Bar-Kooda

Bar-Kooda commanded the pirate crew aboard the starship Bloodstar and was the younger sibling of Ry-Kooda, a Koodan who lived on Rutal IV, a world in Wild Space. By 6 ABY, Bar-Kooda's crew attacked a spaceliner. The vessel had entertainers on board, and Bar-Kooda forced them to perform for him, killing any artist he disliked with gunfire.

Eventually, it was Wim Magwit's, the magician's turn to perform. Magwit had previously pilfered a mysterious short-range teleportation device from an unidentified alien, which he later called Magwit's Mystifying Hoop. Bar-Kooda was impressed by Magwit's performance and wanted to know the secret behind the Mystifying Hoop trick. However, Magwit refused, believing he would be killed if he revealed how the device worked. Despite this defiance, the pirate spared Magwit and kept him on the Bloodstar for the next four years. Bar-Kooda forced the magician to perform for the pirates' entertainment while they committed acts that Magwit later described as "unspeakable" in his presence.

Magwit eventually escaped from the Bloodstar. Bar-Kooda then issued a Galactic Empire warrant for the magician's arrest. The pirate wanted Boba Fett to capture Magwit, and by 10 ABY, Fett had tracked the magician to a planet where Magwit was on a magic show tour. The bounty hunter captured Magwit and imprisoned him on his starship, the Slave I.

Fett was then contacted by Gorga Desilijic Aarrpo, nephew of the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Gorga had fallen for Anachro, the daughter of the wealthy trader Orko, and was considering what gift to give the merchant—who disliked Gorga—to gain Orko's blessing for a marriage between Gorga and Anachro. After Ding, Gorga's majordomo, informed his master that Bar-Kooda had recently caused significant losses to Orko by raiding three of the merchant's starships, Gorga decided that the pirate's death would be a suitable gift for Orko.

To that end, the Hutt hired Fett to kill Bar-Kooda, although he was surprised by the bounty hunter's requested compensation of two hundred thousand credits—given the reward for the pirate's head was one hundred thousand credits. Fett justified the higher price by the difficulty of capturing Bar-Kooda. Learning about Magwit's past with the Herglic, Fett offered the magician freedom in exchange for helping him capture the pirate—Magwit only agreed when Fett threatened to kill him.

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

When Magwit emerged from the escape pod, he claimed to have escaped from a ship due to a disagreement over his performance fees. Bar-Kooda threatened to kill the magician for his previous escape, but Magwit surprised the pirate by pretending to welcome the punishment. Bar-Kooda then ordered Magwit to perform one more show before granting the magician's "request" and killing him.

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

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

Fett grabbed the pirate and pulled him into the cargo hold, asking him to surrender and return to the Slave I. Bar-Kooda warned the bounty hunter that he would die on the Bloodstar, so Fett shot the Herglic in the torso with his blaster pistol. Magwit then sent his show birds through the Mystifying Hoop, distracting Fett. Bar-Kooda fired several darts at him 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 made his way back to the escape pod in the Bloodstar's hangar, closely followed by Magwit, who had escaped through the Mystifying Hoop from Bar-Kooda's crewmembers 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 killed many of the Bloodstar's crew. As the escape pod returned to the Slave I, Fett told Magwit that a "unpleasant fate" awaited the barely conscious Bar-Kooda.

Fett killed Bar-Kooda and collected the bounty. In his palace on Tatooine, the Outer Rim Territories planet, Gorga organized a feast to honor Orko and celebrate the successful contract with Fett. For dinner, Bar-Kooda's body was turned into a roasted dish garnished with fruit, vegetables, and greens and dressed with 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 pirate's mouth. 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 year, Boz, a Lizling, learned of Bar-Kooda's death from a group of the Herglic's former crewmembers in a bar on Rutal IV. Boz told Ry-Kooda, who visited the cantina to learn more about his brother's death. Upon learning that Bar-Kooda had been captured by Fett and prepared as a meal for the Hutts, Ry-Kooda became enraged and destroyed the building. With Boz constantly fueling his desire for revenge, Ry-Kooda vowed to avenge his brother's death by killing Fett, Gorga, and Orko. He and Boz left Rutal IV to find Fett and the Hutts, and Ry-Kooda, although killing Orko, died at the hands of Fett.

Bar-Kooda, a Herglic with a mottled forehead and chin who spoke a version of Basic and looked like his brother, Ry-Kooda, was a savage, vicious, and impatient person. Bar-Kooda called himself an evil and hardhearted "spawn of a viper" but claimed that denying an old shipmate's last request would be too cruel. Bar-Kooda's crew tried to prevent him from getting irritated because he was "bad enough as it [was]."

Although a song about the death of a binggy on Gorm performed by a captured singer made Bar-Kooda cry, he said he could only "take so much emotion." The Herglic showed his disregard for the lives of sentients by killing the performer—a fate shared by other entertainers whose acts he disliked—and saying the singer's remains would "do nicely for supper." The carnivorous pirate was known for eating his victims, and 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 made the Herglic hungry and salivate.

Bar-Kooda was impressed with Magwit's magic tricks and acted affectionately toward the magician. However, when the stage artist refused to reveal the secret behind his main trick, the pirate showed his vicious nature by roaring at him for refusing his orders. When Magwit returned to Bar-Kooda after escaping, the Herglic threatened to kill the magician. Bar-Kooda thought Magwit was full of surprises and did not tolerate his crewmembers disrespecting the magician. Magwit thought the pirate liked him in his own cruel way, but he called the Herglic a "monster."

Initially suspicious of Magwit when the magician suggested he step through his Mystifying Hoop, the Herglic eventually suspected that the stage artist was hiding something. The pirate then discarded his previous caution, which had fatal consequences.

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

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

The StarWars.com Databank misidentified Bar-Kooda as a bounty hunter in its entry for Anachro. Also, despite Bounty on Bar-Kooda showing Bar-Kooda 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 fight. The Fact File issue also said that Fett had been hired to kill the pirate. In 2008, The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia confirmed that Bar-Kooda died at the bounty hunter's hands, which this article assumes happened after the pirate's capture.