Bounty hunting is one of the galaxy’s oldest and deadliest professions, where the rewards are as big as a mercenary’s ambitions, and being the best is both a blessing and a curse. The most legendary bounty hunters don’t stay on top for long because there’s always a young gun waiting to take their title, and for the rest there might not be any big payouts, but the struggle to survive as a hired gun beats hacking it as a moisture farmer any day.
As long as they’re fast enough, smart enough, and stay one step ahead of their competition, odds are a bounty hunter will cash in on at least some of their targets – unless they’re this bunch. These gunsels either underestimate their marks, bungle jobs, or decide the only way to make a name for themselves is to impersonate their rivals.
Greedo
An ambitious Rodian trying to build a reputation, Greedo thought that taking down the infamous smuggler Han Solo would not only kick off his career as a bounty hunter, but also get him on the permanent payroll of Jabba the Hutt.
Neither of these things happened because Greedo can’t shoot across three feet of table. Greedo got blown away in the Mos Eisley cantina after cornering Solo, his hubris and poor marksmanship putting an end to his lackluster (not to mention short) bounty hunting career.
Zam Wesell
Were all bounty hunters to be judged by the bargain-basement skills of Zam Wesell, the Bounty Hunters Guild would never get any new recruits. After blundering the assassination of Queen Amidala, Wesell gets chased through the mean streets of Coruscant by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, only narrowing evading detection because she ducks into a crowded bar, not because she thinks to remove her helmet and make use of hChangellum powers of transformation.
She ends up being assassinated by the bounty hunter originally assigned to assassinate her target, Jango Fett, and dies muttering what would become her famous last words, “It was just a job”.
Amanaman
Casual fans might not remember Amanaman, the Amani headhunter lounging at Jabba’s Palace when Boushh brought in the mighty Chewbacca to claim the bounty on his head. Like most of the bounty hunters in the Original Trilogy, he served as ornamentation for a scene, and didn’t pose much of a threat, despite his ominous staff.
Amanaman compromised Boba Fett by agreeing to give Lando Calrissian (disguised as a guard in the palace) advanced warning about the infamous bounty hunter’s movements on Tatooine, and proved there was no honor among thieves.
Dengar
Dengar may not be the most skilled bounty hunter in the galaxy, but he’s one of the most relentless. Despite a bad record of being beaten out of jobs (especially from two particularly infamous Mandalorians, Boba Fett and Din Djarin), he still trudges along, trying to make a name for himself among the other members of the Bounty Hunter Guild.
Late in his career he resorted to cybernetic implants to get an edge on his competition and his marks, acquiring components that increased his agility, speed, and reflexes. Unfortunately, all of his upgrades were eventually rejected by his body, and when he’s glimpsed in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on Kijimi utilizing the alias Rothgar Deng, he’s literally not even the same man anymore.
4-LOM
If Threepio ever decided to become a bounty hunter, the result would be 4-LOM, the insect-looking protocol droid who didn’t let his programming stop him from pursuing his true purpose; racking up marks. Without the fussy parameters of his old life serving drinks on a luxury liner, he was free to become a calculating killing machine, except that he ran about as well as Threepio, and shot about as well as a stormtrooper.
Unfortunately for the rusty old unit, he often had delusions of grandeur, and when the contract on Han Solo came up from Rekias Nodo, he pursued the Millennium Falcon to an inhospitable jungle planet. Despite an atmosphere that fried his ship’s sensors he chased the Falcon into the fog, frying his sensors as well. Had it not been for his partner Zuckuss, he wouldn’t have survived long enough for Solo to elude him again after the Battle of Hoth.
Zuckuss
Often confused for his sometimes partner, the protocol-turned-bounty-hunter 4-LOM, the Gand mercenary might have considered a change of identity given his abysmal track record. Along with 4-LOM, he tried to track Han Solo with his ship Mist Finder, but the jungle planet Solo fled to knocked out its power systems and left him stranded.
Zuckuss had to bag small time crooks like Beris Ford in order to afford tractor beams and modifications for his ship, tools that would come in handy in the bounty hunting lifestyle. He snagged Ford, but bigger bounties offered by Lord Vader, like Doctor Aphra, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo slipped through his fingers.
Bulduga
The fact that he was an Ithorian bounty hunter was about the most unique thing about Bulduga, who made his first and last appearance in The Clone Wars alongside his broodmate, Onca. The two brothers became known as a formidable team until Bulduga’s stupidity usurped their reputation.
Bulduga decided to impersonate the legendary Cad Bane, one of the most impressive hunters in the galaxy, right down to carrying Bane’s pair of dueling blaster pistols and wearing his wide-brimmed hat. Unfortunately for Bulduga, participating in Count Dooku’s bounty hunting trials on Sereno pitted him against the real Cad Bane, who unceremoniously shot him in front of his brother and swapped out his hat for the late hunter’s newer version.
Gunner Groth
In the grand tradition of lower-level mercenaries using the names of more infamous bounty hunters to gain notoriety throughout the galaxy, Gunner Groth impersonated Dengar in order to accept Grand Admiral Thrawn’s bounty on Mara Jade’s head.
Groth had spent time as a glorified security guard before deciding to pursue marks on the Empire’s “Locate And Detain List”, the payment of which was significantly higher than anything he’d ever be able to earn. After Groth located Jade on Rishi, he set a trap to lure the former Emperor’s Hand, but she used the Force against him and his body wasn’t found for some time, his identification leading to the momentary idea that the real Dengar had been killed.
Jodo Cast
Though he wasn’t a Mandalorian, Jodo Cast wore the armor of the elite warriors, impersonating one of their most famous huntsmen; Boba Fett. In the years after Fett’s supposed death by Sarlacc in the Pit of Carkoon, he painted his stolen armor with Fett’s colors and markings, in the hopes of receiving higher paid contracts.
Eventually, a very much alive Fett found out about Cast’s operation and went after him, setting him up in a trap that the blithering Cast wasn’t able to anticipate. When Cast went to Nal Hutta to accept a bounty Fett had anonymously offered, the Mandalorian got the drop on him and defeated him in combat, but didn’t kill him. Cast would die thanks to his own jetpack, which exploded shortly after their duel.
Jango Fett
Long reputed to be one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, there are Death Star-sized holes in his legacy. He is, after all, the hunter who hired Zam Wesell to do the job he was hired to do, a job which resulted in Obi-Wan Kenobi becoming aware of Fett’s existence and the cloning happening on Kamino. He apparently had time to tail Wesell and shoot her before she could talk, but couldn’t think of any better way to kill Amidala than with poisonous worms.
He’s able to fight Kenobi on Kamino in a rainstorm but somehow can’t defeat Mace Windu when he’s running straight at him in broad daylight on Geonosis. Most of Jango’s most impressive legacy is no longer canon, reduced to feats in Star Wars Legends, so looking at how he’s presented onscreen, he’s really, really bad at his job.
