Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant) is one of the latest addition to season 2 of the Disney series The Mandalorian, but he is not a new character in Star Wars.
This is not the first time Cobb Vanth has appeared in the Star Wars stories. He made his debut in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy, a canonical series of novels covering the collapse of the Imperial Navy in the Galaxy following the destruction of the Death Star.
Although Cobb Vanth appears in The Mandalorian with a slightly different origin, the character is essentially the same one who was born in one of the most popular trilogies written within the Star Wars canon, Star Wars Aftermath, which include three novels: Aftermath, Life Debt, and The End of the Empire. And like The Mandalorian, narrate what happens after the second Death Star has been destroyed, after the presumed death of Palpatine. In both cases the character serves to demonstrate what happened when the Empire fell and when Jabba the Hutt died, but it is not particularly well explained in the episode.
In the series Vanth appears celebrating the fall of the Empire in Mos Pelgo. He has a mysterious scar on his left temple. “Power detests emptiness and Mos Pelgo became a slave camp,” he tells Din Djarin as they head towards the lands of the desert dwellers.
The fact is that he manages to escape and take everything he can from the new invaders. He then meets the Jawas and exchanges what he had stolen from the Mining Collective, silicax crystals for a Mandalorian beskar armor with remnants of what appears to be Sarlacc bile that could have belonged to a certain Boba Fett. The fact is that he returns to the town and takes care of the Mining Collective and becomes the Marshal.
In the novels Cobb Vanth is a slave, he does not specify who, although everything points to one of the great crime families, during the Galactic Civil War. When the Empire falls he manages to free himself. In Mos Pelgo, he meets one of the most despicable crime syndicates, the Red Key Raiders. When Jabba died there was a proxy war, but as the Empire fell, and the unions were afraid, they tried to whitewash his criminal operations.
In the case of the Red Keys, they tried to pose as a mining union. Vanth doesn’t get along with them. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s slave again and he doesn’t want to take bribes. So Vanth takes on the Red Key Raiders, but instead of not getting along with the desert dwellers, as in the series, he comes to terms with them: they protect each other if necessary and do not attack each other in exchange for water. This is roughly what happens. But he is essentially a man of his word.
Despite his carefree and graceful appearance in Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Cobb Vanth is a veteran warrior and a respected leader in his own right. Judging by how he accepts the loss of his valuable armor, he seems ready to embrace politics in peacetime.
Created by Jon Favreau, Star Wars: The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, with guest stars Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, and Giancarlo Esposito. Directors for the new season include Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed, and Robert Rodriguez.
