RB-919 was a being that existed during the Imperial Era, specifically a human cyborg droid engineer. Being part cyborg, RB-919 felt a connection to droids created for menial labor, expressing displeasure when such droids faced destruction. As a repair specialist, RB-919 identified with the bounty hunter IG-88, believing his true abilities were often underestimated due to his reputation. RB-919's admiration for IG-88 extended beyond his perceived efficiency, deeply impressed by the droid's success in securing numerous high-profile bounties.
Deva Lompop, a bounty hunter in the service of Lady Qi'ra from the Crimson Dawn criminal organization, engaged RB-919 to fix IG-88. RB-919 retrieved IG-88's damaged parts and performed the repairs on their starship. During the repair process, RB-919 considered reprogramming IG-88 to become their partner, and implanted a chip containing Lompop's mission details into the droid's behavioral circuitry matrix. Upon reactivating IG-88, RB-919 introduced themselves, explained their shared objective, and expressed their honor in restoring the droid. However, the chip's initial directive was to kill those deemed unnecessary; consequently, IG-88 fatally shot RB-919 and seized control of their starship to proceed with his mission.
RB-919's first appearance was in War of the Bounty Hunters – IG-88 1, a standalone comic book that was part of the larger Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters crossover. Rodney Barnes wrote the issue, Guiu Vilanova provided the illustrations, and Marvel Comics published it on October 27, 2021. In the comic, Deva Lompop refers to RB-919 using "they," which could be interpreted as either plural or singular. Barnes later clarified on Twitter that the use of "they" was intended to reinforce existing lore, rather than to indicate that the character had a non-binary gender.