Star Wars Crimson Reign #5 Features Mysterious First Appearance of Director Barsha

Crimson Reign #5 is out next Wednesday and we got an interesting preview from Starwars.com! In the preview we see Palpatine in his throne room speaking with Darth Vader about a new enemy. But this enemy, according to Palpatine, is not an enemy of the Empire but instead an enemy of the Sith.

When Vader asks who the enemy is a new character is introduced, Director Barsha.

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Who is Director Barsha?

Well, not entirely sure. As far as I can tell this is a brand new character created by Charles Soule. But we do know that he’s an officer of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) and has been tasked with retrieving intelligence from different crime syndicates in the Empire’s jurisdiction.

Since he’s an Imperial officer he’s likely a human. That being said, the artist is intentionally hiding his appearance. Both his hands and his face are darkened to mask what he looks like. Almost anytime this happens in a comic there is a reason. They are building up to the face reveal. This leads me to believe one of two things is going on here…

1. He’s a character we know. One who either has defected to the Empire or has the Emperor tricked and is simply posing as an imperial officer. This is doubtful to me as tricking both Vader and Palpatine is a tough task. One that will likely get you killed almost immediately.
   
2. The other option is that he’s not actually a human. While we can see he’s a humanoid, we know that species exist that look very similar to humans. I think this is likely the scenario. But there is still one issue…

I still don’t know why they would initially hide his appearance if that were the case. Pantorans have similar body structures to humans but that alone wouldn’t warrant a big reveal like this. The one exception would be the Chiss. This is the same species as Grand Admiral Thrawn. And, while this doesn’t mean he’s Chiss, his posture is very Thawn-like.

Now, at this point in the timeline, we don’t know where Thrawn is located. He’s been zipped off into void knows where when the Purgill took him and Ezra off Lothal. Could this be an agent sent back from Thrawn to see if the Syndicate war was started by the Grysk after making his way back to the Ascendancy? We know from the Thrawn novels that he cherry-picked some the Empire’s best and brightest to help out the Chiss. Could Eli Vanto actually have been who sent Barsha to lesser space to help the empire?

I don’t know. This speculation will likely look silly a week from now but it feels like there is something more going on with Barsha than a normal intro of an Imperial officer.

DrunkWooky’s take:

“Seems reasonable to me! Look at that jaw line. Looks pretty Thrawny to me!”

UPDATE: Looks pretty damn Chiss to me on this new Tyler Kirkham exclusive. But when you zoom in it appears to be Valance from the Bounty Hunters series. Unless they are giving Valance a new name and position somehow it appears this is not Barsha on the cover.

Star Wars Crimson Reign #5

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(W) Charles Soule (A) Steven Cummings (CA) Leinil Francis Yu
“THE SCARLET QUEEN”
•  LADY QI’RA has used every tool at her disposal to generate chaos in the Galactic Empire, all to further her goal of eradicating the Sith.
•  But as the final phase of Qi’ra’s grand plan is revealed, she is about to learn a lesson that the Jedi Order also came to understand…
•  Underestimate EMPEROR PALPATINE and pay the price.

RATED T

Variants:

• Yu Cover A
• Rahzzah Variant
• Crain Enemies of the Dawn Variant
• Anindito Connecting Variant
• Warriors of The Dawn Variant
• Pham Syndicate Variant
• Lopez 1:25 Sabacc Variant
• Cummings 1:50 Variant

In Shops: June 22, 2022

SRP: $3.99