Wedge Antilles

Ace X-wing pilot and fanboy drool receptacle

As I mentioned in my Boba Fett entry, I was dismayed to learn legions of Star Wars dorks worshiped Fett as their favorite non-central character. So distraught was I that--for about a week--I adopted Wedge as my new favorite non-central character. Then I had this unfortunate conversation:

Me: Dude, next to Han Solo, Wedge is, like, the best pilot in the galaxy.
Ex-friend: Yeah.
Me: He was one of a small number of pilots who survived the attack on the Death Star. He survived the Battle of Hoth and was the only pilot who took down an AT-AT.
Ex-friend: Luke did.
Me: With his lightsaber; not as a pilot. Wedge kinda rules.
Ex-friend: It's funny you say that because, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe books, Wedge is considered one of the best pilots in the New Republic.
Me: We are no longer friends.

You think I'm joking. "Oh! Oh, that wily Dave McAwesome," you guffaw. "Such exaggeration and hyperbole for the sake of a tiny joke!" No. Guffaw all you want, he remains an ex-friend. It turns out there is a crapload of Expanded Universe fans who go ga-ga for Wedge. I'm done with Wedge.

Surely there was some barely seen character in Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back whom I could call my own, but the more I learned about this so-called Expanded Universe, the more I came to accept the Awful Truth. The Awful Truth is that every single background character and extra is inexorably tied up with every other one in an intricate web of geekery. The Star Wars universe, once thought to be home to billions of civilized peoples, is really only about 200 individuals and some assorted Stormtroopers and Redshirt X-wing pilots. What a kick in the head.

I looked for one miniscule character that the fanboys might have missed. Gonk droid? No, people love gonk droid. Sandtrooper with orange shoulder plate? No, everyone loves Sandtrooper with orange shoulder plate. Lobot? The bald dude with electronic earmuffs on Cloud City? No, I'm not sinking that low.

Only one choice left, really. It makes perfect sense if you think about it...counterclockwise and reverse. Bossk's twin brother Bossk2. "No such character," you say? Posh. My brother and I had two Bossks: Bossk and his twin, Bossk2. If Star Wars can have an Expanded Universe, I can have the Dave Universe, and in that one Bossk2 was fiercely jealous of his brother's visit to Darth Vader's flagship. Often they would work together during various thwarted attempts to capture Han Solo (the Cloud City version, not the ugly one from the first series of figures), but sometimes the jealousy was too much, and Bossk2 competed directly with his brother for the full bounty. He also had two cats: Scooter and Poopums. Go suck a Dewback, you Expanded Universe hooligans.