Writer Haden Blackman’s “Jango Fett: Open Seasons” (2002) is one of the most essential pieces of “Star Wars” storytelling, as it mends the contradictions between “The Tale of Boba Fett” and Boba’s portrayal in “Attack of the Clones.” But earlier in 2002, Blackman penned perhaps the least essential “Star Wars” story, the three-issue “Starfighter: Crossbones.”
This (seemingly very loose) tie-in to the “Starfighter” video game features no movie characters other than a brief cameo by Adi Gallia in Issue 1. It’s a pirate yarn featuring a clash between kinda-good pirate Nym and bad pirate Sol Sixxa made possible by confusing scheming by the Trade Federation, which controls the planet Maramere with its droid army.
Throughout all three issues (which feature the saving grace of Ramon Bachs/Raul Fernandez/Brad Anderson art), I didn’t care about any of the characters or understand the situations they were in. Perhaps species-ism is partly to blame, as all the characters are aliens. But also, I didn’t feel this story connected to the larger fabric of “Star Wars.” So it’s not entirely because these are non-movie characters. Indeed, the “Republic Commando” novels are among my favorite “Star Wars” books. They don’t have any movie characters, either, but the books do wonderfully explore the clone soldier controversy, which is a central theme of the Clone Wars era.
Blackman was Lucasfilm’s go-to guy for video game tie-ins, as he also co-wrote the “Star Wars Galaxies: Ruins of Dantooine” novel and penned the “Force Unleashed” comic, but “Crossbones” is the worst of his efforts. It also commits the sin of being untethered from the game itself, if I’m to judge by the “Starfighter” advertisement on the comics’ back cover that features a Naboo starfighter. Naboo doesn’t factor into “Crossbones” at all, except that one character worries Maramere will become “another Naboo,” in reference to the events of “Episode I.” (Of course, if it was a well-written fun read, I could forgive all of this, but it’s not.)
When one considers how much open timeline is available in the Episode I-to-II era, it’s unfortunate that Dark Horse spent its time on “Crossbones” rather than another chapter in the compelling stories of “Republic” characters like Aurra Sing, A’sharad Hett, Quinlan Vos or Aayla Secura, to say nothing of Anakin and Obi-Wan, who only got about a half-dozen comic issues in this timeframe. Suffice it to say that “Crossbones” is for “Star Wars” completists only.