Lit Where can I read about mandalorian lore pre-TCW cartoon?

So as the title says I'm curious to read and learn more about mandalorian lore before the clone wars changed the canon. I also want to know what books/comics explained boba fetts back story before George Lucas changed (ruined) everything about him in attack of the clones.

 

Main source for pre-AOTC Boba backstory is "The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett" by Daniel Keys Moran, which you can find in the Tales of the Bounty Hunters anthology. For Mandalorian history, Abel G. Peña wrote an invaluable article in Star Wars Insider #80 called The History of the Mandalorians, not sure how difficult that would be to get a hold of these days though. Their history also features heavily in Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War, the two Knights of the Old Republic video games, and the comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons. Your best bet to find The Sith War and Open Seasons is in the Dark Horse Omnibuses Tales of the Jedi Volume 2 and Emissaries and Assassins, respectively. The Knights of the Old Republic comic series, which is a prequel to the video games, also features several appearances by the ancient Mandalorians but they only show up sporadically. Finally, there's Marvel Comics' Star Wars #68: "The Search Begins," which is a bit of a historical oddity since its depiction of Mandalorian activity during the Clone Wars wasn't followed up on by most of the EU, but it was eventually fully reintegrated into continuity by the aforementioned Abel article. You can find it in the Omnibus A Long Time Ago... Volume 4, which also contains a few other stories featuring early EU Mandalorians. There are a few other offhand mentions to the Mandalorians and Boba Fett's past scattered throughout the pre-AOTC/TCW EU but I think those are all the main ones.

 

You don't know what you're asking...even before TCW, Mandalore and Boba were a mess. Still, I'll try to get you started:

Boba's first backstory was written in Marvel Star Wars Issues 68 and 69, collected in the "A Long Time Ago" Omnibus, Volume 4.

A different backstory is mentioned offhand in Dark Empire (may I reccomend the Hardcover collection ). It's unimportant, but this is also Fett's first appearance post-ROTJ, so it's probably worth reading for that.

The definitive Boba backstory pre-AOTC comes in "The Last One Standing", a short story from the "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" anthologies. It's my understanding that this is a fan favorite, and worth reading. I myself have yet to pick it up.

Obviously, all of these were trampled in Attack of the Clones.

Later, the comic "Jango Fett: Open Seasons" (collected in the omnibus Emissaries and Assassins) does a good deal of fixing up of the whole mess. This comic also does a lot in terms of Mandalorian culture.

The video game "Bounty Hunters" does a good chunk for Jango's backstory, if you're curious, and you can watch all of the cutscenes here:



Clocks in at a little over an hour. I'd actually recommend it. It's kind of fun and it leads very neatly into Attack of the Clones.

Not much in the way of "lore", but if Boba Fett is your thing, grab the Boba Fett Omnibus. It collects most of his comics (except the two "Blood Ties" comics).

Later, Karen Traviss works have formed the modern Mandalorian interpretation outside of TCW. These include the Republic Commando novels (Hard Contact, Triple Zero, True Colors, and Order 66), the book Imperial Commando: 501st, and her three "Legacy of the Force" novels: Bloodlines, Sacrifice, and Revelations.

Finally, if you want to go waaaaay back to ancient Mandalore, there's a bit of that in Tales of the Jedi (collected in the Tales of the Jedi Omnibuses Volumes 1 & 2) and more in the Knights of the Old Republic comics (Knights of the Old Republic Omnibuses Volumes 1, 2, and 3).

Pretty much everything except the Legacy of the Force novels is pretty accessible, without prior reading.

Hope that helps!

Edit: Forgot about the Abel article. Star Wars Insider 80 can be purchased on Amazon pretty cheaply.

 

FWIW, Traviss has always been upfront about loving OPEN SEASONS and Blackman's comic book work had a huge impact on her. I don't think there's direct plot lines that follow through, but her Fett owed a lot to how Blackman wrote handled the character. So there is a link there at least...and a certain character whose fate isn't fully covered in Open Seasons played a role in the last two Traviss RC/IC novels.

 

Thanks everyone for the help. I will definitely check out what you recommended. I actually read Open Seasons along time ago when it first came out but i'll give it a re-read. Also, Do you guys think The Clone Wars depiction of the mandalorians will stick or do you think Disney will eventually overwrite/retcon it as has been done before?

 

I don't think they will retconning it. It will forever be part of the canon. Still the show acknowledged that the Mandalorians had a warrior past and that's what the Death Watch was trying to restore. So it is possible that they'll cease to be pacifists in the future, but that's their primary ideology during the Clone Wars.

 

Really? I don't remeber that, can you give some examples to help jog my memory?

 

That may have been a poor phrasing, but it's an early example of what I would call "modern" Mandalorians. You see the value they place on honor, you see Mandalorians outside the Old Republic era acting as a group, etc. etc. Most of it could also just been seen as characterization for Jango though.

Again, poor phrasing.

 

Try to remember that learning about Mandalorian lore is different from learning about Boba Fett and his backstory. For all intents and purposes, Boba Fett is not a Mandalorian until much later in life.

The problem with that is that most Mandalorian lore is not readily accessible and is spread across articles in Star Wars Insider and defunct Hyperspace articles. If you want only Mandalorian lore, you have to go back to Tales of the Jedi and the Knights of the Old Republic comics. From there, you should track down The History of the Mandalorians in Star Wars Insider 80 and The Mandalorians: People and Culture from Star Wars Insider 86. If you can find a compilation of Hyperspace articles, there's also an article called Inside Mando'a Culture and Language which has a lot of lore.

From there, you should find the Mandalorian sections in The Essential Guide to Warfare and The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett. Less important, but also interesting are the Mandalorian sections from the RPG supplements, Galaxy of Intrigue and The Unknown Regions.

If you want firsthand accounts of the planet Mandalore and its people pre-TCW, your options are limited. Outside of Traviss' novels only the Marvel comics and a brief portion of The Last Jedi by Michael Reaves have a narrative that takes place on Mandalore.

 

I am going to have it to recomend the Marvel comics. True, they are hard to find....


Still, they are the origin of Mando-lore.


.....and reading them will make one appreciate that TCW brought Mandolorian lore back to its origins after the Travis retcons.

 

Are they within the "A Long Time Ago..." Omnibuses?

 

Mando lore was inconsistent from the very beginning. For example, when ESB was released, Boba's armor was Mando but Boba himself wasn't a Mando. The EU screwed this up at some point.

I have to agree with this. I've always hated how Traviss depicted Mandos as the good guys and Jedi as the bad guys. Just because your armor is cool doesn't mean that you're a good guy.

 

I think AOTC was the first modern source to conflate Boba and the Mandalorians actually. That one Marvel issue identified him as a Mando but the subsequent EU ignored that and always had him as just some guy wearing their armor until the prequels invented Jango.

 

Boba Fett was definitely not a Mandalorian in the nineties EU. Concord Dawn and the Journeyman Protectors were a completely discrete entity from the Mandalorians. Jaster/Fett just wore their armor out of pragmatism.

 

I was referring to Marvel and Open Seasons. The 90s EU did things right.

 

I was about to say that "just some guy wearing their armor" was pretty dull–and then I remembered The Last Man Standing and had to repent.

 

I think Open Seasons did a good job of coalescing all the contradictory lore into a cohesive history for Jango and Boba.

But does Episode II make any sort of connection between Jango and the Mandalorians? The novelization? It seems like based on TCW that Lucas shared the same view as Moran, that Fett wasn't a Mandalorian. I would think Salvatore would have heard this from Lucas when he wrote the novelization, but maybe Lucas changed his mind or something iunno.

 

Nope to both questions.

In that case, to both Lucas and Moran.

 

I wonder how Jango got attached to the Mandalorians then, because I remember it coming up even before Bounty Hunter and Open Seasons. Pre-release promotional material maybe? Does anyone have the Attack of the Clones Scrapbook? Or maybe the fandom in general just assumed he was one since the Mandalorians were always supposed to show up during the Clone Wars.

 

I think I actually prefer the concept that Boba Fett isn't a mandalorian but just wears their armor. To me characters like Boba and Darth Maul were better off without fully detailed out backstories.

 

I had TPM scrapbook. I was so stoked.

 

I vaguely remember his armor being identified as Mandalorian in the novelization, but that's pretty much it. No history, or origin as to where he got the armor.

I also agree that Open Seasons did a good job. Still have that comic in fact.

 

Maybe it was his armour? Since we know of old that Boba's armour was of mandolorian origin it is obvious that Jango's have the same origin and from there it is not hard to make the assumption that he belong/ed to the culture that made the armour.

I can not comment on the novelization or any of the fackt books but I don't remember Jango's armour being identified as of mandolorian origin or Mandalorians even being mentioned in any way in the movie.

Can somebody see if it is mentioned in the visual dictionary?

 

Oops

 

Indeed they are! Volume 4 to be exact, for their first appearance at least.

Well, actually the Mandos were good guys in Marvel. I just more meant how early works generally portrayed the Mandos as more or less normal people with a few cool looking commandos then having them as a bunch of Proud Warrior Race guys where every person and their space dog has a suit of armor.

Though the movies didn't refer to Jango as a Mandolorian, IIRC. That was Bounty Hunter and Open Seasons, I think.

And even then, Jango was no longer one by the end, and Fett wasn't really one either - even in Travis work, he only becomes one as an old man realizing his life was kind of hollow.