The most notorious and fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy is also the most mysterious. Many legends and stories have arisen over the years, but few facts are known of the man called Boba Fett, or of his inextricable link to Han Solo.

Long before Luke Skywalker journeyed off Tatooine to fulfill his destiny as a Jedi, Boba Fett was also known as Journeyman Protector Jaster Mereel. Years past, the ugly young law-enforcement officer on the world of Concord Down had killed another protector, and though the dead man had been corrupt, disgracing his office and uniform, Mereel was still imprisoned for the murder. Against the wishes of his pleader, the arrogant young man remained unrepentant to the trial court, and Jaster Mereel was exiled from Concord Down, stripped of all he owned.

Mereel's adoption of the name Boba Fett, and the manner in which he acquired his rare battle armor, are tales lost in time, remembered by no living being except for Fett himself.

Fett wears the armor of the Mandalorians, a group of evil warriors who were defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. Fett's modified Mandalore armor includes a helmet that has a macrobinocular viewplate, motion and sound sensors, infrared capabilities, an internal comlink to his ship, the Slave I, and a broadband antenna for intercepting and decoding transmissions. Wrist gauntlets house lasers, a miniature flame projector, and a fibercord whip/grappling device; a backpack jet pack includes a turbo-projected magnetic grappling hook with twenty-meter lanyard. Fett also carries kneepad rocket dart launchers, spiked boots, a concussion-grenade launcher, and a Blas Tech EE-3 rifle. Braided Wookiee scalps hang over his right shoulder to complete the outfit.

Beyond Fett and Fenn Shysa, the only other living person known to wear the Mandalorian armor is Jodo Kast, an ambitious young bounty hunter who patterned his career after that of Boba Fett. Prowling the Outer Rim Territories, Kast wears armor with much of the same external weaponry that Fett utilizes. It is unlikely, however, that he has much hidden weaponry and modified circuitry in his suit. In the past, Kast has allowed people to believe he was Fett, adding even greater mystery to the legends surrounding the older hunter.

Throughout his life, Fett has worked as a mercenary, a soldier, a personal guard, an assassin, and, most frequently, as a bounty hunter--the most expensive bounty hunter in the known systems. He collected 150,000 credits for the capture of pirate Feldrall Okor, and took a record 500,000 credits when he caught the religious Ffib heretic Nivek'Yppiks for the Lohrans.

Fett has worked on retainer for Jabba the Hutt and other of the Hutt clan, as well as for the Empire, and has crossed paths with the Rebellion's greatest heroes more than a few times over the years. Fett is slow and methodical and as unpredictable as the shifting sands of Tatooine. He rarely loses his quarry, and has, thus far, shown no remorse for their fate. Fett has been known to work with other bounty hunters, but his motives may have been to show the others up; Fett has always emerged as the one who catches the prize.

Sometime in the years before the Battle of Yavin, Boba Fett had his first meeting with R2-D2 and C-3PO. On the desert Planet of Ingo, the droids had become the property of speeder racer Thall Joben and his friends, Kea Moll and Jord Dusat. Joben had angered the criminal Fromm gang, and Sise Fromm traveled to the Boonta speeder races to find them. There, Sise hired the mysterious, armor-clad bounty hunter to kill the young racing team, a job Fett took on as a favor owed Fromm, even though Fromm himself was wanted by intergalactic crime lord Jabba the Hutt. After the contract to kill Joben was finished, Fett noted that all debts were paid.

Fett's robot, BR-17, befriended C-3PO and turned him against R2-D2 while Fromm's gang put a bomb in Joben's racing ship, the White Witch. Fett chased Thall and Kea, but they escaped, joining in the speeder race. At the same time, C-3PO learned of the treachery of BR-17--who was then crushed by falling machines--and discovered the bomb planted in the Witch.

Unaware of the bomb, Fett followed Joben into the race and attempted to stop him, using every weapon at his disposal. When he tried magnets, Fett accidentally pulled the bomb onto his own speeder and had to escape at the last minute before it blew up. Angry at the loss of his droid and his speeder, Fett took Fromm and his gang hostage, to turn them over to Jabba the Hutt. He expected a great reward for the corpulent trio of villains.

Several years later, shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker took R2-D2, C-3PO, and a Y-wing fighter to go look for Han Solo. The Corellian was due back from his search for an invisibility talisman, a mystic item the Empire also sought. When Luke crashed-landed on a red-water moon in the Panna system, he was rescued by the mysterious Boba Fett.

Luke was felled by a strange sleeping virus that had also knocked out Han, so Fett and Chewbacca snuck into the Imperial-guarded city to get an antidote. While there, Boba contacted Darth Vader, who called him the "best bounty hunter in the galaxy." It was at this point that the droids intercepted Fett's message that he planned to capture the Rebels and claim the talisman.

Back at the Millennium Falcon, following a harrowing chase by stormtroopers, Boba administered the antidote to Han and Luke. Still groggy, Han didn't recognize Boba, and didn't object when Luke offered the hunter a place in the Rebellion. C-3PO and R2-D2 interrupted, telling the Rebels of Fett's transmission to Vader. Fett rocketed away, vowing vengeance.

Prior to the Rebels' establishment of the Hoth base, Fett reappeared in pursuit of "the Mole," a man wanted for leaving the service of Darth Vader. Piloting a TIE fighter, Fett was chased down by Luke Skywalker in an X-wing. Luke chased the mercenary's ship through ice canyons of the frozen world of Ota, and both ships crashed. Fett got the drop on Luke, but both of them were captured by the apelike Snogars. The Snogars' city was growing colder, and they were convinced the off worlders could restore their heat-providing machines.

Meanwhile, Han, Chewie, Leia Organa, and the droids had come to Ota to find Luke. While Luke and Boba made a break from the Snogars, Han himself was captured. Ever the opportunist, Boba agreed to go with Luke to rescue Han, planning to capture the smuggler for profit.

In a wild sequence of events, the Rebels and the Mole were caught between the Snogars and Fett. When Fett tried to take both the Mole and Han prisoner, the Mole used a giant magnet to pin the bounty hunter to the wall. The Rebels and the Mole made the irrespective escapes, Fett swearing vengeance yet again.

Fett sometimes used his bounties against each other. Once, for example, Fett found out that the magician, Magwit, was performing at small frontier settlement in the wasteland. The dwarf had a minor Imperial bounty on his head, but Fett knew Magwit could help him in acquiring another bounty; Gorga the Hutt had hired Fett to bring the notorious space pirate Bar-Kooda. Fett forced Magwit to buy his freedom by smuggling the hunter in his magic props. Magwit was "captured" and taken aboard Bar-Kooda's massive pirate vessel, Bloodstar, where the savage carnivore demanded the magician's final performance. Magwit's most impressive trick used a hoop to cause objects to appear and disappear. The hoop was connected to a short-range matter transmitter, with Fett waiting on the other side. Working in concert with Magwit, the hunter pulled Bar-Kooda through the hoop and escaped, causing carnage along the way. Magwit survived via a speedy exit, and true to his word, Fett gave the magician his freedom.

Shortly before the Battle of Hoth, Jabba the Hutt hired Fett to find Han Solo. Working both sides of the fence, Fett met Darth Vader mask to mask for the first time. For reasons unknown to either of them an instant sense of mutual respect was born, and the bounty hunter agreed to work with Dengar, Bossk, and a rookie bounty hunter named Skorr. But on the planet of Ord Mandell, the wily Han Solo, Luke, and Chewie escaped Fett's clutches, heading back to the newly established Rebel base on Hoth.

Despite his failure to capture Solo and the other Rebels, Fett was once again summoned to work with Vader. One of the six bounty hunters instructed to find the Millennium Falcon, Fett succeeded in tracking the ship to the Bespin system. There, he aided Vader in capturing the Rebel leaders and exacted his price in the capture of Han Solo.

Unfortunately for Han, Vader wanted to use him as a test subject for the carbonite-freezing process. Solo survived, and Fett took the quick-frozen Corellian to his ship for transport to Jabba the Hutt's Tatooine palace. On the way to board the Slave I, he exchanged shots with the wary Luke Skywalker, who was attempting to save his friends.

As he neared Tatooine, Fett was angered to find that IG-88, one of Vader's other bounty hunters, had tracked him. Fett used evasive maneuvers and his weaponry to blow up the starfighter IG-2000 and its pilot. He continued on his way, delivering to Jabba his Han Solo "wall sculpture," and collecting his bounty. Arguing that the carbonite piece was actually art from the hands of Darth Vader, Fett was able to talk Jabba into raising Solo's bounty from 100,000 credits to 250,000.

For the following year, Boba was steadily employed, and a constant presence in Jabba's court. Although the Hutt would never admit it, he was afraid that the Alliance would retaliate for the capture of Solo, so he gave Fett assignments to keep him around, knowing how valuable the hunter was. One such job offered a 100,000 credit bounty to capture a live krayt dragon to be placed in battle with the Hutt's monstrous rancor.

When Luke, Leia, and Chewie came to Tatooine and were all captured while trying to rescue Han, Jabba sentenced them to death in the Great Pit of Carkoon. But Jabba had not counted on Skywalker's Jedi powers or initiative, and the Rebels broke free. In the battle that followed, Fett's backpack was hit and he flew, out of control, into the mouth of the Sarlacc.

Fett somehow escaped the Sarlacc, crawling away from the pit and lapsing into a painful oblivion. A short time later the bounty hunter Dengar, who had also been in Jabba's employ, set out a search for the Hutt's body. Instead, he found Boba Fett, devoid of armor and covered in scars and fibers from the Sarlacc. Dengar nursed Fett back to health, using Jabba's medical droids. A month later, Fett was well enough to travel, and since the Alliance had confiscated the Slave I, the two hunters set off in Dengar's ship for the spaceport moon of Nar Shaddaa, the smuggling center of the galaxy.

Boba had a little-used backup ship on Nar Shaddaa: The Slave II was a MandalMotors Pursuer enforcement ship, and few sentients in the galaxy even knew that Fett had one. The hunter used this to his advantage, knocking out old enemies who thought him dead, and collecting bounties quickly, sometimes working with the tagalong Dengar. Meanwhile, the Alliance let the Slave I sit on Grakouine, gathering dust.

Wary of another encounter with Solo and Skywalker, Fett decided to buy his ship back legally. With the help of an old employer, Crystalboy, he used a system of dummy corporations, paper trails, and forged requisition forms, eventually getting the Slave I as part of a "surplus liquidation" deal. Fett repaired his ship and put it in orbit of Nar Shaddaa. He would use it again, but for now, he was profiting more from the anonymity the Slave II and his "death" had given him.

It wasn't long before the galaxy realized Fett was alive. When he captured an infamous pirate, Feldrall Okor, Fett took a page from the plan Princess Leia had used when she infiltrated Jabba's palace. He presented Feldrall to Imperial Governor Isis, but when she balked at his bounty price, he charged a thermal detonator. As tense seconds ticked by, the governor argued, while Fett calmly upped his price. Ultimately, the governor trusted her fortunes more than she trusted Fett's sanity, and she gave the hunter his ransom.

Six years after the death of Jabba the Hutt, Han and Leia went to Nar Shaddaa, the galactic smuggling center. There, Han was surprised to find that Fett and Dengar were waiting for him in his quarters. Fett told Solo that the Sarlacc had found him "indigestible," adding that the descendants of Jabba the Hutt wanted Han and Leia, dead or alive!

In a hail of blaster fire, Leia and Han made it off world, escaping in Salla Zend's Starlight Intruder. Fett and Dengar followed in the Slave II, snatching the Intruder's coordinates and jumping into hyperspace. Although Slave II arrived at Byss before the Starlight Intruder, only Salla's ship had been cleared to get through the planetary security shields, which closed, locking out Fett's ship and breaking off a control rudder. As they spun away, trying to regain control of the ship, Dengar angrily informed Fett this was the last time he'd ever work with him. Although he was grateful to Dengar for saving him back on Tatooine, Fett was glad to get rid of another hunter.

When Han and Leia again returned to Nar Shaddaa seeking the Jedi Master Vima-Da-Boda, they were afraid Fett might be lying in wait. In fact, two Imperial Dark Side Warriors were attempting to blackmail the bounty hunter into working for them. They claimed knowledge of his past--that Fett had been a stormtrooper who had murdered his superior officer. Fett rejected their attempts and fought back as the two warriors attacked him. He escaped even as Solo's Millennium Falcon prepared to touch down.

Fett bided his time, and when the Falcon prepared to depart, the Slave I rushed forward on a suicidal run. Fett expected Han to turn tail; instead, the Corellian used his freighter to clip the Slave I's stabilizer. Although Fett lost some control, he was still able to blast the Falcon, causing the ship to lose all sensor frequencies.

The bounty hunter tracked the Falcon to the lower levels, where he ambushed Leia and Han shortly after they found Vima-Da-Boda. In turn, he was ambushed by Chewbacca. During the ensuing firefight, Boba shot Chewbacca in the side, but the Wookiee managed to rip off Boba's helmet and send him spiraling into the roof high above.

Fett recovered quickly enough to board the Slave I and pursue the Falcon through the floating space debris of the spaceport moon. Scoring a hit on the freighter, Fett figured he finally had his bounty. He was surprised when Solo piloted the Falcon into an interstellar gas cloud. His ship's sensors were useless, so Fett hung back, waiting several days before the Falcon reemerged. Unfortunately for Fett, Solo had beefed up his firepower and used it to pay havoc with the Slave I. Fett's ship spun out of control into the gas cloud.

Though Fett disappeared, and has not reappeared on Han Solo's trail, new reports of the bounty hunter's adventures have surfaced throughout the galaxy. Han Solo knows that one day, he will once again--perhaps for the final time--face the toughest and most feared bounty hunter in space--Boba Fett.