Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The Mandalorian season 2, episode 1.
Boba Fett and his armor returned in The Mandalorian season 2, episode 1, "Chapter 9 - The Marshal", but the way Cobb Vanth got his hands on the Beskar may mean Disney has retconned Star Wars canon. Played by Temuera Morrison, Boba Fett's comeback is the biggest talking point from The Mandalorian's season 2 premiere, but before fans get to see him, they meet another person in his iconic armor: Cobb Vanth, aka the Marshal of Mos Pelgo, played by Timothy Olyphant.
The armor may not exactly fit the Marshal, but Vanth still manages to pull it off, thanks in large part of Olyphant's skill in playing Western lawmen. Of course, the fact a non-Mandalorian has a Mandalorian's armor is none-too-pleasing to Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), who demands it be returned to him, but in the end they strike a deal. Mando helps the Marshal rid Tatooine of the krayt dragon that's been terrorizing Mos Pelgo, and in return he gets the armor back.
It remains to be seen exactly what happens to Boba Fett's armor going forward in The Mandalorian season 2. The return of a scarred, older Boba Fett at the end of the episode suggests that he may be looking to reclaim it, though that could cause problems given he himself isn't a true Mandalorian, and begs the question of why he hasn't already done so. Curiously, though, this storyline was somewhat setup by Disney's new expanded universe of canon Star Wars stories, which teased the return of Boba Fett's armor, but it went down a little differently.
How Cobb Vanth Got Boba Fett’s Armor Is Different In Books & The Mandalorian
Cobb Vanth was first introduced to Star Wars canon back in 2015, in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy of books. Vanth is a former Tatooine slave (something left out of The Mandalorian season 2, although slavery itself is referenced) who worked to free himself and become the Sheriff, or Marshal, of Freetown, aka Mos Pelgo. The story of how he gets his hands on the Mandalorian armor is seen in the book not through Cobb's point-of-view, but that of Adwin Charu, an employee of the Red Key Raiders, a crime syndicate who hoped to fill the power vacuum left on Tatooine by Jabba the Hutt, first posing as a mining company. Adwin was tasked with purchasing key goods from the Jawas - such as droids and equipment - which is how he ends up running into Cobb. In Aftermath, the pair initially work together, as Cobb helps Adwin earn the Jawas' trust in order to be granted access to the storeroom of their biggest and best possessions; the true bounty, as it were. It's there that Adwin spots a suit of Mandalorian armor (implied to be Boba Fett's, though not outright said).
"From the box, he withdraws a helmet. Pitted and pocked, as if with some kind of acid. But still– he raps his knuckles on it . The Mandalorians knew how to make armor, didn’t they? 'Look at this,' he says, holding it up. 'Mandalorian battle armor. Whole box. Complete set, by the looks of it. Been through hell and back. I think my boss will appreciate this.'"
This is when Cobb switches his tone, telling Adwin that, actually, he'll be taking the Mandalorian armor himself, in order to help protect Mos Pelgo as its new, self-appointed lawman. With a brief face-off, Cobb shoots Adwin in the shoulder, telling him to take a message back to his boss about the law in town, who won't be accepting the likes of the Red Key Raiders anymore. Cobb then leaves with the suit of armor, ready to become the lawman seen in The Mandalorian season 2.
Of course, The Mandalorian season 2 puts a different spin on this tale. While he does use the suit to protect Mos Pelgo from a mining company, called the Mining Collective, there is no confrontation in the Jawas' sandcrawler; no man named Adwin to battle for the right to claim the armor. Instead, after being attacked by the Collective, Cobb grabs a camtono (aka the ice-cream maker from The Empire Strikes Back) and heads off into the Tatooine desert. After several days he's found by the Jawas, who want the silicax oxalate crystals inside the camtono. They offer to trade various items - from a storeroom much like the one described in Aftermath, right down to the astromech droid - but Cobb's eyes settle on Boba Fett's armor, which he names as his price, and his journey begins from there.
Has The Mandalorian Retconned Star Wars Canon?
There are clear differences between the return of Boba Fett's armor in Aftermath and the story presented by the Marshal in The Mandalorian season 2, episode 1, which begs the question of whether or not this is a direct retcon of the previously established Star Wars canon. It's worth remembering that Star Wars stories are often defined by who tells them - i.e. they come from a certain point of view - and it's true that in the case of Aftermath, that's seen through the eyes of Adwin, not Cobb. Nonetheless, though, there are some major discrepancies that a simple POV change don't really account for.
It's entirely possible that Disney has decided to retcon the books, which would fit with its approach to its own tie-in materials. The general handling of its books, comics, games etc basically seems to be that they're canon until a movie (or in this case, live-action TV show) needs to change something. The Mandalorian, like the Star Wars movies, serves a much bigger audience than the tie-ins do, and so it's somewhat understandable why Disney would ensure greater freedom and flexibility in the storytelling of those, even if it frustratingly contradicts what's been established before. This has already happened previously: The Rise of Skywalker created a Poe Dameron plot hole by cramming in a time as a spice smuggler into his already established history; a lot of the canon setup for Palpatine's return wasn't mentioned; teases of Snoke's backstory make no sense with him revealed as a Palpatine clone.
This isn't all that uncommon for Star Wars as a whole: with over 40-years of history, there are bound to be continuity issues. Disney's attempt to streamline canon when it purchased Lucasfilm back in 2012 was supposed to resolve these problems and make things far more simple going forward, and yet its own expanded universe hasn't been fully utilized. There may be great stories being told there, but the general feeling is that, if a writer or filmmaker wants to do something a bit different to what's in a book, then it's fine to do so. It wouldn't be surprising if the same applied to The Mandalorian season 2 and the story of Boba Fett's armor.
Is Cobb Vanth Lying To The Mandalorian?
There is, however, another possibility for why the story of the Marshal getting Boba Fett's armor is different in The Mandalorian season 2 to how it is in Aftermath: Cobb Vanth is lying. There isn't a clear sign of this in the episode itself, and Cobb is generally presented as being a man of his word - after all, he sticks by Mando in helping defeat the krayt dragon, and gives up the armor at the end. But the discrepancies raise the possibility, and it's not like it would be entirely out of character for the Marshal to lie. After all, in the Afermath book, he happily pretended to be helping Adwin, before turning against him in order to get what he wanted and be able to better protect his town. The Mandalorian isn't an enemy in the same sense, but nonetheless the Marshal's motives in needing his help are the same.
Lying to Din Djarin about how he obtained the Mandalorian armor would have a couple of advantages for Cobb. Firstly, if he told Mando that he'd got it by double-crossing someone, even while well-intentioned, then it'd be far less likely that Din would trust him. Cobb knows that he'd probably be defeated in a duel, so he needs to do his best to keep Din on his side. This then also applies to the audience too. The Marshal is supposed to be a sympathetic character, and so a backstory where he is forced to flee his town by the bad guys, and almost dies in the desert, before returning in the armor to save the day makes him much more heroic and easy to root for, and again helps win Mando to his cause.
In truth, either outcome feels plausible. Cobb Vanth is a Marshal who has to do whatever it takes to protect his town - lying to Mando isn't going to be much of a stretch for him. But at the same time, it's also very much in keeping with Disney's M.O. to retcon its own works. It might be squared as the tale being told from different viewpoints, or filling in certain parts of information, but regardless of whether The Mandalorian season 2 is retconning Star Wars canon or Cobb Vanth is lying, it's clear there are (at least) two versions of the story about Boba Fett's armor.