Star Wars Comics First and Key Events 7/7/21: Star Wars Adventures 6, Bounty Hunters 14

4

It’s new comic book day and it’s time to look at the key events and first appearances waiting for you in the pages of new Star Wars comics!

Caution, spoilers are ahead. If you want to read the comics first, this is your last warning.

Bounty Hunters 14

Variants:

• Cover A
• Camuncoli Headshot
• Sprouse Lucasfilm 50th

1. Deathstick

First of all, Cover A is Deathstick’s first cover appearance. She made a last page cameo in Bounty Hunters #13.

In this issue, she’s named, appears on multiple pages, and has dialogue, making Bounty Hunters #14 Deathstick’s first full comic appearance. Finally, it turns out Deathstick is working for Crimson Dawn, contracted by Q’ira.

• 

• 

• 

Deathstick is the daughter of the Nightsister witch, Shelish. She grew up in the Outer Rim territories and began as a street criminal. She gained notoriety through highly public assassinations of gang leaders. Deathstick had a run-in with the Empire which cost her the majority of her face which is why she wears the mask. She first appeared in the Kabam mobile game, Star Wars: Uprising.

Shelish first appeared in a collection of short stories by George Mann called Myths & Fables.

2. Clone Wars Past

Next up, we get a flashback of the end of the Clone Wars and the unification of the most powerful underworld players- Black Sun, the Pykes, and the Mandalorian Death Watch, under a mysterious Mandalorian-helmeted fellow.

On the order of key events, this is arguably pretty low, but this is the first cameo appearance of Ahsoka’s 501st Clones in their orange Ahsoka helmets, albeit very obscured in the background. Oruba the Hutt also appears in the background in cameo. He made a cameo appearance in Bounty Hunters 13 as a statue.

The Falleen on the left could very well be Xizor. I still haven’t given up on him showing up in War of the Bounty Hunters yet. If that is Xizor (unnamed in this issue), this would be his first cameo in canon comics. Shadows of the Empire #1 is Prince Xizor’s first comic appearance, first cover, and the first appearance of the Black Sun Crime Syndicate.

Next up is the Pyke to the right. Many of the major Pykes died during the Clone Wars at the hands of the likes of Count Dooku, including: Lom Pyke (First Appearance in Canon Darth Maul #2 (2017), First Appearance in Legends Darth Maul Death Sentence #1 (2012)). However, Marg Krim and the Pyke Majordomo Fife, appear to be alive in canon continuity. I haven’t found any Marg Krim appearances yet, but Fife first appears in Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #2 (June 2014). None of those Pykes seem to fit the appearance of the one show below, though, so we may just have to wait and see. For what it’s worth, Lom Pyke has the closest resemblance.

Then there’s the Death Watch Mandalorian to the right. Is that Bo-Katan Kryze? It would seem to be either her or Koska Reeves. Bo-Katan Kryze first appears along with the first appearance of the Darksaber in Defenders of the Lost Temple, a graphic novel. Honestly, without the graphics on the forehead of the helmet, this cameo looks more like Koska Reeves. If it’s either one, though, it’s their first canon cameo.

Finally, there’s that pesky guy in the middle. He looks a lot like Boba Fett, but those vertical lines on his helmet and lack of rangefinder would seem to indicate otherwise. This is the Shadow Collective, so it’s most obviously a Mandalorian Super Commando organized under Darth Maul. After Maul killed the Mand’alor Pre Vizsla, the Death Watch Mandalorians under Pre, including Gar Saxon and Rook Kast, organized under Darth Maul. A Super Commando can be seen between Gar Saxon (blonde, left) and Rook Kast (purple hair, right), who has identical markings to this Mandalorian in Bounty Hunters 14:

This super commando is yet unnamed, though. The flashback in Bounty Hunters 14 states that it’s retelling the end of the Clone Wars. By that time, Maul had been captured. Perhaps this nameless Super Commando took over the Death Watch wing of the Shadow Collective. I’m just spit-balling and wildly speculating here, but he could be Alpha-Ø2 (a.k.a. “Spar”). Spar was one of the first experimental class of ARC clone troopers produced by the Kaminoans and an example of the 1% failure rate in Kaminoans’ product. Star Wars #68 is his first appearance through retcon. Abel G. Peña, in Star Wars Insider 80‘s article The History of the Mandalorians, explained that this center Mandalorian was actually Spar leading Tobbi Dala and Fenn Shysa.

3. Dengar Motivation

We learn that Dengar is primarily motivated to free his love, Manaroo, an Aruzan female. Manaroo first appears in the 1996 Kevin J. Anderson novel, Tales of the Bounty Hunters. Bounty Hunters #14 is her first canon appearance.

4. Mama Stammoch

She seems like the public house and general underworld fixer type. At any rate, this is her first appearance.

Star Wars Adventures #6

Cover B is the first cover of Mari San Tekka and Dr. Uttersond. Mari San Tekka is the ancestor of Lor San Tekka, seen in the opening scenes of The Force Awakens and she has the precognitive ability to find “Paths”, unconventional routes through hyperspace. Dr. Uttersond is Marchion Ro’s doctor on the Gaze Electric, keeping the ancient woman alive.

Mari San Tekka makes her first comic appearance on the first page of the second story in this issue. So does Dr. Kisma Uttersond. A few other Nihil underlings are also featured in their first comic appearances, don’t get too attached to the Gamorrean: