An Impostor who pretended to be Odan served as a commander within the Imperial forces stationed on Akuria II around the time of the Battle of Yavin. As the leading figure at Polar Base, which was the Imperial garrison on Akuria II, he took on the identity of Colonel Odan, the local Rebel group's commander. His goal was to trick Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa into divulging the strategic plans of the Rebel Alliance. Despite the Rebels eventually uncovering his deception, he held Organa captive and programmed the War Sled to head towards the Geyser Sea with Skywalker restrained inside. Skywalker was liberated by the actual Rebels, who then aided him in rescuing Organa and capturing the impostor. Although he initially escaped during the attack on Polar Base, Skywalker later eliminated him using a captured TIE/LN starfighter.
This officer was in charge of the Imperial garrison on Akuria II, an icy planet situated in the Outer Rim Territories. There, he engaged in conflict with Colonel Odan and his Rebel cell. Prior to the arrival of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, his forces managed to seize control of the War Sled previously utilized by the Rebels.
Upon the arrival of Skywalker and Organa on Akuria II, intending to meet Colonel Odan, the Imperial officer orchestrated the downing of their spacecraft using a robotic TIE/LN starfighter. Subsequently, when a group of native Akurians (referred to as "Snow Demons") who were allied with the Akurian Rebels attempted to assist them, the Imperial forces arrived in the War Sled, staging a "rescue" of the two Rebels from their "enemies." Impersonating Colonel Odan, the Imperial sought to extract information from the Rebels regarding the Rebel Alliance's war strategies. However, the Rebels noticed indications of a prior battle within the Sled, and Organa realized that "Odan" was not using the correct Alliance recognition codes. The impostor then entered the room, discovering that his deception had been exposed. He forced them to leave the War Sled, while trapping Skywalker inside and setting the vehicle on a course towards the Geyser Sea. He proposed to Organa that he would instruct the Imperial garrison's strato-hopper to stop the Sled before it reached the sea, provided she disclosed the Rebel plans. She declined to comply.
In the meantime, the real Colonel Odan and his Akurian allies rescued Skywalker. The group then manipulated an ice worm into attacking the imposter and his stormtroopers. While the imposter's stormtroopers were defeated, he escaped in a snow flyer with Organa. The Rebels pursued the flyer, riding alongside it on power skis, which allowed Skywalker to board the flyer by shooting the canopy locks with a blaster. The automatic safety system caused the speeder to halt upon the canopy's opening, leading to the Imperial officer's capture by the Rebels.
By holding a blaster to the back of his head, the Rebels compelled the man to provide the access codes required to enter Polar Base. The Rebels then jammed a snow flyer into the open gates of Polar Base and detonated it with explosives, which deactivated the energy gates and created an opening for a Rebel attack. As the Akurians overwhelmed the Imperial stronghold, the impostor managed to escape from his captors and entered the base to command his troops. Nevertheless, the base could not withstand the Rebel assault and eventually fell to the Ice Demons. The Imperial commander met his end when Skywalker seized a TIE/LN starfighter and used it to destroy the blaster cannon emplacement where the commander was located. With the Imperial officer eliminated, the Rebels quickly suppressed any remaining resistance, securing Akuria II for the Rebel Alliance.
The officer displayed deceitful behavior, employing manipulation to try and coerce the Rebels into revealing their plans, and was prepared to resort to threats and intimidation when manipulation failed. Both he and his forces were also willing to kill Skywalker if Organa refused to cooperate (although he was later rescued by the local Rebels before that could happen). After being captured, he yielded to the Rebels' threats and provided the codes necessary to open the gates of the Imperial garrison facility.
He had fair skin, brown hair, and wore a thick fur coat instead of the standard Imperial officer's uniform due to Akuria II's cold climate.
The impostor who posed as Odan made an appearance in the eight-part comic series titled The Kingdom of Ice, which was written by Archie Goodwin and published between April 1978 and January 1979. His actual name was never disclosed, as he was consistently referred to as "Odan" or, subsequently, as "commander." The impostor was first introduced as the local Rebel leader in the second installment of the comic series, The Snow Demons, and his true identity as an Imperial was revealed in the third part, Treachery.