Tobbi Dala

A male Human, Tobbi Dala was a native of the planet Mandalore, where he was born into the storied Mandalorian warrior tradition in the dying years of the Galactic Republic. Dala was a childhood friend of fellow Mandalorian Fenn Shysa, with whom he grew up in a small province off the coast of Mandalore's main continent. The two friends joined the local constabulary after coming of age, but after the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Dala and Shysa were two of 212 Mandalorians—entirely comprised of planetside police and former Death Watch—who enlisted as super commandos in the reconstituted Mandalorian Protectors. Under the command of Spar, an aberrant clone of bounty hunter Jango Fett originally bred for the Grand Army of the Republic, Dala and Shysa served on covert missions for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, including once attempting to kidnap Republic Senator Padmé Amidala on Norval II. By war's end, Dala, Shysa and Spar were the only three survivors of the 212 Mandalorian Protectors who set off to war.

After battling in the Clone Wars, Dala and Shysa returned home to Mandalore to make a new start. Initially, they were branded outlaws by their own people, but were soon enlisted to train elite special police units across their homeworld, and eventually were accepted again by Mandalorian society. For a time, they patrolled Mandalore's space, occasionally encountering fellow Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett, although they only rarely interfered with Fett's hunts. By 3 ABY, however, their homeworld had fully fallen under the yoke of the new Galactic Empire, which had enslaved much of the planet's populace. As two of the only Mandalorian Protectors left alive, Dala and Shysa went underground to form an outlaw band to battle against the Imperial occupation. Dala and Shysa gathered a number of fighters, and operating from a forest camp near Keldabe, launched a series of raids on Imperial targets.

It was on one such raid in 3 ABY that Dala was captured, and imprisoned within a great Imperial slave camp in the City of Bone, amidst the carcass of an ancient, colossal mythosaur. Dala's armor was taken as a trophy by the Suprema, the camp's overseer, and Dala himself confined to a small cell. Dala spent his days preparing to escape, practicing a maneuver where he would hang from the cell's ceiling fixture and jump on an unsuspecting guard. Just days later, Shysa in turn captured Dengar, a notorious bounty hunter who had been working for the Imperials, and arranged a prisoner exchange to free Dala. However, things grew complicated with the imminent arrival of Rebel leader Leia Organa who had traveled to Mandalore searching for Dengar herself, believing that the bounty hunter had critical information on the whereabouts of frozen Rebel hero Han Solo. Dengar recognized Organa immediately and alerted the Imperial garrison to her presence—she was promptly captured herself, and taken to the City of Bone.

Shysa launched his own rescue effort soon after, posing as a stormtrooper to gain entry to the City of Bone and freeing Organa and Dala, who was overjoyed to be reunited with his lifelong friend. Although they attempted to make a run at escaping through the eye socket of the giant mythosaur skeleton that contained the City of Bone, their path was cut off by the Suprema—Dala struggled with the Suprema but ultimately sustained a mortal blaster wound to the abdomen. Dala forced Shysa and Organa to go on without him, staying behind as Shysa and Organa made their final dash to the eye. In his final moments, Dala donned his armor for the last time and opened the blast doors in their path, before closing them just in time to destroy the Imperial squadron in pursuit, which caused an explosion that incinerated the entire installation.

A lifelong friend and battle comrade of Fenn Shysa, Tobbi Dala was a patriot at heart, willing to give his life to secure Mandalore's future. It was Mandalore's impoverished state and lack of attention from the Republic that drove Dala to volunteer for the Mandalorian Protectors and fight for the Separatist cause, which he and Shysa saw as just. Dala had a strong revulsion towards the Empire and its servants, referring to stormtroopers as "slimetroopers" and dedicating the rest of his life to freeing his homeworld from Imperial exploitation. Dala had a direct and colloquial way of speaking, and was unabashed in both expressing his attraction to Leia Organa, as well as making dismissive jokes at the expense of her droid C-3PO. A fun-loving man, Dala enjoyed little more than putting back a mug of Mandallian Narcolethe after a hard day's work, with his best friend at his side.

Tobbi Dala first appeared in two issues of the original Marvel Comics Star Wars comic run in 1982, written by David Michelinie and illustrated by Gene Day. Most of Dala's backstory provided in his original comic appearances was later contradicted by later portrayals of Mandalorian history, requiring extensive retconning. In Michelinie's comics, Dala and Fenn Shysa were depicted as former Mandalorian supercommandos who had fought for the Empire during the Clone Wars alongside Boba Fett, including targeting Leia Organa at the Emperor's behest. Later accounts and depictions of Fett and the Clone Wars rendered this out-of-date, namely the prequel trilogy's portrayal of Fett as a child during the Clone Wars, and both Organa's birth and the formation of the Empire occurring at the end of the war.

The discrepancies in Dala's backstory were rectified in The History of the Mandalorians, a 2005 article written by Abel G. Peña and appearing in Star Wars Insider 80. Instead of the Empire, Peña presents the Mandalorian Protectors as having fought on the Separatist side, and rather than having Dala and Shysa target Organa—canonically not yet alive—the article instead introduces a mission where they were sent to capture Organa's mother Padmé Amidala. The article also associates the "Fett" Dala and Shysa fought with in the Clone Wars as the previously introduced character "Spar," who like Boba Fett was a clone of bounty hunter Jango Fett. A figure of Dala was included in a Hasbro "comic two-pack" set along with Leia Organa in 2008, as part of Star Wars: The Legacy Collection. Although Dala is depicted in the Marvel comics as being completely bald, his Hasbro figure has light brown hair.

• Aurra Sing: Dawn of the Bounty Hunters
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• "The History of the Mandalorians" — Star Wars Insider 80
• The New Essential Chronology
• Aliens in the Empire, Part 1: Hierarchy of Power on Hyperspace
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Galaxy at War
• Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection