Jon Favreau has released the first synopsis for his Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian, and it just might introduce the man who stole Boba Fett’s armor. Cobb Vanth has already been introduced into the Star Wars canon in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy, and it sounds a lot like he’s about to star in his own show.
Favreau’s Star Wars TV series has been the subject of much speculation over the last few months. Rumors pointed to the Mandalorians being at the center of the story, while a handful of set photos hinted at a desert location reminiscent of Tatooine. But solid facts were few and far between; at least until Favreau took to social media to reveal the show’s title, and to present a brief synopsis of The Mandalorian.
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According to Favreau, The Mandalorian is set sometime after the fall of the Empire and before the rise of the First Order. The series stars a lone gunfighter on the outer reaches of the galaxy, far beyond the influence of the New Republic. Surprisingly, that masked man may well have already made his appearance in the Star Wars canon.
- This Page: Introducing Cobb Vanth
- Next Page: What Kind of Story Can We Expect from The Mandalorian?
Introducing Cobb Vanth, The “Lone Ranger” of Tatooine
Until now, the time between the Original Trilogy and the Sequels has been relatively unexplored. As recently as September 2017, there were reports that the Lucasfilm Story Group was blocking stories set after the Battle of Jakku. Only a handful of novels really discussed that time-period, most notably Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy, which chronicled the events leading to the Battle of Jakku, and essentially laid the foundations for any other stories set after Return of the Jedi. That’s begun to change, of course, with both Favreau’s series and Star Wars: Resistance set in the time between the trilogies. It’s safe to assume that both shows will build on the ideas Wendig’s novels first brought into play.
And here’s the interesting thing; the Aftermath trilogy really does feature a “lone gunfighter” who wears Mandalorian armor, and he’s fighting against injustice on the fringes of the galaxy. He’s on Tatooine, and – as Luke himself observed in A New Hope – if there’s a bright center to the universe, Tatooine is the world farthest from it. The first two books in the trilogy avoided revealing too much about the Mandalorian, but the third revealed his history; the man’s name was Cobb Vanth, and he was a slave who was freed after Jabba the Hutt’s death. Stumbling across a set of Mandalorian armor, Vanth and Jabba’s old beastmaster, Malakili, fought to prevent new criminal gangs muscling in on Jabba’s turf and enslaving Tatooine once again.
Although it was never explicitly stated, the Aftermath trilogy strongly implied that Cobb Vanth had stumbled upon Boba Fett’s armor. It seems the Sarlacc was badly injured during the events of Return of the Jedi, with the explosion of Jabba’s Sail Barge leaving the creature partially exposed. Some stoma-tubes were split open, and industrious Jawas raided them for treasures. The novel hinted that the Jawas took the Mandalorian armor, and that Vanth purchased it from them. Boba Fett’s fate, however, was never revealed; according to Jabba, it took years to be digested inside the Sarlacc, so he may well have still been alive, albeit injured.
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All this dovetails perfectly with Favreau’s description. Cobb Vanth was active as a lawman in the time between the trilogies; he’s a solitary gunslinger, wearing the right suit of armor; and he’s active on Tatooine, when photos have hinted at a desert setting for The Mandalorian. In addition, no sooner had the first synopsis been published than Jason Ward appeared on the SlashFilm podcast to report rumors that the character could be Cobb Vanth. Cobb’s story in the Aftermath trilogy was a strange one, irrelevant to the main plot and relegated to a series of “interludes”. It now looks as though those interludes were set up for ideas Lucasfilm intended to explore further down the line – and Cobb Vanth’s story is the first to be developed, in his case into a TV series.
Page 2 of 2: What Does This Mean for The Mandalorian’s Story?
The Extended Universe Could Serve As Inspiration for The Mandalorian
Curiously enough, the old Expanded Universe does have precedent for someone impersonating Boba Fett. Jodo Kast was a member of Alliance SpecOps who became a bounty hunter, and donned Mandalorian armor. After Fett’s death in the Sarlacc pit, Kast re-painted his armor to look like Fett’s in order to charge a higher fee. Kast dreamed of taking Fett’s role as the best mercenary and bounty-hunter in the galaxy. Unfortunately, his crimes caught up with him. In the Expanded Universe, Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc, and upon recovered his strength and learning someone had stolen his identity, he was incensed that someone was impersonating him, so he set a deadly trap for Jodo Kast. Suffice to say Kast learned the hard way that he was not Boba Fett’s equal – and he didn’t survive to make the most of that lesson.
Of course, the Expanded Universe is no longer considered canon, and so we can’t say for sure that Fett survived the Sarlacc in the new Star Wars. But it’s certainly possible; after all, Jabba suggested it takes a millennia for someone’s body to be digested inside the Sarlacc, and Boba would only have been in there for a short time. Assuming he did indeed survive, Boba would have presumably been badly wounded, malnourished, and perhaps even rendered comatose. The Jawas could have stripped his body of his armor, and left him for dead. If he recovered, it’s pretty certain he’d want to get his armor back. So perhaps Boba Fett himself is part of this story.
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What Does This Mean For The Story of The Mandalorian?
Whether Boba Fett is involved in The Mandalorian or not, though, Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy clues us in on what to expect from the series. This will be a tightly-focused character piece, centered around Cobb Vanth. He appointed himself as sheriff of the new Freetown on Tatooine and helped drive back criminal empires who seek to take over Jabba’s old territory. If Vanth’s allies from the novel also appear, that might mean a return of the crying rancor trainer/beastmaster Malakili from The Return of the Jedi. The last novel even revealed that Malakili was looking after a baby Huttling, so it’s possible to assume we can expect to see that creature too
It would make sense for the show’s rogues’ gallery to be drawn from the Aftermath novels as well, at least initially. That means we can expect to see the Red Key Raiders, a criminal cartel that emerged on the scene shortly after the Battle of Endor. They seem to have actually started out their operations on Tatooine, pretending to be a mining cartel but secretly running a range of criminal enterprises. One of their main leaders was a Weequay thug named Lorgan Movellan, who became obsessed with Cobb Vanth. The last encounter between the two in Aftermath: Empire’s End didn’t go well for Lorgan; not only was he beaten by the Mandalorian warrior, Cobb chose to carve a message into Lorgan’s face with his blade, presumably a warning to all the raiders to stay away.
But the Red Key Raiders may not be the only ones to be interested in Tatooine. The books have already established that the Raiders forged an alliance with the vast, powerful criminal empire known as Black Sun. This organization predates the Empire, and was dangerous enough to be considered a threat by even Darth Maul back before the Galactic Civil War. No doubt Black Sun used the chaos of the Empire’s fall to build its influence yet again, and it would set its sights on prizes that were out of reach of New Republic laws – including Tatooine.
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Key Release Dates
Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker
Release Date:2019-12-20
