The Old One was the name given to a Human male shaman who lived on the planet Aduba-3 during the era of the Galactic Civil War. A Force-sensitive mystic, the Old One was the last man to carry the legend of the Behemoth from the World Below, a monster that was believed to protect the small farming village of Onacra. The Old One became obsessed with the story after having a brief encounter with the beast in his youth, and earned scorn from his fellow villagers by claiming to have the ability to summon and control the Behemoth. In 0 ABY, Onacra was threatened by a violent bandit gang known as the Cloud-Riders, and the elderly shaman decided to take the defense of his home into his own hands. During a pitched gunfight between the Cloud-Riders and a militia tasked with defending the village, the Old One shocked onlookers by successfully calling forth the Behemoth from beneath the earth, and directing it via a psychic link to attack the Cloud-Riders. However, the Old One soon met his end at the Behemoth's hands, as the monster crushed the elderly man in its effort to kill the Cloud-Riders' leader, Serji-X Arrogantus.
A Human male, the individual who came to be known as the Old One lived his life in the small farming community of Onacra on the Outer Rim world Aduba-3. The Old One grew up hearing the local legend of the Behemoth from the World Below, a mythic beast that slept beneath the earth that would protect Onacra from harm. The Old One's interest in the story was magnified a hundredfold in his youth, when he had a brief encounter with the monster that shaped him for the rest of his life. By his later years, the venerable "Old One" lived with his granddaughter Merri, and had become known as a mystic and a shaman. The last man in the village to keep the tale of the Behemoth, the Old One—who was, in fact, Force-sensitive— began to believe that he was capable of summoning and controlling the monster, an idea that caused many to think him a senile fool. In the era of the Galactic Civil War, violence came to the Old One's hometown in the form of the Cloud-Riders, a vicious gang led by unstable gunslinger Serji-X Arrogantus. The Cloud-Riders demanded yearly tribute from the people of Onacra, causing mayhem and ruin when the poor farmers could not meet their price.
By 0 ABY, the people of Onacra had had enough, and enlisted Rebel hero Han Solo to gather a posse and defend their village. However, when Solo and his posse, the Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3, arrived in Onacra, the Old One felt compelled to express his disapproval of the plan. Rather than risk their own lives in defense of Onacra, the Old One told Solo that there was a simpler solution: summoning the Behemoth from the World Below to destroy the attackers. Solo dismissed the Old One's notion as a "fairy tale," frustrating the mystic, who ordered his granddaughter to take hiding while he went off to take matters into his own hands. The Cloud-Riders arrived not long after, engaging the Star-Hoppers in a pitched battle that resulted in a number of casualties. The only figure on the battlefield not firing a blaster was the Old One, who focused all his energy on trying to call forth the Behemoth from its slumber beneath the earth. The old man uttered a piercing shriek and then began to speak, proclaiming that he and the Behemoth had linked their minds together and calling for the monster to emerge and destroy the invaders.
The Behemoth from the World Below emerges after being called forth by the Old One.
To that point, the Old One's claims that he could summon and command the Behemoth from the World Below had earned him nothing but dismissal and scorn. But suddenly, the rock beneath him began to shift, and heads of Cloud-Riders and Star-Hoppers alike began to turn. Then, the massive beast burst through the ground and began to attack, instantly vindicating the Old One's beliefs. Their minds as one, the Old One was able to completely control the beast, directing it to carve through Arrogantus' gangsters and ignore Solo's men. However, the Old One was so focused on directing the Behemoth that he left himself unprotected and out in the open on the battlefield. With only a few of his men left, Arrogantus' situation was desperate—noticing the Old One down below, he decided the only way to turn the tide against the beast was to take out the man controlling it. Arrogantus turned his skyspeeder and made a run at the Old One, intending to crash his vehicle into him. But at the moment he reached the elderly man, the Behemoth struck with a massive stomp, crushing both the Old One and Arrogantus alike.
With the Old One dead, his psychic link to the Behemoth was severed, and there was no one left to control the monster. The Behemoth subsequently rampaged out of control, putting the lives of the Star-Hoppers and the natives of Onacra at risk before Solo was able to slay the beast with a lightsaber.
A serious, spiritually-minded man, the Old One's encounter with the Behemoth from the World Below in his youth had a formative effect on him for the rest of his life. By 0 ABY, the Old One was almost completely devoid of humor, and boasted that he had not spoken lightly in decades. The Old One became obsessed with the Behemoth and developed the idea that he could summon and control it— a notion that turned out to be true, but which caused many to believe him to be a senile fool. The Old One put a tremendous amount of faith in the idea, believing that his link with the Behemoth alone would be his village's salvation, and suffering no small amount of frustration when others did not share his belief. However, when the moment of truth came, not only was the Old One vindicated, but he proved quite adept at controlling the beast.
The character known as the Old One first appeared in Star Wars (1977) 9, written by Roy Thomas and released in 1977. During his appearances in Marvel's Star Wars comic series, the Old One was illustrated by Howard Chaykin, Tom Palmer and Alan Kupperberg.