Montross (bounty hunter)

Montross was a member of the Mandalorians, a centuries-old group of mercenaries. A man of exceptional brutality, he inspired fear in both his adversaries and allies. Around 60 BBY, the Mandalorian Civil War erupted, a conflict pitting the Death Watch, a splinter group led by Tor Vizsla who advocated for Mandalorian galactic conquest, against the True Mandalorians, led by Jaster Mereel. Montross aligned himself with the True Mandalorians. Despite his loyalty to Mereel, he frequently clashed with him over tactical approaches and his own propensity for causing excessive collateral damage, which Mereel found unacceptable. In 58 BBY, Montross was present on Concord Dawn, Mereel's homeworld, when the Death Watch launched an attack. Mereel and his fellow Mandalorians managed to evade Vizsla's forces only with the assistance of a local boy, Jango Fett, whose family had been killed by the Death Watch. Fett guided them from his family's farm to the nearest town, where the Mandalorians anticipated Vizsla would seek to resupply. Montross joined Mereel's group in town, and they prepared to ambush the Death Watch. While Mereel and the others confronted the Death Watch at street level, Montross acted as a sniper from an elevated window. With Fett's help, they successfully eliminated most of the Death Watch forces present. Mereel promptly recruited Fett, and the Mandalorians retreated, with Montross eliminating Death Watch stragglers as Mereel's group withdrew.

Six years later, the Mandalorians accepted a mission from the Korda Defense Force. A rookie security squad was trapped on the planet of Korda Six by hostile natives—initially believed to pose minimal resistance—and required extraction. Montross, who assigned roles at the mission briefing, would lead Vertigo Squad, a group of individuals with experience using jetpacks for aerial combat. Headhunter Company, under Mereel's command, would retrieve the security team, while a squad led by Fett—in his inaugural mission as a squad commander—would secure the extraction point. Montross disapproved of Mereel's paternal treatment of Fett and voiced his sentiments to Fett before the mission, reminding him that Mereel would eventually have to choose a successor.

Upon arrival, the resistance proved stronger than anticipated. The amassed firepower of the natives quickly decimated the Mandalorians, forcing Fett's squad to seek refuge in a trench system. Mereel followed Fett, ordering Montross to abort his run and do the same. However, Montross persisted in his flight, unwilling to abandon his mission, and instructed Mereel to bring his squad up behind them. Attempting to seize a heavy gun emplacement on a nearby ridge, many members of his squad were shot down. A grenade thrown by one of the natives incapacitated Montross, but he was rescued by the timely arrival of Mereel. Meanwhile, Fett exploited Montross' attack as a diversion to lead his own squad to the supposed location of the security team. However, upon arrival, they were ambushed by the Death Watch, and Fett realized that the Kordans' job offer was, in fact, a trap for the Mandalorians. As Fett engaged them in combat, Vizsla appeared in an armored vehicle on a ridge above Montross and Mereel. Mereel informed Montross that they would have already left the planet had it not been for Montross' charge, and if they survived, Montross would no longer be considered a Mandalorian. Vizsla began firing on Mereel, who called to Montross for an airlift. Montross abandoned Mereel, leaving him to die, declaring that he would take charge of the Mandalorians.

Montross returned to the other Mandalorians, instructing them to retreat and falsely claiming that Fett had died attempting to save Mereel. Just then, Fett arrived with Mereel's body. Montross attempted to persuade Fett to allow him to assume leadership of the Mandalorians, but Fett revealed to those present that Montross had abandoned Mereel to die. Fett's friend Silas corroborated Fett's claim to the title of Mandalore with his blaster. Montross attempted to dissuade the other Mandalorians from following his rival, but his efforts were met with more blasters being drawn on him. With a parting remark to Fett that he would lead the others to their deaths, Montross departed from the Mandalorians and vanished for a period. He retrieved Mereel's armor from the deceased man and displayed it in his home as a trophy.

Following his banishment, Montross embraced the life of a bounty hunter, leveraging the brutality he had demonstrated as a Mandalorian and the actions he committed as a hunter to instill fear in his targets. Montross exclusively killed his bounties, motivated not by financial gain but by the thrill of the hunt. From one of his targets, a land baron with a substantial bounty on his head, Montross acquired his starship, Hell's Anvil, after killing him. He stripped the interior, removed the stations for the copilot and navigator, and installed a hydraulic pilot's seat to access the ship's extensive computer array.

In 32 BBY, Montross pursued one of his targets to a remote world. The man begged for his life, offering Montross more money than the bounty on his head. Deciding that his prey was worth more dead, Montross killed him and collected the five thousand credit bounty aboard the Hell's Anvil. Shortly afterward, the bounty hunter received a message from a man identifying himself as Tyranus. Tyranus offered Montross the opportunity to hunt the rogue Jedi Komari Vosa, leader of the Bando Gora cult, for a reward of five million credits. However, he was not the only one to receive the offer; among his competitors was Jango Fett, who had also become a bounty hunter in the intervening years. Unbeknownst to either of them, the winner of the competition would also serve as the prime clone for a clone army that Tyranus was assembling.

Given the Bando Gora's involvement in the production and distribution of narcotic death sticks, Montross and Fett both targeted the death stick market. Montross traced drug trafficking to a supplier on Coruscant named Groff Haugg. He located Haugg in one of Coruscant's industrial districts and interrogated the drug dealer. Haugg, more fearful of the Bando Gora than Montross, provided false information, directing him to the Gazzari system. To silence Haugg, Montross froze him in carbonite, resulting in his death. Fett arrived shortly after, also in pursuit of Haugg, and the two bounty hunters engaged in combat. After being pushed back, Montross escaped through a hatch in the freezing chamber and sealed it behind him. Fett did not pursue, instead following his own leads, and Montross departed for the Gazzari system in the Hell's Anvil.

Upon arriving in the system, Montross learned from his ship's computer that death stick trafficking had been halted by the Galactic Republic some time ago, realizing that he had been deceived. He also discovered that some of the smugglers who had been arrested had provided information in exchange for reduced prison sentences. Among them was Bendix Fust, who was also wanted alive by the Dug crime lord Sebolto. Montross learned that Fust was serving time in the Republic prison on Oovo IV, where a prison riot had recently occurred, severing all communication with the asteroid. Montross connected the events and realized Fett was involved, then set off for Sebolto's lair on Malastare.

Fett was also on Malastare and located Sebolto first, causing the Dug to panic and accidentally fall into a vat of chemicals, resulting in his death. Riding a skiff, Montross ambushed the other bounty hunter as Fett fled through Sebolto's death stick factory. They fought again, but the battle was cut short by the arrival of Fett's temporary partner, Zam Wesell, in Fett's ship, Slave I, who unleashed its missiles on Montross' skiff. Wesell and Fett escaped, but Montross followed, activating a listening device he had planted aboard Slave I. As Fett and Wesell headed to Tatooine, following Huttese markings in one of Sebolto's ships, Montross overheard Fett communicating with his friend and informant Rozatta on Outland Station. While Fett was occupied on Tatooine, Montross traveled to the station. Jamming communications to prevent any signals from escaping, he boarded Outland Station. Rozatta attempted to negotiate with Montross as he landed, but the bounty hunter refused and tortured her to near-death for information on Vosa's whereabouts. He learned that Vosa was hiding on the moon of Kohlma, and when Fett attempted to contact Rozatta after leaving Tatooine, Montross answered him. Taunting the other bounty hunter, Montross informed him that she was still alive, but he now possessed the information. Before departing, Montross planted thermal charges around the station to kill Fett. Fett escaped the trap, learning from the dying Rozatta where Montross had gone.

As Montross made his way to Kohlma, Vosa decided that the time had come to eliminate the threat posed by the bounty hunters and ordered their deaths. On Kohlma, a graveyard moon of the planet Bogden, Montross landed the Hell's Anvil in a swamp and, clad in his complete set of Mandalorian armor, set out for Vosa's lair. Eventually, Fett arrived at the gates of the lair where Montross awaited, and the two agreed to engage in a Mandalorian-style duel to the death. They fought fiercely until Montross, wounded, was knocked into the center of an ancient ceremonial arena. Despite remaining defiant towards Fett, requesting a warrior's death, Montross soon found himself surrounded by an approaching group of cultists. Fett disregarded Montross' request and left him to be torn apart by the Bando Gora.

Montross was an exceptionally brutal man, even by Mandalorian standards, and frequently caused significant collateral damage during engagements. His tactics instilled fear in his enemies, fellow soldiers, and, during his career as a bounty hunter, his targets. Montross enjoyed hunting and killing his bounties, driven by the thrill of the hunt rather than financial gain, and his cruelty only enhanced his reputation among them. He consistently left his prey dead, even when a bounty would have been more lucrative alive. When angered, Montross was prone to violent outbursts. He was not averse to using torture to extract information. Montross was highly skilled in his profession. During the hunt for Vosa, he outmaneuvered Fett on three occasions, sometimes tracking him using indirect clues left behind and at other times directly eavesdropping on his conversations.

As a Mandalorian, Montross often exhibited reckless displays of bravado that endangered his allies. He disliked leaving battles unfinished and occasionally needed to be reminded that his group was retreating while he was still engaged in eliminating stragglers. In extreme cases, Montross would disobey orders to fall back, taking pride in the fact that the Mandalorians had never abandoned a mission and refusing to tarnish that record. However, Montross was also cowardly. After allowing Mereel to die in the ambush on Korda Six, he was quick to order the execution of Mereel's last order to retreat. After leaving the Mandalorians, he continued to view himself as a warrior, engaging in his final duel with Jango Fett as if they were both Mandalorians and, upon being defeated, requesting a warrior's death.

When Jaster Mereel recruited Jango Fett into the Mandalorians, Montross developed a dislike for the young man. He became enraged by the attention Mereel showed Fett, as well as the fact that Mereel considered himself a surrogate father to the boy, believing that it clouded Mereel's judgment. Montross held Fett in contempt, viewing him as a child and believing him to be a coward. As an opportunist, he also believed that Mereel's attachment would interfere with his selection of a successor. Montross' desire to lead the Mandalorians led him to betray Mereel on Korda Six and immediately attempt to assume the dead man's position. He relished his victories over Fett during their time as bounty hunters, mocking the other man and dismissing their rivalry as "just business." As of 27 BBY, Fett considered Montross to be the most formidable opponent he had ever faced.

During his time as a Mandalorian, Montross wore a suit of blue Mandalorian armor, with the arms cut off above the elbows. He equipped himself with a jetpack when a mission required one, as well as a blue cape. As a Mandalorian, he used a number of blaster pistols and rifles, both in close-up combat and from a sniper's position. He retained his armor after leaving the Mandalorians, although by this point, it was brown and red. It was also extremely dirty and unkempt. He was not usually known to have worn the helmet, except when facing Jango Fett in a Mandalorian duel. Along with his blasters, Montross used cluster missiles in combat. He kept his jetpack as well.

Montross acquired his starship, the KR-TB "Doomtreader" Hell's Anvil, as a bonus for killing his target in the course of his bounty hunting. He gutted the interior, rearranging it to suit his tastes. Equipped with powerful engines, strong shields, and solar ionization cannons that ignored shields and melted durasteel, the Hell's Anvil was a dangerous vessel. The ship had a large cargo hold, with cells used to store prisoners and corpses; these were located close to the hatch of the engine room, which made them uncomfortably hot.

The name Montross was assigned to multiple characters in early versions of the script for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In a rough draft from May 1974, Montross serves as an aide to General Skywalker on Aquilae. In a war room scene, Montross places everyone on alert and later reports a giant asteroid or moon—an early iteration of the Death Star—approaching Aquilae. A character named Montross Holdaack appears in the second screenplay draft of The Star Wars from January 28, 1975. This Montross is the science officer aboard a ship operated by Jabba the Hutt and Oxus, and is friends with Han Solo. Solo steals the ship by fabricating a reactor overload, causing everyone to flee, and retains Montross and Chewbacca as his crew. They later assist in transporting Luke Starkiller and his two droids, coming to his rescue in the film's climax. In this draft, Montross is almost entirely robotic, with only his right arm and head organic. The name of an Imperial officer from the rough draft, Crispin Hoedaack, was slightly altered to create his surname. By the third draft of August 1975, Solo possesses his own ship, though it is still financed by Jabba. He again fakes a reactor problem, causing everyone to leave except for Montross, but Solo outdraws him and forces him to depart as well. The fourth draft, dated January 1, 1976, features more significant changes. Montross is now an Imperial bureaucrat, replacing Jabba, who informs Solo that the Mos Eisley spaceport is closed under Imperial decree. Solo must outwit him to take off. Actor Richard LeParmentier was initially considered for the role, but Montross was ultimately removed from the script, and LeParmentier was cast as Admiral Conan Antonio Motti.

During the negotiation of the making of Star Wars with Twentieth Century Fox in 1976, a budget was created. Due to confusion in the process, several items from earlier drafts were included in the budget. A £150 pirate outfit for Montross was one of them. Bill Bailey was also listed as having been cast for the part of Montross.

The name was incorporated into canon, and the character of Montross was created for the dual project of Jango Fett: Open Seasons and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, written by Haden Blackman. Released as part of the Expanded Universe tie-in to Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, the comic series and game together narrated the story of how Jango Fett became a bounty hunter and the clone donor for the Grand Army of the Republic. Montross' background with Fett was established in flashbacks in Open Seasons, while the conclusion of their story was presented in Bounty Hunter. In the game, Montross was voiced by Clancy Brown.

In an alternate ending to Bounty Hunter, if the player loses to Montross in their final fight, Montross stands over Jango Fett's dead body, claiming that Vosa's bounty is now his, and tells Fett to save a place in hell for him.