5 days. 5 more days for Star Wars, some lucky people will be watching today – others on Thursday, some on the weekend. Whenever it is you’re actually watching the new Star Wars, we’re all excited for the upcoming movie. How do we make the wait more tolerable you ask? Lets talk about what’s happened before there was an awakening. This article doesn’t contain any information or spoilers regarding the movie but will focus on characters who may appear as extras or supporting elements for the new movies, based on some short stories published as part of Disney’s Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens series.
Today’s spotlight is on one of the characters featured in Annie Leibovitz’s Star Wars portraits for Vanity Fair, The Crimson Corsair. The portrait featured “Galactic travelers, smugglers, and other assorted riffraff [who] fill the main hall of pirate Maz Kanata’s castle”
The tall figure wearing a red Kaleesh mask is Sidon Ithano – most commonly referred to as The Crimson Corsair, His background story comes from the pages of The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku a short 57-page swashbuckling tale written by Landry Q. Walker. Since we’re talking about Captain Ithano and his crew, let us point out the short fellow next to him is his first mate, Quiggold, the roundheaded Gabdorin.
Sidon Ithano served on the Outer Rim cruiser named the New Gilliland, but after a nasty run in with the Hutt Syndicate, the New Gilliland was no more. Having survived the ordeal with enough plunder, Sidon Ithano was able to finance his own gang. The gang was comprised of six members, the Corsair, his first mate Quiggold, an Ishi Tib by the name of Pendewqell, an Arcona named Reeg Brosna, a red-skinned Twi’lek by the name of Reveth, and friendly Gamorrean nicknamed Squeaky, together they formed the crew for the Meson Martinet.
Their tale takes place in the hostile desert planet, Ponemah, in the southern hemisphere region known as the Sea of Sand, an unpopulated sector due to its nasty waves of corrosive sand, lava geysers and never ending storms of ionic lightning, as well as giant Sand worms that roamed the desert planet. The only people willing to live on Ponemah were scavengers, pirates, mercenaries and thieves looking forward to some lost treasure or abandoned loot.
The Captain’s crew sailed the desert aboard the Shrike, “a retrofitted sail barge painted blood red, with the two-eyed flag of the Corsair flying from its mast.” Similar to Jabba’s Sail Barge the Khetanna, the heavy armor and strong engine made these vessels particularly the vehicle of choice for pirates and other criminal groups.
It is a race to the finish against other criminal gangs including Scorza and his Weequay gang, the one-eyed Ortolan, the Gray Gundarks, and Toltek the Devaronian.
If you’d like to read the full story and find out what Count Dooku’s lost treasure was you can hop on over to Amazon and give it a quick read. Read it while your family and friends do their holiday shopping, it shouldn’t take more than an hour and it features some familiar elements from the galaxy of star wars that everyone can enjoy.
While the Corsair seldomly communicates in something other than simple calm gestures, his demeanor is that of a collected leader and makes for a total badass that I hope has a larger role in the film universe, if only we could get a follow up featuring Boba and Han to make it difficult to decide who to root for. I highly recommend you read about the captain, its only $1.99. Let us know in the comments below or over @NerdworkTweets if you’d like to see more stories like this and who else would you like to know about!
