Bar-Kooda

Bar-Kooda was the captain of the pirate crew of the starship Bloodstar and the younger brother of the Koodan Ry-Kooda, who resided on the Wild Space world Rutal IV. At some point by 6 ABY, Bar-Kooda's crew attacked a spaceliner. The vessel had a group of entertainers aboard, all of which Bar-Kooda forced to perform for him, with the pirate shooting any of the artists he did not like.

Eventually, it was the turn of the magician Wim Magwit to perform. Magwit had previously stolen a mysterious short-range teleportation device from an unusual alien the former eventually named Magwit's Mystifying Hoop. Bar-Kooda was amazed by Magwit's performance and wished to learn the secret behind the trick with the Mystifying Hoop. Magwit, however, feeling that he would simply be executed if he revealed how the device was operating, refused Bar-Kooda's request. Despite the defiance, the pirate did not kill Magwit and instead kept him aboard the Bloodstar for the following four years. Bar-Kooda forced the magician to perform for the pirates' amusement while they committed acts that Magwit later described as "unspeakable" in front of him.

At some point, Magwit escaped from the Bloodstar. Bar-Kooda subsequently put out a Galactic Empire warrant for the magician's arrest. The pirate wanted the bounty hunter Boba Fett to capture Magwit, and soon, by 10 ABY, Fett had indeed tracked the magician down to a planet where Magwit was on a magic show tour. The bounty hunter captured Magwit and imprisoned him aboard his starship, the Slave I.

Fett was at that point contacted by Gorga Desilijic Aarrpo, the nephew of the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Gorga had become smitten with the Hutt Anachro, daughter of the wealthy trader Orko, and had been wondering what gift to present the merchant—who hated Gorga—so that Orko would bless a marriage between Gorga and Anachro. After Ding, Gorga's majordomo, notified his master that Bar-Kooda had recently caused heavy losses to Orko by raiding three of the merchant's starships, Gorga had become convinced that the pirate's death would make a fine gift for Orko.

To that end, the Hutt hired Fett to kill Bar-Kooda, although he was momentarily stunned—in light of the reward for the pirate's head being one hundred thousand credits—by the bounty hunter's requested compensation of two hundred thousand credits, which Fett reasoned was justified by the challenge posed by Bar-Kooda. Learning about Magwit's history with the Herglic, Fett offered the magician freedom in return for him helping the bounty hunter capture the pirate—although Magwit only agreed to the deal when Fett threatened to kill him if he did not.

Magwit subsequently had Fett hide inside a large box and loaded all of his stage equipment, including the box, aboard one of the Slave Is escape pods. The pod, with Magwit aboard, was then left drifting in space where a scout ship of the Bloodstar eventually discovered it. The scout ship brought the craft aboard Bar-Kooda's vessel, and the pirate captain himself witnessed the escape pod's arrival in a hangar.

When Magwit emerged from the escape pod, he claimed to have escaped from a ship aboard which he had a disagreement over his performance fees. Bar-Kooda threatened to kill the magician for his prior escape from him, but Magwit surprised the pirate by pretending that he welcomed the punishment from the captain. Bar-Kooda then ordered Magwit to perform one more show for him before he obliged the magician's "request" and killed him.

Magwit set up his equipment—including one of the matter transmitter frames of the Mystifying Hoop system as well as the box housing Fett—in the Bloodstars cargo hold. During Magwit's show before the pirates, Bar-Kooda hit one of his crewmembers for booing the magician during one of his preliminary acts, although the captain himself eventually called for Magwit to proceed to the Mystifying Hoop trick.

The magician then transported a deck of playing cards through the hoop as a demonstration—and also to signal Fett, who had by that time exited the box in the cargo hold. Magwit then invited Bar-Kooda to step through the hoop in order to learn how the device worked. At first testing the hoop by only putting his hand through it, Bar-Kooda soon stuck his head through the hoop's frame, only to learn that Fett was waiting for him on the other side of the teleportation system in the cargo hold.

Fett promptly grabbed the pirate and pulled him through into the cargo hold, asking him to surrender and walk back to the Slave I with Fett. In response, Bar-Kooda warned the bounty hunter that the latter would perish aboard the Bloodstar, to which Fett simply shot the Herglic in the torso with his blaster pistol. At that moment, Magwit also sent his show birds through the Mystifying Hoop, which distracted Fett, allowing Bar-Kooda to fire at him several darts from his gatling gauntlet. The Herglic then charged at Fett with his battle axe, but the bounty hunter knocked the pirate out by firing his wrist-mounted flamethrower at Bar-Kooda's head at close range.

Carrying Bar-Kooda's unconscious body, Fett then rapidly began to make his way back to the escape pod in the Bloodstars hangar. The bounty hunter was closely followed by Magwit, who had also escaped through the Mystifying Hoop from Bar-Kooda's crewmembers who were demanding their captain's return. After boarding the pod, Fett used the craft's missiles to blow a hole in the hangar's blast doors, causing explosive decompression that led to the deaths of many of the Bloodstars crew. As the escape pod made its way back to the Slave I, Fett remarked to Magwit that a very "unpleasant fate" awaited the barely conscious Bar-Kooda.

Fett eventually killed Bar-Kooda and collected the bounty on him. In his palace on the Outer Rim Territories planet Tatooine, Gorga then organized a great feast to both honor Orko and celebrate the successful contract with Fett. For the dinner, Bar-Kooda's body was turned into a delicious roasted entrée garnished with fruit, vegetables, and greens and dressed with a gravy. Deep cuts had been made in the Herglic's back, the remains of his hands and feet were covered with decorative manchettes, and an apple had been placed in the former pirate's mouth. Presented with such a treat, Orko could not refuse the proposed marriage between Gorga and Anachro, and all three Hutts tasted the Bar-Kooda dish during the meal.

Shortly after Gorga and Anachro's wedding that same year, the Lizling Boz learned of Bar-Kooda's death from a group of the Herglic's former crewmembers in a bar on Rutal IV. Boz relayed the news to Ry-Kooda, who visited the cantina in order to learn more about his brother's demise. Upon learning that Bar-Kooda had been captured by Fett and subsequently prepared as a meal for the Hutts, Ry-Kooda flew into a rage and destroyed the building. With Boz constantly stoking the Herglic's thirst for vengeance, Ry-Kooda vowed to avenge his brother's death by killing Fett, Gorga, and Orko. To that end, he and Boz departed Rutal IV to search out Fett and the Hutts, and ultimately Ry-Kooda, although succeeding in killing Orko, himself perished at the hands of Fett.

A Herglic with a mottled forehead and chin who spoke a variation of Basic and resembled his brother, Ry-Kooda, visually, Bar-Kooda was a savage, vicious, and impatient individual. Bar-Kooda described himself as an evil and hardhearted "spawn of a viper" but claimed that the act of denying the last request of an old shipmate would exceed his level of cruelty. Bar-Kooda's crew thought their captain was "bad enough as it [was]" so as to try and prevent him from becoming irritated.

Although a song about the impending death of a binggy on the planet Gorm performed by a captured singer brought tears of sadness to Bar-Kooda's eyes, he ultimately claimed he could only "take so much emotion." The Herglic further demonstrated his disregard for the lives of sentients at his mercy by executing the performer—a fate shared by other entertainers whose forced acts he did not enjoy—and commenting that the singer's remains would "do nicely for supper." The carnivorous pirate had a notorious reputation for eating his victims, with Wim Magwit's suggestion of carving up his moldy carcass and serving it to Bar-Kooda raw with a light garnish and large amounts of grotberry sauce making the Herglic hungry and bringing saliva to his mouth.

Bar-Kooda was very impressed with Magwit's magic tricks and acted in an affectionate manner toward the magician, although when the stage artist refused to reveal the secret behind his main trick, the pirate displayed his true vicious nature by roaring at him for refusing his orders. Once Magwit returned to Bar-Kooda after he had escaped from the pirate, the Herglic nearly immediately threatened to kill the magician. Bar-Kooda viewed Magwit as being full of surprises and did not tolerate his crewmembers disrespecting the magician. Magwit speculated that the pirate liked him in his own cruel way, but he himself characterized the Herglic as a "monster."

Initially being suspicious of Magwit when the magician suggested that Bar-Kooda step through his Mystifying Hoop, the Herglic eventually came to suspect that the stage artist was hiding something. The pirate then discarded his previous caution, which ultimately had fatal consequences for the Herglic.

Bar-Kooda wore a sleeveless leather tunic and pants with protective kneepads and knee-high boots. Several pouches were attached to the pirate's belt, and so was a holster housing a large blaster pistol with a curved handle. A baldric slung over Bar-Kooda's right shoulder allowed him to carry a single-handed, single-edged battle axe on his back. Bar-Kooda wore a vambrace on his right forearm, while his left forearm housed a large gatling gauntlet that terminated with a hook and could shoot lethal darts. The Herglic commanded a crew of a thousand pirates based out of a massive and well-armed ship, the Bloodstar, which Boba Fett estimated could even prove to be in combat a challenge for battlecruisers of the Galactic Empire.

Bar-Kooda was created for Bounty on Bar-Kooda, the first entry in the Star Wars: Boba Fett series of one-shot comic books. The issue was written by John Wagner, illustrated by Cam Kennedy, and published by Dark Horse Comics on December 5, 1995. Prior to the character's appearance in Bounty on Bar-Kooda, he was first mentioned in the October 1995 reference book The Essential Guide to Characters by Andy Mangels. In his article "Just Who Is Boba Fett?," included in the April 1998 one-shot magazine Star Wars: Boba Fett, Mangels listed the popular bounty hunter Boba Fett's capture of Bar-Kooda, as depicted in Bounty on Bar-Kooda, as one of the former character's "top 10 [bounty] hunts."

In its entry for the character Anachro, the StarWars.com Databank misidentified Bar-Kooda as a bounty hunter. In addition, despite Bounty on Bar-Kooda depicting Bar-Kooda as being captured alive by Fett, the 2003 ninety-seventh issue of De Agostini's The Official Star Wars Fact File magazine incorrectly claimed that Fett killed Bar-Kooda within "seconds" of their brawl. The Fact File issue also established that Fett had specifically been hired to kill the pirate. In 2008, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia confirmed that Bar-Kooda did indeed perish at the bounty hunter's hands, which this article assumes occurred following the pirate's capture.

• The Essential Guide to Characters
• "ComicScan: Pulp Faction" — Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 6
• The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology
• "Just Who Is Boba Fett?" — Star Wars: Boba Fett
• "The Bounty Hunter's Comic Book Career" — Star Wars: Boba Fett
• The Official Star Wars Fact File97
• The Official Star Wars Fact File130
• Star Wars: The Comics Companion
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia