought back in. Given the popularity of the character, it’s odd that he was killed off again at all. The fact that he was thrown into the Sarlacc Pit once more is ironic, even laughable, from a certain point of view. It’s a good thing this iconic character has gotten a second chance in The Book of Boba Fett. Fans will be far more pleased with that than this original Legends story.
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