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Comic Book / Death, Lies, and Treachery

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Death, Lies, and Treachery is a 3-part miniseries from the Star Wars Legends that was collected in TPB in 1998. Like Dark Empire before it, it featured art and (very stylized) coloring by Cam Kennedy. Unlike Dark Empire, however, this new series opted not to focus on Luke, Han or Leia, and instead placed bounty hunter Boba Fett (whose grisly death-by-sarlaac-ingestion had been undone, courtesy of the previous miniseries) in the starring role.

Along with Enemy of the Empire, it's one of the few stories that focuses on Fett prior to both his being revealed as a clone and his being confirmed as an actual Mandalorian as opposed to someone who might just be wearing the armor. However, it also holds the further distinction of being one of the few Star Wars stories that makes absolutely no mention of the Force.

The series takes place shortly after Dark Empire, where we find Fett going after three different bounties, one per issue. While each issue is a self-contained story, there's a larger plot that ties everything together, a plot involving a family member of one of these bounties; this family member wants revenge against Fett and the people who hired him...and is powerful enough to have a chance at actually getting it.


Tropes:

  • Anti-Hero:
    • Fett goes back and forth between types IV and V. The fact that all his enemies here are much worse than he is prevents him from being an actual Villain Protagonist.
    • Gorga is a particularly-dim-witted Type V with some Type I elements thrown in.
  • Babies Ever After: Hutt babies! Kinda cute, actually.
  • Bad Boss:
    • Gorga and Orko, though neither are shown to be as bad as Jabba was.
    • Both of the Kooda brothers to their respective gangs.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: Ry-Kooda and Boz, with the latter being at least as tall as the former's knee.
  • The Brute: Ry-Kooda. His relying solely on his strength rather than on any type of actual strategy allows Fett to kill him.
  • Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Boba is hired to kill Orko in the third book but spares his life in exchange for a bribe bigger than the bounty on him. Soon after Boba leaves, Orko is simultaneously given a poisoned sandwich by his aide and attacked and ripped apart by Ry-Kooda.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Fett and Boz, the former literally just has to kick the latter to defeat him.
  • Damsel in Distress: Anachro when she is taken captive in the second issue.
  • Dirty Cop
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Bar-Kooda. The real villain is his brother, Ry-Kooda.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: This series was released before the Hutts were revealed to be a One-Gender Race that reproduced asexually, so most of Gorga's plotlines, especially Anachro's pregnancy, may seem more than a little odd for newer fans.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gorga and Orko both legitimately care for Anachro. Gorga's also seen being very affectionate with his newborn child.
  • Expy: A charismatic, diminutive magician whose signature trick involves teleportation, Wim is something of a SF version of Willow Ulfgood, the star of another Lucasfilm property.
  • Fatal Flaw: Ry-Kooda relying solely on his strength and not using any tactics or strategy; it allows Fett to defeat him twice, fatally the second time.
  • Final Boss: Two possible contenders. Boz is technically the last fight Fett has in the series, but it's so one-sided that one could argue that Ry-Kooda is more deserving of the title.
  • Get Out!: In his first scene, Fett chases a fugitive into a bar and kills him. The bartender makes it clear that he's unwelcome.
    '''Bartender: You've done your killer's work, Boba Fett. Get out.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Boba's treatment of innocent Family Man magician Wim Magwit is stunningly nasty. He forces Magwit to help him catch Bar-Kooda by exploiting the minor bounty on Magwit for his time as a member of Bar-Kooda's crew, even though he was more of a prisoner than anything else. When Magwit says that he'd rather plead his case before a judge, Boba threatens to kill him and claim he tried to escape. Then, after Magwit does help him, Boba abandons him on Bar-Kooda's ship near an exploding bomb and a crew of angry pirates who want to kill Magwit for helping Fett. When Magwit manages to survive anyway and calls him out for this, Fett unrepentantly says he promised he'd let Magwit go, he just didn't say where. He then adds that Magwit should be grateful that Fett gave him a chance to save himself, no matter how bad the odds were.
    • When the pirate Toxus Li's crew all die defending him from Fett even though the bounty is on Toxus alone, and not them Fett mocks them for it.
    • Fett guns down two of Ry-Kooda's henchmen even after they plead that they never wanted to go after him and only did out of fear of Ry-Kooda. Granted, they're former members of Bar-Kooda's crew, so it might be more of a "Kick The Son Of A Bitch" moment, but as shown with Magwit, not all of Bar-Kooda's crewmen had a choice in the matter.
  • Lotsa People Try to Dun It: In the third issue, three people want Orko the Hutt dead.
    • Orko's son-in-law Gorga hires Boba Fett to kill Orko. After he finds out his wife is pregnant, he changes his mind and tries to call Boba off, but he can't reach him. Ironically, Boba betrays Gorga and offers to spare Orko's life in exchange for the money Gorga offered, plus 100,000 credits.
    • Orko's mistreated servant Hisroot tries to stab him in the back, and then poison his sandwich but is interrupted both times.
    • Ry-Kooda attacks Orko's mansion to avenge the death of his brother and rips Orko to pieces.
  • Love at First Sight: Between two Hutts, and yes, it's every bit as weird as it sounds.
  • No One Could Survive That!: In the second issue, Ry-Kooda is buried in a collapsing shaft, and his crony Boz says not even Ry-Kooda could survive that. The final issue has Ry-Kooda burst out of the rubble though, and it takes blowing him in half with a grenade to kill him.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Wim Magwit possesses a device he calls "Magwit's mystifying hoop" and uses as a handheld Portal Door in his act as a stage magician. One would be inclined to think that this is just an illusion since no media in Star Wars had ever demonstrated that such technology exists, but there's nothing fake about it; the hoop is a short-range matter transmitter that he stole from "a rather strange alien", technology which remained unique in the setting until seventeen Real Life years later, where it showed up in Star Wars: The Old Republic as part of a Rakatan prison complex on Belsavis. The potential applications of this device, which he understands well enough to repair and maintain 'on his own, boggle the mind, and there are only two possible explanations as to why he hasn't sold it for ludicrous amounts of money: it hasn't occurred to him that any of the various galaxy-wide megacorporations would beg him to take their money so they could reverse-engineer and patent it. Or, he has considered it, but decided that the risk was too great because he realized that entities like rival megacorporations, the Hutts, The Empire, and the Rebel Alliance would stop at nothing to obtain the technology for themselves once word got out.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • Bar-Kooda's former crewmen only join his brother on a quest for revenge because they're terrified he'll kill them if they don't. They try to make a run for it as soon as Ry-Kooda is distracted fighting Boba, but most of them are crushed when Anachro the Hutt is sent flying through the air and lands on them.
    • Gorga's majordomo runs away and hides rather than help Gorga during the climax. Gorga angrily yells that he's fired, but later rehires him to help Gorga and his family get back to town.
  • Take Me Instead: When Gorga sees Ry-Kooda trying to kill his pregnant wife, he tries to take responsibility for killing Ry-Kooda's brother and turn the killer's attention toward himself.
    Gorga: Unhand her! She is innocent. She is with huttlet. Please! Take me, not her!
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: When Wim Magwit stands on a circus podium and wears a pointy gnome hat, he's still shorter than his Big Beautiful Woman wife.
  • Token Good Teammate: Wim, the only unambiguously-good person in the main cast.
  • Villain Protagonist: Boba Fett, though he's portrayed as a morally gray figure, not a villain.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Gorga and Orko, who have to keep up the pretense of liking each other for the sake of Gorga's Wife/Orko's Daughter, Anachro.

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